The Courtyard: An Upper Division Newsletter

Dear Upper Division Families:

I hope this finds all of you well and enjoying the true start of fall. Students continue to amaze us with their enthusiasm for learning as well as connecting with each other. We have loved our return to Garden and hope you have as well.

As you may have already noticed, we are roughly halfway through the first academic quarter. Since the summer, we have looked at the calendar to determine how best to separate quarters to allow students and teachers time to complete their curriculum. With this in mind, we will be following a new schedule that creates four academic quarters roughly equal in length. This adjustment will lengthen our second quarter, which is routinely rather short, and push exams later into January, which falls at the natural midpoint of our year. We are happy this change will allow students more time to recover if they find themselves in a bit of struggle to start the second quarter.

Monday, October 12th is Columbus Day. This fall we have had discussions about this national holiday and how we should acknowledge it. Our Upper Division students study complex figures throughout history and we look to embrace difficult conversations about how best to look at our past with a critical lens. To this end, our faculty have begun posting thought provoking questions around the high school hallways related to exploration and/or conquest. We believe these questions will prompt rich conversations among out students as we consider our past, present and future.

Please note, Thursday, October 15th is Picture Day at Garden School! This year, all photos will be taken outdoors and adhere to distancing and cleaning protocols. If you have any questions regarding picture day, please contact the President of the PTA, Nicole Adams.

Last, I would like to celebrate exciting work happening in the English department. Ninth graders are currently creating narrative writing projects in a cross-collaboration project between Mrs. Esposito, Mrs. Massand and Mr. Roselli’s English and Writing classes. The idea is to create a narrative blast for each letter of the alphabet. At the end of the unit, students will publish their writing on issu.com.

Wishing you the best here from the Courtyard. Until next time,

Brad Battaglia

In keeping with our push to support college readiness, we will begin an SAT class at Garden School next week, beginning October 13th. Lauren Little and Greig Roselli will tackle mathematics and the English section respectively. They have experience in this field and, even more importantly, know our students extremely well. We are thrilled to offer this opportunity to our community and know this is just one more of the key advantages to be a Garden School student. There are still seats available in this first cohort, so let us know if you are interested.

COVID-19 may have put the brakes on Athletics and Clubs for the first month of school, but this past week, we began a series of sports and extra-curricular programs at Garden. In particular, we have begun volleyball and basketball clinics for upper division students that will prepare us for future seasons and provide critical training for our student athletes. We anticipate competing as a community in intrasquad scrimmages in the coming weeks and months. We also opened the seasons for Model UN, Student Government, Ham Radio Club and The Daniel Webster Society.