ROR Magazine Lifestyles of the Admissions Professional by Dartmouth Associates

EMPOWERMENT By Brandon Hall’s Dean J. Fusto

Interview with BETHANY DI NAPOLI of ISCA

26 How the Pandemic Changed Independent Schools

118 Keeping Up Your Wellness Routine in Changing Weather

PUBLISHER

Thomas Schenck, President Dartmouth Associates EDITOR Rhodora O COVER Hagan Schenck ART DIRECTION Rhodora O SOCIAL MEDIA: Kayleigh Stevenson APPROACH US WEBSITE:

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It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to the flagship edition of ROR Magazine; the only lifestyle magazine for the admissions professional anywhere! As a former Director of Admissions I found you, my colleagues from around the world, to be some of the most dynamic, bright and fun people I’ve ever met. Consequently, the vision of this magazine is to exult the extraordinary qualities that make you truly renaissance professionals. You embrace the excitement of living and are lifelong learners in all areas of personal interest. Furthermore, you are the new breed of admissions professional with a fearless, entrepreneurial approach to overcoming all challenges. I’ve seen how proactive you can be about refining your acumen by incorporating sales skills into your recruiting process. This magazine will continue to be a project of many creative people who put it all together, as well as your personal contributions of professional articles, interviews, art and humor. We want it to be something you will want to read! I am here to support you… do not hesitate to reach out to me. Now is our time… It is time to ROR! Yours in Excitement,

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Tom Schenck Publisher & President

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THE ROR PHILOSOPHY: Interventional Playbook Podcast

FULL SUMMER EDITION OUT IN AUGUST 2021

Disclaimer: ROR Magazine will not be held liable for any contents of the magazine attributed to a particular contributor/creator. This applies to advertisement. The contributor will be liable for any copyright claims. Details behind the back cover. Copyrights: No part of this magazine may be copied, reused or redistributed in any form. This copyright notice does not apply to images noted as Stock Photos or credited photographers who placed their work for royalty-free re-use on Unsplash, Pixabay, Wikimedia Commons and other Stock websites.

Editor’s Message When Thomas Schenck invited me to join the ROR Magazine team as the editor, I accepted immediately. It is an absolute honor and, given the creative freedom Thomas allows, a blast. We are preparing this magazine as a labor of love, a summation of Thomas Schenck’s lifelong efforts to contribute to the growth of the Admissions Sector of Independent Schools, globally. There is a misconception that private schooling only caters to a limited section of society. In America and the rest of the world, independent schooling offers a broad swath of options—both curricular and economically —for parents dreaming and laboring to achieve a better education for their children. It is a matter of choice, rights, and quality. Admissions professionals at these schools work tirelessly and often without appreciation so families can avail their school’s services as feasibly as possible. They also collaborate with corporations, funds, and non-profit organizations, so that more kids — whose parents cannot afford tuition fees — have access. Our magazine sees and appreciates the unnoticed efforts of this profession the world over and aims to provide a voice to its leaders and workers. The magazine caters to both the professional and lifestyle interests of your profession. We are including features covering a broad range of topics from How the Pandemic Changed Independent Schools to How to Maintain your Wellness Routine in Changing Weather. Since this is the Preview of our complete Summer Edition, coming out in August this year, we are still accepting contributions. The pages henceforth guide you in detail in what to contribute. Show up in these pages with your story, perspective, ideas, experiences, creations, images, and successes. We cannot wait to take you along with us in this journey.

Rhodora O Rhodora O Editor

In this

PROFILE Interview with Bethany Di Napoli, Executive Director, ISCA By Thomas Schenck

FEATURE 26 PANDEMIC How the Pandemic Changed Independent Schools By Rhodora O

TECH FEATURE NextCloud: The Free Software Suite for Schools Looking to Move Beyond Google By David Rutland

ADMISSIONS FEATURE How to Improve Your Inquiry Response Rate via Email By Travis Waddington

LEADERSHIP FEATURE Empowerment By Dean J. Fusto

FINANCE FEATURE 3 Tips to Make a Welcoming Financial Aid Web Page For Families By Alisa Evans

114

issue... 9

ART FEATURE The Perfect Pastime: Digital Art and it’s Endless Possibilities

TRAVEL FEATURE Pandemic Road: Safe Travel Hotspots to Plan Your Next Vacation By Kayleigh Stevenson

PSYCHE FEATURE Living in the Moment By Nelly Neamo

Features.

Featuring Free Guided Script for Meditation & Relaxation

106

WELLNESS FEATURE Keeping Up Your Wellness Routine in Changing Weather

118

By Junaid Qasim

FOOD FEATURE The Detox Water Trend: What to Know By Tom Sankara

128

ROR RECOMMENDS Contemporary Music: Greta Van Fleet’s “The Battle At Garden’s Gate”

ROR INSPIRES Jordan P. Barnes’ Routines for Success to go from addiction to award-winning penmanship.

ROR POET I am a Leech By Christopher M. Eithun.

Departments

ROR STORY Time Fever By Alice J. Taylor. ROR BOOKSHELF REVIEW: How The One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cheri Jones

ROR RECOMMENDS Sashimi Recipe

ROR SCREEN REVIEW: Roadrunner by Morgan Neville REVIEW: The Father by Florian Zeller

ROR BUZZ The Yin and Yang of Sibling Coffee By Thomas Schenck

ROR POET Beatniks and Nuditudes By Olan Smith.

ROR RECOMMENDS Classical Music: Stravinsky’s “Symphony of Psalms”

ROR TELESCOPE Tools for Your Toolbox: Virtual Open Houses. By AISAP

ROR PROFILES A Family Affair: Introducing Admissions Professionals around the country.

90 48 92

ROR BOOKSHELF REVIEW: An Ordinary Age by Rainesford Stauffer

98 94

ROR SCHOOL Thomas Schenck’s Vision of How to Regroup & Move Forward in the Pandemic

ROR HAPPENINGS

100

Unmissable Upcoming Events for Admissions Professionals

ROR INTRODUCTION

132

Cascade Academy: A Holistic Program for Adolescent Girls with Severe Anxiety

JORDAN P. BARNES Author Barnes is a writer whose debut memoir on his recovery from addiction won awards in the indie publishing world. He resides in beautiful Kailua, Hawaii with his lovely wife Chelsea and son Logan. He enjoys bodysurfing and gardening.

ALISA EVANS Founder | Mission Enrollment With her 20-years of experience doing data analysis and developing best practices for sustainability of independent schools, Evans has devoted her life to helping with strategic and successful enrollment management.

NELLY NEAMO Anthropologist Kayleigh works in facilities management, hospitality and luxury retail. She stays in tune with current trends, news, and topics of social and environmental significant.

DAVID RUTLAND Freelance Technology Writer Rutland is the epitome of freelance and wouldn’t be caught relying on softwares from tech giants of today. He hosts his own websites and is the master of tech DIY. Also, he writes and is a self-published author.

OLAN SMITH Poet A born resident of Missouri, Olan started writing poetry in college and obtained M-Ed in Science. His poems have been published in various literary journals and anthologies and have found a home on Wattpad.

ALICE J. TAYLOR Author An east-coast, Canadian mom of two, Alice is a freelance writer by day and a tale-slinger by night. Find her and her many published works at www.emilyshurricane.com

CHRISTOPHER M. EITHUN Army Veteran, Author & Poet Eithun is a US Army Veteran. He is a freelance writer and poet. With his live in experience of addictions and mental health afflictions, he is a strong advocate of mental health issues.

DEAN J. FUSTO Head | Brandon Hall With a career in education spanning three decades, Fusto has founded Teach.Learn.Lead as a connecting network for teachers everywhere. As the head of his school, he also started the Center for Global Youth Leadership.

JUNAID QASIM Medical Professional In real life, Junaid helps save lives. He has contributed to medical research in his country and has co-authored over 30 research reports. He loves translating academic medical research for general readership.

TOM SANKARA Freelance Writer Tom has a penchant for website building and letting sites grow through content development He is a diligent researcher and is a passionate writer on health, fitness, technology, finance and travel.

KAYLEIGH STEVENSON Anthropologist Kayleigh works in facilities management, hospitality and luxury retail. She stays in tune with current trends, news, and topics of social and environmental significant.

TREVOR WADDINGTON Digital Marketing Strategist Trevor started out as an independent school teacher for 8 years. Now, he has headlines Truth Tree with his 17 years of experience in admissions, marketing, & communications in schools.

The Executive Director of Independent School Chairpersons Association | Interviewed by Thomas Schenck

The most important thing that committees on board chairs can do in establishing a healthy culture for the board is really in the on-boarding and vetting process, before that member even steps into the boardroom.

ecently, I had the delightful opportunity to sit down with Bethany Di Napoli, Executive Director of the Independent School Chairpersons Association (ISCA). ISCA provides support to the board chairs serving all private schools in America by creating opportunities to network with the community, access development opportunities for education leadership roles, and other resources. Bethany has served in her position since August of 2017, connecting members and experts in respective disciplines including governance, legal, ﬁnancial, and diversity experts. Tom: What you're doing and what the organization is doing is absolutely critical. Being a board chair at an independent school is almost solely an “on the job training” situation and that's the kind of training you provide. So, thank you for all that you're doing. Would you please talk us through the evolution of the association? Bethany: I ﬁrst came to know ISCA as a member. What I found extremely valuable was this peer network of support that was available to me through their online discussion forum. When I took over in 2017, I thought there room for taking advantage of

technology and being able to serve our members who are scattered across the country. I wanted to find a way to provide more regular, consistent contact with our members and we did that by offering webinars on a monthly basis. I also started doing a weekly chair post where I share one piece of information with our members on a weekly basis that is relevant to the work they are doing as board chair. It could be a useful statistic, it could be a link to an article, or it could be an announcement for some upcoming program. We also started a peer advisor program for first year board chairs, providing the opportunity to pair up with an experienced board chair who will be your peer mentor through your first year of service. Additionally, we partnered with governance consultant, Cathy Trower, who is well respected in the governance community. She responds to questions that our members submit. Another new feature I added is called chair chats: less formal gatherings over zoom. We also added archives to our website, so the full members list is always available to our members, as

well as backlinks to all our webinars, weekly chair posts and seminar online forums. Tom: What are the top three challenges that new board chairs commonly face? Bethany: All board chairs care very much about establishing a strong relationship with the head of school. They understand that this relationship is of critical importance for the future success of the school. They realize the importance of focusing on the more strategic and forward thinking aspects of the school and on how to organize their board to really accomplish that work. Tom: There is that concept of work, wisdom and wealth in terms of a board having people that could contribute in each one of those categories. How have you found boards and what their expectations are of members? Bethany: I think that the most important thing that boards or committees on trustees and board chairs can do in establishing a healthy culture for the board is really in the on-boarding and vetting process before that board member even steps into the boardroom. Those are really important conversations about what is the role of the board and the individual trustees. There's an assumption that because someone is a very successful, say, CEO of a company, they're going to automatically be a great board member. But unfortunately, that's not always the case. The board chair is to welcome diﬀering perspectives around a conversation or topic and really vet diﬀerent opinions. So a lot of attention needs to be paid to how any single trustee has

no more power than any other trustee. The power lies within the board as a collective; even more so as parent trustees. Tom: Let me get to the issue of admissions. It is that department which brings in over 95% of the revenue of the school. Are there any particular issues that have come up or questions from chairs about admissions and how they can interact with the admissions effort? Bethany: Boards are certainly concerned about financial sustainability of their schools and then that is directly related to tuition and enrollment. This past year in particular has been a very challenging year for some schools. Very few schools saw no change in their enrollment. It seems that many schools either saw an increase or decrease. I think one of the things that boards need to be concerned about is collecting information that allows them to understand how the school is perceived in the community with regard to their brand and reputation. I would say that this past year, the topic of diversity has reemerged as an ongoing issue. Today, boards need to articulate and be clear about what their school’s values are around this issue and how those values are actually executed through their policies. What are the school’s values around having, say, a racially diverse student body? What are those goals and how are they being executed through the admission process? Asking these questions should lead the school’s admissions staff and administration to provide data to the board to demonstrate how they are living the values. It is

crucial that the board maintain a strong relationship with the admissions office with regards to new enrollment, including things like attrition and all those aspects that factor into sustainability of the school. Tom: Please tell me a little bit about how you organize your day and are able to keep so seemingly calm, cool and collected? Bethany: I have that luxury of working from home. I'm able to come up to my office and spend a good chunk of my day doing my work from the home office. And then it's family time and personal time, hopefully, in the evenings. Tom: Talk to me a little bit about your daily structure. What's your self-care routine? Bethany: I started this routine of doing a meditation and a gratitude journal. Everyday, I write one thing in my journal that I'm grateful for. I have a dog as well so there are many times where I take him for a walk down at the beach, or for a run. In this way, I'm getting some fresh air probably four to ﬁve days a week and this great way to start my day puts me in a great frame of mind. I'm lucky to live by the ocean, so for me the ocean is also that source of Zen. I do serve on the board of a dance company here in Newport. Dance is also a personal passion of mine and I still take dance classes. I did ballet; I did jazz; I did tap; and as an adult I started hip hop. So, hip hop has actually become one of my favorite dance genres these days. Cooking is also one of my passions. Tom: What do you feel has made you an eﬀective leader?

Bethany: One of the greatest attributes of effective leaders is being a lifelong learner. Tom: Normally leaders have a philosophical underpinning somewhere as to why they're doing these things. So, my question to you is: was there any book or particular philosophy of life that really gave you a direction in life? Bethany: I think for me it is about having a meaningful purpose. Everything that I've done has resonated personally for me with some purpose that I care about. Just to extrapolate a little bit, I served on the board of this nonprofit dance company. Now, all nonprofits are looking to find ways to help them earn money. I said: “Oh my gosh; it could be kind of cool if we had our own perfume.” So, we set up this perfume company and created a system where a percentage of all the proceeds went back to nonprofit dance organizations. For me, it was the epitome of matching passion and purpose. There was this higher purpose of how can I support the dance world through a passion of mine, and then this creative outlet of starting our own perfume served as the perfect channel to achieve that purpose. I know that there is true value what in we're doing, having benefited from that kind of support. For me, that is a great source of joy knowing that we're helping board members be effective governance leaders. Especially because it's not originally their profession; that's not what they were trained to do. So there really is a sense of satisfaction knowing that we are making a difference in this small way.

“Psst. Nudge me when she gets back on the agenda.”

Tom: What do you feel are your hopes for the world? Bethany: I hope that we can think beyond taking care of ourselves and recognize that we are nothing without community. I feel like we're so egocentric as a country. I think one of the things that traveling has taught me is that when you go outside of the United States, people have a much different perspective; they're much more universal and global in their thinking. You realize how much more global citizens are there around the world. They are not just about what's happening in their own country but in other countries as well. I don't know that we've become very good global citizens yet. I just hope that we can treat each other with a little more kindness, little more respect and dignity. And that we are less afraid to stand up for each other and recognize that we are all in this together. Tom: Those are powerful words and I absolutely agree. Bethany, is there anything more you'd like to say? Bethany: I would just say that a lot of schools don't know about our organization and what we do for board chairs. I would just encourage you to let them know about us and go visit our website for more information. Tom: Most of our readers are people from the admissions world and, as we discussed earlier, having strong communication with the head and the board chair is crucial. And, the more effective the training is, it benefits the whole institution. Thank you for all the wonderful work that you are doing.

I would say that this past year, the topic of diversity has reemerged as an ongoing issue. Today, boards need to articulate and be clear about what their school’s values are around this issue and how those values are actually executed through their policies.

Bethany’s organization has been crucial in providing education to her members on all levels. Ask your Head of School if your board chair belongs to ISCA. If not, share the information below. Bethany Di Napoli Executive Director ISCA Independent School Chairpersons Association 287 Gibbs Avenue Newport, RI 02840 401-216-8079 www.ISCAchairs.org

Greta Van Fleet’s “The Battle at Garden’s Gate” showcases a collection of cinematic tracks inspired by the band’s recent, pre-pandemic world travels. The release of Greta Van Fleet’s second album was highly anticipated after the success of their first album. The rock stars from Michigan grew up in the midwest with outdoors as their main pastime, rather than phones and video games. This influence shows in their gritty commitment to old school rock influences and their happy to piss off the critics attitude. They even adapted the name of a home-towner for their band name. The album’s first single “My Way Soon” was released back in October 2020 setting the tone for the theatrical compilation to follow. Carrying over the classic sound from the 60s and 70s, the tracks are filled with extravagant group vocals, cinematic strings, and ostentatious song structures which recall early Led Zeppelin. The teaser track “Broken Bells” is a multi-phased, instrumentally dense rock anthem, with righteous rifts, complete with a Pink Floyd inspired

nostalgic character. However, the use of filmic strings hasn’t quite managed to replicate the classic rock charm or charisma, unlike some of the other tracks here. “Stardust Chords” blinds the listener with rays of choral vocals that critics may find leaning on the dramaturgical rather than the creative side. Yearners for the bygone “glam rock” sound, however, will relish the extravagance. The album also serves a treat for those seeking a more modern take on timeless rock. The track “Age Of Machine” is much stronger in composition, while “Weight Of Dreams” builds on fascinating layers that feel likable and familiar. “Lady Bird” and “Little Women” are also highlight tracks, albeit with very recognizable influences. Overall, the production is sharp and there are traces of darkness, absent from the debut effort, allowing for a deeper tone. Josh Kiszka’s vocals are heavenly at times, but he also shrieks gleefully where his classic tune demands it. Some of the track’s instrumental passages and compositions are extremely ambitious. Overall, “The Battle at Garden’s gate” is a fresh glimpse into the sounds of the past.

The Story of How a Former Addict Used His Program of Recovery for Writing Success !

My name is Jordan P. Barnes, and while I am many things, first and foremost I am a grateful alcoholic-andaddict in recovery. My drug of choice was intravascular heroin and cocaine, followed closely by alcohol. I have battled Substance Use Disorder since the age of sixteen. Take it from me; during my active addiction, I wasn’t someone you would want to know. But through grace and a fair share of stubbornness, I’m looking forward to August 29th, 2021, where I will make ten years clean from all mind- and mood-altering substances. It was a long journey to get here, not just for myself but for all those involved. To be honest, sometimes I felt like I was just along for the ride. Sand Island Treatment Center in Honolulu, Hawaii is my home group, and as a graduate from their two-year inpatient program, I attribute many of my successes in life and recovery to the skills they instilled in me nearly a decade ago. I remember the first time I walked through their gates, thinking how I was broken beyond repair. Though I felt like a shell of a man, I managed to stay long enough for the miracle to happen. It seems an impossibility even to describe what it’s like to reclaim a lost life, but I can say the result has me bursting with gratitude. This same sense of appreciation is now inspiring me to tell my story in the hopes of helping others in the same boat. I’m not embarrassed to say that I failed English in high school, because even back then I was fighting for my life. Due to having no earthly ambitions to ever be a writer, I had no idea where to even start, when I decide to record the journey of my recovery on paper. However, early on in the process of researching how to draft a book, I stumbled upon some fine wisdom from Ernest Hemingway: “There is nothing to writing . . . all you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” For someone with hemophobia, that visual deeply resonated with me. So I took that idea and ran with it. I paired that imagery with a traditional Hawaiian tenet that has always inspired me, “to Imua,” meaning “to always move forward.” After two years of writing, learning and revising, I was able to finally hold in my hands my debut memoir, One Hit Away: A Memoir of Recovery.

I learned so much from writing my memoir going far beyond craft tactics or story structure. What became apparent was that the same disciplines, skills and strategies that got and kept me sober translated seamlessly to becoming an award-winning author. As a side note, I define my program of recovery as a collection of principles and routines that I implement and maintain to stay sober. Answering to a friend’s question “What’s your secret?” did I notice the similarity between these two scenarios. I realized that I’d been leveraging lessons instilled in me from the program all along to achieve my goals of writing. For example, in order to secure success, I needed to amass a strong support group to trust and fall back on. I went through multiple editors before finding the best fit, and I had to trust my gut when it was time to move on from a business relationship that was holding me back. Thankfully that led me to Jessey Mills, my editor, who became a sponsor firmly in my corner, teaching me more than I could have hoped for and always challenging me to improve. Then, I hired a dear friend Kate Wadsworth to design my book cover, not only because I liked her as a person, but because I trusted her quality of work and professionalism. I had to step back and trust the process because I was out of my wheelhouse. Then, shortly after the book launched, the cover won a design award! Similarly, I wanted to release an audiobook at the book’s launch to be competitive in today’s market. I found there was immense pressure to narrate the book myself, but I knew my strengths and weaknesses and opted to trust a professional to breathe life into the story. Ryan Haugen graciously narrated the book, and I have no regrets handing him over something as personal as this project was. At every turn, these are the types of decisions that can literally make or break a book, and as such, require careful consideration when failure is not an option. While I have faith, I am also a creature of habit. That certainly didn’t change for me as I began my writing just because I was no longer active in my addiction. Since the first month of writing, I discovered

that self-discipline was crucial for a goal requiring repetitive and constant commitment. In alignment with my program of recovery where I couldn’t afford to take a “day off,” I found or made time to write daily and always crept toward the finish line. In doing so, writing soon become an unexpected passion of mine. As someone interested in continuous growth, I knew that being receptive to feedback would prove to be invaluable. When my draft was done, I made an exerted effort to separate myself from the project and sought out critique from anyone who would share their opinion. Sure, there were times where I didn’t agree with certain notes and recommendations, but I always made it a point to clarify the reasoning behind said feedback. To this day, I can’t put a price on how valuable keeping an open mind has been to me and I see it reflected in feedback from the readers of the final product. At a certain point, I had to accept that I couldn’t edit forever and finally mustered the courage to submit my book for publication. It was a fantastic sense of achievement, but here’s the thing: a good book is only a good book if people are encouraged to give it a shot. I learned that the work wasn’t done when the book was released, and as a result, I have been hustling ever since. My main strategy for marketing success was to secure one win a day, no matter how big or small. It could be anything from a positive book review on Amazon to a feature interview on Daytime News to winning 2020s “Best Book of the Year Award” from Indies Today. As long as the wins continued to stack upon each other, I felt as though I could keep the momentum churning and avoid feeling stagnant or complacent. It all comes back to how I work my program of recovery, because I can’t afford to sit idle and “hope for the best” with so much on the line. The beauty of this mindset is that it can and will work for anyone who wants it. All you have to do is chase your dream day after day and refuse to stop until it has become a reality. And once it does, don’t be afraid to move on because the next dream is waiting for you right around the corner.

Jordan P. Barnes’

Routines for Success Get Stubborn and Fix Yourself Sit Down and Bleed out Your Heart Carry Over Your Recovery Skills Discipline Yourself to be Consistent Rely on Trusted Professionals Embrace Constructive Criticism

Go the Extra Mile to Stand Out Secure One Win at a Time

“Yesterday’s Drawing” Digital Painting By Fredy Rincon, Behance.

Christopher M. Eithun

“Take three times a day as needed” There is a silent parking space under sun-cracked shadows next to my pharmacy where I can toss back four and a half freshly-picked benzos — God bless the pharmacist. my meds: the catch-all phrase for flaky spheres of blue that quickly melt like sand in my mouth wriggling on my tongue like a cluster of numb fish dead-eyed and wanting dry and kissed with copper drowning beneath saliva sloshing raucously inside my mouth rocking against my teeth like hell-baked water like the water that sits, pristine and blue, inside of a rich man’s hot tub. Often covered and untouched. But there is no luxury here. “no refills remaining unless authorized by a doctor”

the eﬀect isn’t placebo at least, I don’t think so — I churn inside of a body craving glancing up nervously at even those I love & trust in the throes of withdrawal half of my soul succumbing to the world’s keenness for burning its moths the other half of my soul hiding I crawl toward the quasi-quick-start these benzos promise; The pills lend steadiness to a shaky hand... The pills also promise hands that shake more fervently if you take them away It’s quite the borrowing to swallow these same blue pills in some sinister circadian rhythm I am a leech if only to reach a semblance of stability I am a leech if only to unstick my heart from my quivering body. I am a leech if you are a powder blue pill — I will fall in love with you.

“Is this a new medication for you? Do you have any questions?” Politely, I shake my head at the pharmacy tech. No. This isn’t new. I do have questions. But not for you. Why do I need three blue oval pills — if only to fake another smile ... if only to Harden my eyes that swell, by instinct with tears if I can’t numb the density of it all. I am in debt to normalcy lent by the dissipation of tiny, blue pills on my tongue. It’s a blind debt. There is no payment plan. There are no alternatives. There is only next month. There is only my empty parking space. There is only emptiness until that burnt-orange bottle is ﬁlled again.

TOOLS FOR YOUR TOOLBOX:

VIRTUAL OPEN HOUSES If you’re like many schools, open houses are pivotal events in your recruiting and admission process, but the COVID-19 pandemic has meant switching from in-person to virtual open houses for the ﬁrst time. Simply put, virtual open houses are no longer an option – they’re a necessity. We were fortunate enough to host an AISAP webinar on this topic. Maggie Jackson, the Director of Admission at Hawken Upper School, presented. She shared her team’s planning process, unpacked the details, and discussed the lessons learned from their recent, large Virtual Open House. The presentation included several examples and illustrations as well as practical strategies for planning similar events and applying the lessons learned. Ultimately, Maggie and her team had to consider how the virtual approach would aﬀect attendance. On one hand, a virtual event may strike a potential attendee as “less than” visiting the campus in person. A virtual event might also lead to multiple family members watching the event with a single registration and a single device, leading to under-reporting of attendance (whereas, at an in-person event, all attendees get counted).

Maggie’s team chose a multi-disciplinary approach and partnered with key stakeholders on campus, from marketing and graphic design, to IT staff, to speakers representing faculty, staff, and students. They pulled off a successful maiden event through meticulous planning, clear definition of roles, written organizational materials, and a commitment to early and sustained practice and refinement. This was Hawken’s first virtual open house, so they didn’t know what to expect. As it turned out, the final attendance numbers were roughly in line with their previous in-person events, which bodes well for the future. AISAP members are invited to download a free research paper on this topic designed to educate admission and enrollment professionals on the fundamentals and best practices for conducting a VIRTUAL open house for a private secondary school. It includes examples and illustrations from the first virtual open house at Hawkens with practical strategies for planning the event, and applying lessons learned. Join AISAP today and download your document here.

A virtual event is more convenient, allowing people to participate from home. It eliminates the costs of travel and additional time commitments from the attendees. The health and safety factors brought on by COVID-19 make a remote event especially appealing, if not necessary. With all of this in mind, in the Spring of 2020, Hawken Upper School, under Maggie’s leadership, became an early adopter of the Zoom platform and its premium Webinar oﬀering to meet this need. They paired it with their existing open house registration system and database, and designed a new micro-site within the school’s website to host the virtual event’s interactive program.

By Rhodora O.

Behind. A digitally colorized, highly magnified image of a virus. CDC, USA.

s we approach the second school year to begin during the COVID-19 pandemic, we are painfully aware of the many things that have changed forever. While most changes apply to schooling in general — readiness to go virtual, and precautionary protocols for in-person instruction, etc, some apply solely to the thousands of independent schools that exist in the country.

The pandemic changed the purchase power of a broad swath of the population, which means the monthly tuition for independent schools is now much more harder for parents to manage. To survive in a post-pandemic reality requires an objective audit of the enrollment situation, new strategies to keep up with admissions challenges, and concerted eﬀort to retain the existing student body.

The way the virus situation keeps evolving to new variants, some deadlier, some stealthier, and with the delays and controversies in vaccination, things are truly moving at a snail’s pace. It is futile, or at least impractical, to expect things to go back to the old ways. Even if they did, schools must remember that the economic losses suﬀered by the families since March 2020 will take a long time to re-

-cover. In the following pages, we take a recap of all the issues that have gripped independent schools since then, including the few silver linings. We hope that the presentation helps admissions professionals with a holistic view, so they can see beyond traditional approaches to recruiting that they have fallen back on until now.

Top. The Ivywild School in Colorado closed in 2009 and was purchased by the Bristol Brewery. By Madalyn Eudy.

The CATO Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom has kept track of the independent schools since last March. In case of school closures, they investigated if the main cause cited for the closure was the pandemic or not. The ﬁgures were published in a series of articles at the organization’s official website. Above, we quote some of the hard-hitting losses attributed directly to the pandemic. The closures reported are for schools permanently shutting-down.

Students of a private school write an exam in uniforms. Below. A student engaged in virtual learning at home. Photographer Bob.

ne of the biggest challenges facing schools has been deciding on an appropriate course of action for the school year, namely, remote instruction or in-person classes. Back in August, Time reported that 40% of the country’s private schools were opening in the fall. Some locations forced all schools to go remote when the pandemic hit. For the next year, most states refrained from placing restrictions on schools. Schools were left to decide whether to go fully remote, in-person, or adopt a hybrid solution. Surveys by organizations such as EdChoice, Hanover Research, and Association of Christian Schools show that schools shifting to online learning range between 50-90%. A majority of these schools were on the

lower spectrum of resourcefulness and decided against the extra costs of instituting strict safety regulations. The schools that fully opened were on the higher economic spectrum and bore the costs. More on their safety measures and superior technology solutions, henceforth. The private schools that did fully open were heavily criticized by the media for not closing. New York Times equated the fully opened private schools in locations such as Massachusetts and New Mexico with being the engines of inequality. On the other hand, private schools that chose to open in remote mode, such as Dalton in Manhattan, came under ﬁre from the distraught parents who found it hard to swallow that they were paying the heavy tuition fees for virtual classes.

This would remain a general issue. As early as June last year, Forbes predicted enrollment and retention challenges for the private sector in the new year. Forbes speculated that the new wave of enrollment for students starting grade school for the ﬁrst time would be very hard for private schools to bring in. Parents could well reason why throw money away on Grade 1 when it’s just Zoom or Google Classroom. As ﬁgures from CATO show, that is indeed what happened. Other surveys reported a sharp decline in inquiries for the fall..

Loss of philanthropic support was another challenge hitting private schools hard. Unlike taxpayer money and state and federal subsidies or relief packages from governments, private schools have always depended on their strong community ties and the interest and generosity of their patrons. However, when COVID-19 changed communities, many surveys found heads of private schools experiencing loss of funding and fearing even more during the next academic year. Many middle-range schools were not even conﬁdent of

A sparsely populated high school corridor. Photographer Diana.

collecting their tuition for every month through the last year. The Christian Schools survey discovered that many schools had to either offer discounts or refunds for the tuition, or had to let go of staff to accommodate students. These schools also received spillover effects from the pandemic measures elsewhere in society. As Education Next reported in December, the cancellations of religious congregations meant less opportunities or motivation for tightly-knit communities to support their schools. Similarly,

corporate losses led to companies cutting oﬀ their funding for tax-credit scholarship programs sustaining many a parents’ dreams for a better education for their kids.

he more resourceful schools that remained open have been lauded for the lengths they went to ensure safe in-person instruction. From installing plastic screens between kindergarteners seating to

redo all their water fountains as the touchless ones, these schools spent their resources in making face-to-face instruction as safe as possible for students. Private schools in Michigan treated each classroom as an island, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy reported. In-class lunches, recess, and bathroom schedules were segregated by grade levels to avoid schoolwide shutdown in case of symptom detection. In addition to sanitization before school year, extra routines included frequent cleanings, generous donations of hand sanitizer, and daily temperature checks with 72-hour quarantines instructed for students with fever. Principals and other staﬀ of these schools commented on the cooperation of the parents who were highly motivated and grateful for the chance to continue in-person education. Strategies reported in other research studies on private school reopenings included one or more of the following strategies:

Image Credit: Alexandra Koch; Pixabay.

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Quarantining and social distancing contracts with parents.

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Group tables changed to distant desks.

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Class starts block scheduled.

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Fifteen minutes passing between each block.

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Restricted number allowed in washroom, based on stalls/urinals available.

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Sanitizers placed at entryways and rooms.

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Outdoor hand-washing spots.

all

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espite the challenges created by the pandemic, private schools also found more parents choosing them due to better management of instruction and safety throughout the last academic year. Advocates for the private sector kept up the good work in statehouses by citing vouchers, tax-credit scholarships, and education savings accounts as being the key strategy to accommodate more families and deserving students. As the Representative Barbara Dittrich said, “Allowing more parents to choose which school is best for their child” would only “accelerate educational recovery.“ This resulted in a number of states adding more relief for the next year by early July. Some states announced new programs while many added relief by extending already existing programs, increasing the budgets, or relaxing eligibility criteria. According to Jason Bedrick, the director of policy at Ed Choice, the number of education savings programs have doubled from 5 to 10 this year. Some states have also speciﬁcally targeted smaller populations such as students with disabilities and low-income households, thus making it possible for more underrepresented students to attend private schools. For instance, in Arkansas, some beneﬁts were expanded to target children of military veterans and those in foster care; while eligibility to their tax credit programs were extended to up to 200% of the poverty line, making it more likely for middle class families to access independent schooling.

Similarly, Florida extended its programs to households making up to $100,000 a year, thus increasing availability of its vouchers to an additional six thousand students this year. Georgia expanded its Special Needs scholarships program to accommodate disabled students who had left public schooling due to added difficulties this year. Indian allowed scholarships to cover up to 90% of private school tuition and extended the program to families up to 300% above the state’s line for free lunch eligibility. Kansas targeted its expansions to beneﬁt students eligible for free lunches or attend low-performing public schools so they could switch to private schooling. Kentucky extended eligibility for its programs to additional counties with lower populations than the previous limit. Montana expanded the tax credits donors of scholarship programs are allowed to claim. Nevada nearly tripled the total dollar amount of their program; while Oklahoma extended theirs 8-fold.

ccording to Forbes’ end-of-year analysis, independent school enrollment increased on the whole last year. Especially those schools who were able to oﬀer in-person instruction despite the pandemic saw parents eager to switch their schoolgoing children from the public to private schooling. Parents had a choice between managing work and school from home, ﬁnding alternative care if they couldn’t supervise at-home schooling, and the extra expense of private schooling. Many parents, it seems, were grateful for the opportunity

to continue their work-family balance and their children’s quality of education uninterrupted due to the facility private schools aﬀorded. Public schools on the other hand vacillated between their ability to keep premises open as well as in the consistency of their remote instruction delivery. Many experts are now suggesting, including Cindy Chanin of Rainbow EDU Counseling & Tutoring and Karen Aronian of Aronian Education Design LLC, that it is likely parents will stick to independent schools for the foreseeable future. Smaller class sizes and greater integration of technology in the curriculum means parents, having once tasted the beneﬁts, will likely keep coming back. Critics of private schooling point to lack of standardization across private schools, less strict federal or state supervision, and fewer accommodations for students with specialized needs. These, then, are the areas where heads, principals and board chairs enjoying greater enrollment, need to focus on for the future. They need to approach the problem of tailoring their procedures to specialized needs and should get more active politically in order to get more state funding wins.

A Mural on Learning. Released by Alan Levine into the Public Domain.

While such news bode well for tens of thousands of families out there who would now be able to fulﬁll their dreams, it still seems small compared to the discrepancy between how many families prefer private schooling to how many can actually act on their preference. But this does show that maintaining standards of educations amidst strict health protocols pays oﬀ in terms of winning more state help. Organizations supporting independent schools with a national outreach need to up their game by investing time and spending some of their fundings on lobbying in statehouses to increase access for more students.

“Virus Poster” by Circe Denyer.

Art on reinvention of the wheel, abandoned in a ruined factory. Ronald, 1996. Image: Public Domain

Text and Header Art by Rhodora O

world is often criticized for its fast-paced, hectic, heartless, and tech-heavy nature. But if there is one modern trend that is absolutely praiseworthy and useful, it’s certainly new art forms and avenues introduced by digital softwares. Those of us who have been with the earliest software invasion of our homes will remember the necessary Paint program that came preloaded in the operating software of a PC. Kids were already creating beautiful art on their Paint programs (no, we did not call those ‘apps’ back then). Then, as technology evolved and transmogriﬁed, photo-manipulation softwares and digital illustration programs kept getting better, adding options, and opening possibilities. Today, such a plethora of apps and downloads exist, both free and behind paywalls, that anyone with a little creative imagination and some free time on hand can get lost for hours in, what is ultimately, a healthy pastime and a paying vocation for millions across the world.

It’s all in the shapes! Shapes are the most basic and familiar function of any illustration software, and Gerd Altmann uses them to great advantage in his online portfolios. In one piece he arranges squares into different buildings and then layers different building styles on top of each other. This creates an illusory, urban landscape insinuating mystery and intrigue. The windows of the highest building stream outward and take over the sky, creating a sinister beauty that captures the obsessing luxury of our ubiquitous, technological amenities. In Gerd’s other two pieces here, vibrant colors evoke warmth, emotion and delight. However, trapping them into different shapes creates wildly different results. In one, we get a psychedelic landscape suggesting ancient motifs from tribal cultures. The other captures sublime serenity, power, and inspiration. Its cellular structure evokes the stained glass beauties of religious architecture from around the world; while the sheen and finish of the piece still the mind and move the heart.

German hobby photographer Brigitte (business who loves to elevate beautiful sights from her rendition of a tram moving through

name Art Tower) is a self described pixel-pusher around the world into frame-worth art. This is Istiklal Street in Istanbul, Turkey.

You begin with a photo and manipulate it with different creative functions in your software until you turn it into a digital painting. These options allow you to heat up or cool down the colors, smudge and blur edges and lines, or find more edges, and add more highlights and shadows, liquify sections of the photo, layer with smokey, cloudy or wavy effects, and change shapes into brushstrokes emulating watercolour, oil paints or acrylics. Experiment with digitized and classic paint effects and you will turn your own photos into works of art.

Unsatisfied with his captures, Russ Seidel was already creating photo montages in his physical lab when the possibilities of digital photography hit him like a revelation. He loves to combine elements from different photographs to add more meaning and elevate his results into conceptual art. Lately, he has been focusing on finding the beauty of his original shot through painterly effects, as in this lake he found in one of his walks.

It would be unfair to dismiss these creations as pixel-pushing, though, when the kernel of the seed photos can be hardly detected. Plus, these artistic interpretations of familiar views and props are not achieved by the click of a few menu buttons. It is minute work and the artist applies strokes and effects all over the digital canvas, sometimes one millimeter at a time. The beautiful piece to the left glorifies all the possibilities hidden in a sunset, suggesting fables of romance and adventure hidden in the forest, while suffusing the scene with feelings both awe-inspiring and otherworldly. Check out the PrettySleepyArt blog by the artist which advertises more of her work and services. Below “George Washington meets one of his foot soldiers at sundown” in this Russ Seidel fantasy. The haloed lamps seem to take us through the corridors of history — receding signposts into the distant future.

Once you have learned your art basics, brush strokes will let you both sketch and paint, add texture and shading, play with highlights, create gradients of colors across the canvas, use patterns to repeat the same strokes at one go, and mix tones and styles to come up with your original effects. The true digital artists, using muses, models or imagination to create art from scratch, work in layers, adding different brush styles on different layers and experimenting with layer ordering.. Don’t expect brushes designed to emulate real-life paint styles to translate digitally. Instead, dive into your vision, capture what your subject speaks to you, and liberate yourself to explore and experiment. The results, like the horse by artist natureworks on redbubble.com, infused with a mythical significance, can ride the line between digital and classic in surprising ways. This horse, it’s mane, and the blurry surroundings seem to find the surreal dimensions between watercolor, acrylic and oil-painted beauties of the real world. Author and speaker Linnaea Mallette (find her on Facebook) gets a lot of mileage using brush strokes all over her canvas even when she begins with a photograph of a

violin. Her piece seems to be a pen and ink rendering but using dry pastel sticks. Notes from music sheets layered in with patterned brush strokes make it a beautiful hybrid wearing its digital badge with pride. A great trend is to use classic art as a muse and capture one’s own interpretation by recreating it from scratch. Naomi Chung in Laibin, China, works at Digital Expressionism Artist. Her thick brush strokes and unique color combinations bring out the inner world of the subject in a way that’s entirely her own and is as distinct and diﬀerent from the original (Pierre Auguste Renoir's "Portrait of Victor Chocquet").

The brush strokes and other tools can be used with as much ﬁnesse as the artist wants, capturing real-life subjects with such vivid detail that on ﬁrst blush the results seem photo-realistic. Above is a rendering, by artist Windh, of the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister, Olaf Palme, 1986 (he was walking home from the cinema with his wife on Sveavägen street of Stockholm), in atmospheric, moody realism.

This realism is perfect for portraits and still life, freezing a moment in time forever. Bob Williams’ study of Mick Jagger in action is a great example. Find his tips and strategies on his Taﬀbryn’s Blog Page on Blogspot. Tanishka Chauhan is a graphic designer in Delhi, India. His art reminds one of the classic paintings of Cezanne and Vermeer. Look him up on ArtStation.

A natural medium for graphic artists is illustrations. Children’s books, fantasies, comic book imagery, gaming visuals and more; digital art pervades the media and enhances scripts and code with creations par excellence. Again, these illustrations can have the grainy quality of real life sketches and paintings or the movie poster sheen of anime graphics. Rui Barros’ digital illustrations take you into fantasy worlds and alien planets of a barren beauty, viewed in awe and wonder by the youthful characters featured. See more of her work on Flickr. On the next page, Jeﬀ Aphisit from Bangkok, Thailand, stuns with his disintegrating cyborg about to be swallowed by all the surrounding gadgetry.

Debra joined the SAIS staff in July 2019. She grew up in Connecticut, where Debra Wilson, President she graduated from the Williams School, an independent school located on the of Southern Association campus of Connecticut College. Debra received her B.A. in English from of Independent Schools Sewanee, The University of the South, and her J.D. from the University of South Carolina at Columbia. She previously served as general counsel for NAIS for 19 years. In addition to her role as chief legal officer, she has presented to school leaders around the country and abroad, including at many SAIS events. SAIS school leaders may also know her from phone calls and emails that she’s fielded from member schools facing legal or governance issues. Before joining the NAIS staff, Debra was a tax litigator at the Department of Justice. She is an avid reader, photographer, and cook, and loves to be outdoors in the low country of South Carolina. Relatively new to the position, Debra has already made her mark as one not afraid to take on tough challenges and create critical initiatives, and also doing it with grace and collaboration. Listen to her thoughts on incorporating DEI practices into the culture of schools, the new heads database project, as well as key skill sets for admission professionals in the new era … and why her go-to Polish dessert is a great stress buster.

People who work in the admission world are special individuals and we are delighted to introduce you to some of your colleagues. Reach out to them as we can all learn from each other!

Amy Graham is the newly appointed Dean of Enrollment Management at Stevenson School, CA. She will begin her tenure this July. Currently, Amy is the Director of Enrollment Management at Pomfret School in Pomfret, CT, a position she’s held since 2016. Previously, Amy led the admission office at Pomfret from 2017 to 2021 and the Midland School (CA) from 2011-2016, ﬁrst as the Director of Admissions and Financial Aid, and later, as the Assistant Head of School for Enrollment Management. Before Midland, Amy held leadership positions in admissions and advancement at The Family School (CA), Dunn School (CA), and The Hill School (PA). Amy holds a bachelor of science in marketing from the University of Connecticut and a master in city and regional planning from California Polytechnic State University. Amy is a member of the Independent Educational Consultant Association (IECA) Schools Committee and a faculty member of the Enrollment Management Associations, Admissions Training Institute (ATI).

Amy Graham, Dean of Enrollment Management and Financial Aid, Robert Louis Stevenson School

Amy believes it is crucial to create an authentic story for her school as well as the crucial approach to be a constant seeker of new information and be nimble enough to make changes when necessary. She also feels that transparency is a key to eﬀective leadership to help the team truly woo parents and their students. She keeps her sanity in the hectic routine of life with good coﬀee, dog walks, grilled pizza, crepes, puzzles and a few episodes of the Gilmore girls.

Peter is responsible for the creation and oversight of EMA’s external programs as well as its membership promise. He oversees EMA’s marketing and communications, member recruitment and retention, and outreach functions, as well as its leadership training programs, research, and other related strategic initiatives.

Peter Barron, Chief Member Relations Ofﬁcer, Enrollment Management With a career spent in product development, sales, relationship Association development, and marketing, Peter has built his success by listening to schools’ and families’ needs. Peter joins EMA from Blackbaud, where he served as a member of the K-12 executive committee and led the business development of its K-12 partner network, working with schools, associations, and other partners to increase the value of Blackbaud products across the entire school community. Prior to his work at Blackbaud, Peter served as the chief evangelist at WhippleHill, a cloud-based software provider to independent schools, where he developed and implemented the organization’s inbound marketing strategy. He is also the founder of edSocialMedia, a community-driven site dedicated to exploring the role of social media in education, and AdmissionsOuest, an online resource connecting independent schools and families via a range of social media-inspired tools. Peter has also served as the vice president of sales at inResonance, a company that provides data and web solutions for independent schools. Peter has served as a trustee for Wolfeboro, The Summer Boarding School, and participated in the Executive Committee of The Association of Boarding Schools’ (TABS) North American Boarding Initiative. He is a graduate of Brewster Academy, Skidmore College (BA), and Tufts University (MAT). Peter has been a renaissance professional in the ﬁeld of educational marketing and admissions. Hear him tell how independent skills changed his life. Also, parenthood is one major purpose in his life.

David shares how his immersions in several world cultures lead him to a passion to find the common human touchpoints for all of us. His skills brought him success on many levels as an admissions professional, who has developed a world class process for financial aid and a schoolwide approach to successful recruiting. He has lived and studied in four different countries which really sparked his passion for the international student experience, and also led to his current role at Miss Hall’s School. He is a thought leader who has totally redesigned the school’s financial aid program. This new approach approach has moved away from the traditional model to an indexed tuition model called Personalized Family Tuition. This has allowed the process to be more transparent and accessible for all the stakeholders from the learner’s side.

David Hopkins, Director of Enrollment Management at Miss Hall’s

Anne Behnke, Director Anne has upheld the principle that if you engage people through empathy of Admission, Saint Mark’s School and kindness, be willing to work on nights and weekends, and help change lives…you will have a successful career in admissions. For over 30 years, her simple yet profound approach has brought her success at schools across the country.

After ﬁnishing boarding school at Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart in Lake Forest, IL, she headed to Spring Hill College in Mobile, AL where she graduated in 1982 with a Bachelor’s in History. In 1983 she graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, MO with an MA.Ed in Guidance and Counseling. After that she worked at Sacred Heart Academy in Grand Coteau, LA, where she was Director of College Counseling, Dorm Parent for the 8th, 9th and 10th grade girls, coached tennis, taught psychology and assisted in admissions when needed. She then spent 12 years as Dean of Admission at the Idyllwild Arts Academy in Idyllwild, CA. In 2004, Anne joined the Admission office at St. Mark’s School in Southborough, MA, where she is completing her 17th year. Anne is also the Varsity Girls’ Tennis Coach, serves on the Senior Administrative team, and chairs the External Relations Committee. She lives on campus with her Cocker Spaniel, Nettie. She has ﬁve brothers and sisters and nine nieces and nephews.

Head of School Cecil Stodghill believes that his extensive work in admissions throughout his career was the perfect preparation for running a school. He also discusses the need for admission officers to have speciﬁc sales skills to both bring students into the funnel and keep them through matriculation, while also possessing the ultimate power of listening. Cecil currently serves as the Head of School at The Doane Stuart School in Rensselaer, NY. Cecil began his career in higher education, serving in various Assistant Director roles in student aﬀairs and athletics at Hendrix College (AR), Florida State University, and University of Miami, Coral Gables.

Cecil Stodghill, Head of School, Doane Stuart School

He transitioned to the independent school world in 1998, serving successively as Director of Multicultural Aﬀairs/Assistant Director of Admissions and Assistant Director of Boarding Admissions at McCallie School, his alma mater, in Tennessee. He has also served as Associate Director of Admissions at Berkeley Preparatory School in Tampa, FL, and Director of Graduate Support at Academy Prep Foundation in St. Petersburg, Florida. A National Association of Independent Schools Fellow for Aspiring Heads, Cecil holds a BBA in Marketing from University of Miami, Coral Gables, and an M.Ed. in School Leadership from University of Tennessee, Chattanooga.

Katie Johnson, Principal, Katie was raised in Reno and is a graduate of Reno High School. After her Brookfield School B.S. in Business Administration and Computer Science from the Univ. of Oregon, she worked in the high-tech field in the Bay Area. Later, she returned to Reno and married and raised two boys. She worked in a Civil Engineering Company as a Land Planner before starting at Brookfield School in 1999. Both her sons have graduated, one from UNR and one from UNLV. And now one son, due to Covid challenges, has moved back to Reno and is working at Brookfield School, thus becoming the 3rd generation to join the school. Brookfield School is a family-owned, women-run business. She enjoys sailing on her ocean-going, 46’ sailboat. She sailed in Mexico for 4 years, Alaska in the summer 2018, and Canada for 2 years. She visited the Islands of Haida Gwaii and Vancouver Island’s west shore in 2017. She saw bears, wolf, orca, whales (right beside her boat!), caught fish, crabs, and prawns. She also enjoyed scuba-diving off her own boat. She also loves to snorkel, ski, hike, camping, geocaching, sailing, and stand up paddle board. For over 30 years Katie Osgood and her sister have run the Brookfield School, a very successful proprietary school in Reno, NV. As a for-profit institution, learn about the specific advantages that they have brought to their students and parents, and how Brookfield School is nimble and well-prepared to offer their students key skills to successfully thrive in life. She feels that education is one of the most rewarding professions one can have.

Bobbi Krein held her ﬁrst directorship at 24 years old and is now serving her fourth directorship. She has 2 amazing children (Lela, 18; Gunnar, 15), with a 19-year marriage to husband, Derek, Interim Dean of Faculty at Tabor Academy. She believes that admissions must be aligned with school mission. She says that the work we do — the admission profession — has to be authentic; you can’t sell a product you don’t believe in. She is working on an institutional reorganization that focuses on customer-centered service to families. It’s super exciting and captures how our schools are shifting and evolving with the times. Access and inclusion are heavy on her mind, now and always. She is all about growth-mindsets and working through challenges. Most importantly, she stresses, we must plan for a kinder future and to stand up for others.

Bobbi Krein, Director of Admission, Moses Brown

53 Barbara Eghan, Director of Enrollment Management, Georgetown Day School

Barbara Eghan has served as Director of Enrollment Management at Georgetown Day School since July 2014. In that time, she has steadily increased enrollment demand by expanding admissions outreach efforts, overseeing the development of effective ambassador programs, and fully digitizing admissions operations. Barbara also collaborates with her colleagues on existing and new program initiatives, and partners with the Board of Trustees on diversity and inclusion goals, finance, and enrollment planning. Additionally, Barbara has served as a founding faculty member for the Future Leaders Institute at the Enrollment Management Association (EMA) and on the Admissions Advisory Committee of the Association of Independent Schools in Greater Washington (AISGW). She has previously worked at Polytechnic School (CA) and Groton School (MA), and served as a board member at Oak Meadow School (MA), where she also gained experience as a student advisor, coach, and English teacher. Barbara received her A.B. in history and literature from Harvard University and her Ed.M. in school leadership from Harvard Graduate School of Education. Barbara lives in Washington, DC, and cherishes her time with her wife, Rachel (a talented independent school leader in her own right), and their dog, Moxie. In July 2021, Barbara took on a new capacity at GDS as the Founding Executive Director of a newly-established enterprise, the Center for Civic Engagement, whose mission is to equip young people regionally and nationally with the skills to renew and sustain our democracy. Ultimately, she feels that we must pursue purposeful work, pay higher salaries to admissions professionals, overcome our impostor syndrome, maintain relentless optimism, enjoy the Zen of cooking, maintain relentless optimism, and periodically lay on the beaches of Puerto Vallarta to keep focused and serene.

Footsteps by the Lake. “Lysterfield,” by Australian Artist, Tom Franz. Wikimedia Commons.

Artists George Shaw and Shannon Webster used regular house painting materials and a pencil and ruler to transform the white wall in the Evolution Square of Christchurch’s Salt District, New Zealand. Given the awkward shape of the building,they settled on an illusion spelling SALT, Otautahi was a good ﬁt. Otautahi is the Te Reo nickname of the city. Christchurch has been named as one of the street art capitals of the world by Lonely Planet, alongside London, New York, Barcelona, and Berlin. Picryl.

Architect Rand Elliot designed this Route 66 landmark which opened in 2007 in Arcadia, Oklahoma. The height of the piece is 66 feet and it changes colors at night. Photography Credit: Carol M. Highsmith, America Project, Library of Congress, USA, Prints and Photographs Division.

By Thomas Schenck

rowing up, I never really appreciated nor even liked the taste of coffee. Now as an adult I occasionally have a decaf latte. However, I have two sons who both have a serious approach to coffee, although they are substantially different from each other. My oldest son, Hagan, is somewhat of a purist. He has a special, imported espresso maker and usually drinks the strongest brew humanly possible. He eschews cream and any kind of sweeteners, as he feels that they might jeopardize his fitness. Probably something to do with all the triathlons and Spartan races he has to win everyday.... His variety of coffee consumption is not based on a mix of ingredients but rather the number of straight shots he can muster. His younger brother, Gable, who is equally athletic and consistently pounded his opponents as a high school wrestler, is somewhat indiscriminate in his approach to coffee. His taste depends upon his mood. This can range from an undiluted Nitro brew before his workouts, a mid-day energy gulp of a tumbler full of the nastiest kind of generic, grocery store swill, to an evening treat of a Starbucks vanilla bean Frappuccino with a Nitro brew chaser. Perhaps it could be said that one’s view of life and style of coffee consumption are telltale parallels. Hagan is an artist and deep thinker; precision and structure rule his world. Gable is a rapper and a whirlwind of bold, relentless passion and creativity,

with an “Abstract Random” profile on the Myers-Briggs personality scale. While their palates are different, coffee maintains a prominent role in their lives. Their predilection to the energizing bean must have skipped a generation, as my father, a midwesterner from Minnesota, like all good farmers from that area, started his meals with coffee, drank it while the meal lasted, then continued beyond dessert. Furthermore, it was always hot, straight black coffee, consumed in a bone-colored ceramic cup, regardless of the temperatures outside. I truly believe that his fantasy would be being followed around by a barista, with a glass pitcher of steaming coffee in hand. As for me, I remain a proud father and son who counts all three as the best of my friends, and I am always happy to share any coffee with them all, regardless of their caffeinated approach.

Rosetta Latte art in Sydney, Australia. By Wikipedia Commons member Kgbo. Header. A painted coffee shop spotted in SOMA Cafe, Phoenix, Image by Tony Fischer, Flickr. Facing. Moleskine Coffee Painting, using ink and coffee. Chelsey Barnes, Flickr.

“Mouth of the Wabash (Indiana),” 1833, United States. Watercolor on Paper by Swiss Romantic Painter, Karl Bodmer (1809-1893).

A stained glass skylight under a glass dome, in a Neiman Marcus store in Union Square, San Francisco, California. Photography Credit: The Jon B. Lovelace Collection of California Photographs, Library of Congress, USA.

By DAVID RUTLAND Freelance Technology Writer

NEXTCLOUD: The Free Software Suite for Schools Looking to Move Beyond GOOGLE

he last 18 months have proven a logistical nightmare for schools. Kids and teachers have been dropping in and out as the waves of infection ebb and ﬂow. Virtual schooling has taken a front seat. Where in-person learning returned earlier, virtual instruction still played a major part due to the evolving pandemic.

inappropriate postings in the space for classroom materials were commonly reported. Add to all that, Google’s status as a known predatory ecosystem which tracks and gathers data on its users and sells it to third parties. It’s no surprise then that school administrators have been wondering what other options exist other than Google.

In the panic to get a virtual learning environment up and running quickly, many schools and local authorities turned to Google, with its ubiquitous, low-cost Chromebooks, office suite, and virtual classroom facilities.

The remote learning solution I am presenting here is designed so it’s possible for a school to deploy it on its own hardware, on its own premises. This remote learning solution is complete, scalable, and free to boot. While you can use it as cloud service as well, all you need to make your virtual schooling independent from external services is basic hardware that you most probably already have in your computer lab and a digital technician to help set things up.

But relying on external services can be a source of many frustrations, as several schools last year discovered. Schools are subject to the whims of the company providing them and Google is famed for shutting down its own services with little or no notice given to the end user. Security issues are not uncommon for such a vast, worldwide system, and cases of students and teachers’ accounts being hacked, student impersonation for mischief, and

INTRODUCING NEXTCLOUD Nextcloud is Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). This means it's free to use, free to change however you see ﬁt, and free to tailor the needs of your unique ecosystem and instructional preferences. At its core, it provides a similar functionality to Google Drive and Dropbox, so it’s operation is already familiar to new users. It's designed so that organisations can deploy it on their own hardware if they choose. It also excels in its (also free) apps, which allow admins to further expand the software to cover multiple use cases. Remote users such as at-home students can access the system through their browsers or via mobile apps.

62 If structured classrooms, homework creating platforms and digital whiteboards of presentations are the basics, then Nextcloud supplies the gravy of helpful apps such as calculators in addition to the basics.

The Base Apps These are the most useful virtual classroom apps you'll ﬁnd in Nextcloud:

Talk Nextcloud Talk is based on SwiftRead (formerly known as Spreed). It allows users to talk to each other in the form of either text, voice or video. Each conversation can have dozens of participants, and can be conﬁgured to allow only registered users or be open to anyone with a link. It's easy to use and facilitates virtual classrooms in the same way as Zoom, Hangouts, and Teams. It's perfect for lectures, feedback sessions, and as a discussion forum. If this basic functionality isn't sufficient for your school’s system, Nextcloud can also act as front-end for the Jitsi video-conferencing app.

Office Nextcloud oﬀers two full office suites. Collabora,

and OnlyOffice. Both come with the expected plethora of document formats and functionality, supporting spreadsheets, text documents, rich text, slideshow presentations and so on. Collaboration on documents is simple, making groupwork possible even when participants are separated by miles or continents. The availability of two separate systems can be used creatively by the school, keeping one for virtual instruction, and the second for all other needs such as staﬀ collaborations, teacher training, curricular development and so forth.

Email Your school probably already has its established email service, but Nextcloud allows users to access it through the same front-end as the rest of their schoolwork, thanks to the excellent RainLoop webmail app.

Announcement Dashboard

Center

and

No school would be complete without announcements over a speaker system. For virtual settings, Nextcloud gives you the next best thing in the form of its dashboard. Administrators can send out group messages which show up in every user’s dashboard as soon as they log in.

The Nextcloud Dashboard (Kevin Sonney, CC BY-SA 4.0)

63 The Gravy Apps

Is It Really That Easy?

These are the most useful virtual classroom apps you'll ﬁnd in Nextcloud: There are hundreds of apps available in the Nextcloud app repository, suitable for any possible requirement from a self-hosted maps app to video and music players, to recipe managers. All of these can be deployed on your own hardware and premises, the only accrued costs being the electricity and bandwidth..

All schools have at least one semi-competent tech guy. Maybe it's the IT teacher, or maybe it's the one hold out technician who hasn't bought into the dream that running everything on AWS or Google is the inevitable future. Ask them to set it up for you, or try it yourself. It's not that difficult.

The most common ones you'll want to try out are in the 'Education edition app bundle. Some examples include website building app for instruction and in-house website hosting administrative projects, mood integration for high school instruction, health tracking app, forms, polls & survey apps, notes taking app, maps and GPS tracking app, external sites navigation app (allowing schools to control the online web browsing environment when using digital learning in physical classrooms), preview generator app (when testing created learning materials or homework assignments), and appointment app.

This article was written using Collabora on Nextcloud, hosted on a Raspberry Pi behind the couch.

“Really? A toddler went into Slides and messed up your presentation?”

“What can I do? My brother is a genius hacker!”

Safe Travel Hotspots to Plan Your Next Vacation

By Kayleigh Stevenson

Photo Credit: Jakob Owens.

we can all agree that a much-needed vacation is in order, especially after the last 18 months. Our perspectives have dramatically changed since COVID-19 spread across the world and we’ve all had to adapt our daily lives to reduce the risk of transmission. As the world starts to open up again, so have our thoughts of travel and escape from our “new normal” … whatever that is! So much so that nearly nine in ten Americans have plans to travel in the next 6 months which is a new pandemic high, according to a survey by Forbes. While this excitement is warranted, now more than ever we need to protect ourselves and others whilst adjusting to these global changes. Travel involves a new level of caution for holidaymakers and travel destinations, with the future of vacationing now focused on safety and convenience as much as on sightseeing, leisure and pleasure. Travel precautions aside, there are a number of destinations in the US that are appealing to the post-pandemic market. Travel demand has changed to suit the new “revenge traveller”, an angsty new term to describe this apparent pent-up demand for travellers eager to get away after being restricted for so long. With a slowdown in international travel and the tired school professional’s desire for a change of scenery, our own country showcases the best travel destinations for this year. Let’s explore a select couple.

otels, restaurants, wineries and attractions are fully open with safety measures in place, with no capacity limits or physical distancing required,” says the Napa Welcome Center. In general, however, masking requirements are still in place in select spots. You will be turned away, of course, if you exhibit the slightest possibility of any COVID symptoms. Smaller groups are allowed at wineries. Gone are the crowded tasting scenarios. Similarly, expected limited seating at restaurants, with tables more spaced out. Hotels have introduced more streamlined procedures for checking in and out that minimize in-person interactions.

A glorious Napa Valley house facade. Sam Goodgame.

“‘Revenge travel’ is the phenomenon that could bring back tourism with a bang,” writes the Washington Post. One of the destinations that embodies a relaxing escape is Napa Valley in California. Napa Valley is a vast, rural region, which provides enough open space (and wine!) for visitors to enjoy their surroundings. It oﬀers vacationers with beautiful scenery, ﬁrst class dining and entertainment as well as a plethora of vineyards and wineries.

Fine dining Napa style. Fantesca Estate & Winery.

Top. A vineyard in growth. Gordana Stanisic.

Emphasis on reduced touchpoints was a catalyst towards their new digitized video screens and interactive itineraries available to patrons at the welcome center. Keyless entry to hotel rooms and adequate space for socially distanced entertainment has encouraged more hotels and resorts in the region to adapt to these changes. While individually these may be small things, collectively they make a big impact in moving towards more sustainable tourism practices.

While everyone knows about the tasting and dining experiences, the classic and varied architecture of its wineries, the history and art contained in its museums and art galleries is actually a mainstay of every nook and corner. The sheer expanses of its vineyard in the various stages of ﬂourishing alone is enough to make you pack your bags and hitchhike to Sonoma.

Castello di Amorosa, Castiloga, CA. Stock Photo.

in city, the city of second chances, the entertainment capital of the world; whatever you want to call it, Las Vegas consistently ranks among the Top 5 best American cities for a vacation.

Tucked away in the basin floor of the Mojave Desert, Las Vegas boasts year-round sunshine and escapism. After a tough 15 months, the desert destination has transformed from a wild west ghost town right back to the flamboyant spectacle we all know and love. Tourists are flooding in again to enjoy some crucial, frivolous times. Die-hard Vegas regulars have been anxious to get back to the popular resort, whilst first-timers have had 15 months to plan an exciting new adventure.

Fremont Experience at Old Vegas. Juliana Malta; Unsplash. Facing. A sunset view of the Las Vegas strip. Stephen Leonardi; Unsplash.

There has also been a sharp rise in the number of Las Vegas content creators on YouTube, who have been live streaming their experiences and broadcasting the best things to do whilst on vacation. This has fuelled their audience and prompted them to get booking Las Vegas hotel rooms, as their content highlights the relaxed, post-pandemic charm that tourists are ready to experience.

For the first time in 10 years, the enticing city has welcomed a brand new hotel complex called “Resort’s world” that brings an element of anticipated innovation and excitement. Photo Credit: Tomás Del Coro; Wikimedia Commons.

Image Credit: Tobias Tullius

When Dorothy said, “There’s no place like home,” she really meant it.

From log-cabins in Lake Tahoe to YellowStone National Park, residents are ﬁnding travel fulﬁlment right on their doorstep. Travel hypists have been showcasing the ‘lesser-spotted’ corners of the USA for the vacation hungry nationals who are feeling claustrophobic due to the pandemic. Some examples include the world’s largest convenience store, gas station, and car wash at Buc-ee’s in Texas, and the abandoned, gold mining ghost town in Cerro Gordo.

Indeed, Forbes is reporting that small town bookings are on the rise whilst urban city demand has reduced in popularity, by almost 46%. A similar increase has occurred for mountain and lake resort destinations, as well as a 42% increase in coastal destinations and resorts. Some of the contributing factors are the ease of maintaining precautionary protocols in smaller and less crowded settings and rising costs of vacations in general. Large cities have also been slower in reopening their tourist attract-

Perfect Spots for Staycations: Lake Pend Oreille, Idaho; Slovange, California; Shawnee National Forest, Illinois

-ions. People are jumping on the chance to leave their homes and move temporarily at a diﬀerent scenic location, away from all the craze of the pandemic. Here are a few choice strategies to help you plan your own next staycation. ● It is best to ﬁrst decide what major activity you want to plan your vacation around. Is it for sightseeing, a spa and relaxation getaway, hiking, exotic dining, or something else?

● Keep it close to home and research great places near your hometown you have never visited. ● Use online resources to discover great options. Through geotags, turn latest traveling posts on social media that people are discovering. On AirbnbExperience get guided tours, courses and experiences in your region. ● Choose low-cost overnight options for your visit: get that trailer out, rent a place, or camp. ● Keep your budget aligned and in check. All the planning and searching should open up plenty sights and activities for you that let you and your family enjoy a great staycation without burning too much money!

Winchester Mystery House, San Jose; and, Mackinac Island, Michigan. Spread: Buc-ee’s record-breaking Gas Station

“Gray Man Statue” by Tom Lakenen, Marquette, Michigan. Photo Credit: Jen Theodore.

By Trevor Waddington, Principal, Truth Tree

ou open your email and get an immediate dopamine rush. Why? You see, a fresh inquiry popped up in your inbox. It’s the parents of a rising sixth-grader, which is perfect because middle school enrollment needs a boost. Based on the information presented: parent name, parent email address, student name, and grade of interest, you carefully craft an email and hit send. Two days go by and still no reply. How could they not return my email? Isn’t their child’s education of the utmost importance?

If the parent filled out a form or emailed admissions, they don’t know your name. Even if they read your welcome letter, they probably don’t remember it. A compelling solution is to create a second email account where the name of your school is the sender, e.g. Truth Tree Academy or Truth Tree Academy Admissions. If you send it from your email address, then your subject line needs to capture their attention. A few suggestions include using the parent’s first name in the subject line, including an eye-catching emoji, or my favorite, using the child’s first name like this: [child’s first name] @ Truth Tree Academy. Psychologically, you are already linking your school with this pa-

-rent’s child. Keep it short, for starters, TLDR (“too long, didn’t read”) is a real thing even when it comes to something as important as one’s children’s education. Use short paragraphs and format important words and phrases in bold. Most importantly, engage them by asking questions, especially about their child. Who doesn’t like talking about their oﬀspring? This provides you the opportunity for further email exchanges creating rapport, which is critical in the initial stages of the school/family courting process.

The Author with His Family

Even if you’ve followed the above formula and there is still no response, don’t fret. People are busy. First, invest in an app or extension that allows you to see if the recipient opened the email and clicked on the links. Then use that information and the response rates to make successful adjustments.

Coronavirus Art from 6th Street, Austin, Texas. Image Credit: Leah Rodgers for Wikipedia.

Don’t be shy about asking them to take the next step in the process. Therefore, include links to pages they would ﬁnd interesting, like your upcoming open house, a button to schedule a chat with admissions, or a page about their grade of interest. Try to avoid overstepping on the ﬁrst reply. No one wants to feel pressured at that point to apply.

O L A F S M I T H

I’m beaten down, man, to the bottom of the street No fare, no care, no wares to sell or food to eat. I’m a beatitude, nuditude, tuba-tude, lost among the Picnicking, sputniking, surfniking, beatniks, Without a dime, somewhere between Cherry and Scat Street, where hope lays fallow, where dusty roads Taste like dirt, and splatitudes clash with Christ’s beatitudes. What poet stands above the stench of prose, and the rich novelist Who whines about his sales? The poet is strung out on life begging For penitence, he joins artists in oblivion to move the earth, One word at a time, alongside wet paint splashed on canvases Used as drip cloths on the garage ﬂoor of Jackson Pollock. Drip words, let them fall from your mouth like wet paint upon Dry canvases―be the expressionik of today, change the world.

2017. First published on Wattpad.

“Ja! I l💗ve donating 🤑 to my fellow writers ”

RO R Story ohn lived the nine-to-five life, a strict routine with very little wiggle room. Everything had its place, everything had its time, and everything had a purpose. When he walked out of his neat, city townhouse that morning, his black loafers skidded on his front step. A lime green hatchback sat in his driveway. There was nobody in or around the car. Somebody had parked in his driveway and left. John blinked at the offending vehicle for a moment, his just-awoken brain unable to fully process why someone would do this. “Sorry hon,” Sandra gushed as she barrelled out the front door, keys jingling as she fumbled them. “I forgot I parked behind you last night.” She pushed up onto her tiptoes and pecked him on the cheek, then scurried down the steps. John stared at the back of her head in bewilderment—how is she not seeing this bright car? But the hair on the back of his neck stood up when she clicked her key fob and the little green hatchback flicked its headlights twice. Time seemed to slow as his girlfriend got into the mystery vehicle and fired it up, the engine like an excited jackrabbit as it sprang to life.

After backing out onto the road, Sandra rolled down her window and raised her eyebrows. “Babe? You gonna go?” The words took a beat to register, and then he gestured wildly. “Whose car is this?” She tilted her head back and forth, gaze wary. “Um, mine? You feeling okay?” “Since when?” He gripped the handle of his briefcase to keep from dropping it. “What happened to the SUV?” Sandra leaned out the window, shaking her head. “What SUV?” He studied her, trying to ﬁgure out if this was some kind of a prank. But they weren’t pranksters. He couldn’t even think of one time she’d pulled something even remotely like this on him, and they’d been together for eight years. If she was suddenly going to mess with him, she wouldn’t just replace her car in the middle of the night. What the hell kind of prank would that be? He took a deep breath and checked his phone. He was already four minutes behind schedule.

“See you tonight,” he called, and practically ran for his little grey coupe, not looking back at the lime monstrosity on the street. When he backed out onto the road, Sandra waved out the window. “Have a good day, love you!” He waved back, but avoided looking at her, hoping that whatever was happening in his brain that day wouldn’t hurt her feelings. By the time John pulled into the parking lot at work, he’d convinced himself that he’d been half asleep when he walked out of the house and he hadn’t been thinking clearly. It was the only explanation, and he chugged half of his lukewarm double-double in hopes of jacking himself up on caffeine, then headed across the lot to the front door. The coffee hit the asphalt, splattering across his fresh-pressed pants. The lime green hatchback stood a few parking spots away from the door. How did she beat him here? But most importantly, why was she here? He wrinkled his nose as he looked down at the mess he’d made, planting his tongue firmly into his cheek. Today wasn’t his day. He marched up to the car, ready to demand that Sandra come clean right away, but there was nobody in the car. Was she waiting for him inside? Maybe she wanted to apologize for whatever this stupid prank was. Part of him went ice cold, some kind of flight response activating deep in his guts. He wanted to jump back in his car and go home, curl up under the blankets, and forget this day ever happened. Buck up, Johnny, he thought. Sandra’s having some kind of midlife crisis; be supportive. He walked into the front office, looking around, but didn’t see her. “Morning, John,” Gail greeted from behind the receptionist’s desk. “Did you sign Sandra in?” Tendrils of ice curled up his spine, the freezing ball that had formed outside starting to take over. Gail pushed her thick-rimmed glasses up her nose with a perfectly manicured finger. “Ah, nope. Was she supposed to come by this morning?” “Her car is outside.” His voice no longer sounded like his own. It was a hollow sound, echoing around inside of his skull like a ping-pong ball. “Her green hatchback.” The receptionist blew through her lips to make a pfft sound. “That’s my car, silly.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Being cheeky today, I see.” John shook his head, but it felt slow, like he was moving through soup. “What happened to your minivan?” He knew the answer, somehow, deep in his cockles. “What minivan?”

John couldn’t make it through the workday. He said he was going out for lunch, but he planned on calling in sick later, once he was securely under his blankets. Today had been a fever dream; he was sure of it. He wasn’t about to check his temperature to blow that theory out of the water, but it was the only one keeping him tethered to sanity. He pulled into the gas station on the way home, and just as he was about to step out of the car, a lime green hatchback pulled into the pumps behind him. Oh, heck no. He searched the driver’s seat, and it was neither Sandra nor Gail. How had he never seen this make and model in this colour before, and why, suddenly now, three times in one day? Was it so horrendous he’d just blocked it from his memory? He peeled out from the gas station, the icy tendrils licking every nerve ending in his body. He didn’t care if he had enough gas to get home. He’d run if he had to. In the ten minutes between the gas station and the townhouse, John passed four green hatchbacks. All that same sickly colour, all with tilted headlights that looked like smiling eyes. By the time he skidded into his driveway, his coupe felt lighter somehow, and his heart dropped through his body like a brick when he caught a flash of green in his side mirror. He scrambled out of the hatchback, like a crab walking backwards in the sand, fighting the scream bubbling up in his throat. No, no, no, no; the word punched around in his brain, and he launched up to his feet, tearing into the house like a bat out of hell. Two cough medicine capsules and a few shots of whiskey later, John buried himself under his blankets and fell into a fitful nap. It was dusk when he awoke, groggy and disoriented. He fumbled around the night table for his phone, and groaned when he saw all the missed calls from work. He’d forgotten to tell them he wasn’t coming back in. “Babe?” Sandra appeared in the doorway. “Oh jeez, you don’t look so good. I knew you weren’t feeling it this morning. You didn’t even close your car door when you got home. How’s it going now?” She rushed over and pressed her hand against his forehead. He let her mother him despite being slightly annoyed since it was her car that had started this whole thing. “I’m good. I’m fine.” His voice was hoarse, and he cleared his throat, peeling the sweaty sheets from his body. “Okay, well, I brought pizza.” She smiled softly and kissed his forehead. “I’m just going to go move your car up so I can get the SUV in behind it, okay?” His heart sped up, elation washing over him. SUV, she said SUV. “Okay.” He offered her a smile, and as soon as she was clear of the room he leapt to throw clothes on, thundering down the stairs just as she headed outside. He pressed himself up against the window and watched her get into his coupe—oh thank god it’s my car—and inch it up the driveway. She jogged to the end of the lane and got into her SUV—her SUV!—and pulled it in behind his, in all its golden and bulky, gas-guzzling glory. He sighed heavily, a deep, healing breath, and then headed to the kitchen to enjoy his pizza. The next morning, everything had its place, everything had its time, and everything had a purpose. When John walked out of his neat, city townhouse that morning, his pristine black loafers skidded on his front stoop. A lemon yellow hatchback sat in his driveway. There was nobody around the car. Somebody had parked in his driveway and left.

simple, indelible action over 30 years ago taught me everything I needed to know about empowerment. I grew up, the baby of three, in the family restaurant business. My mom and dad, childhood sweethearts, were bona ﬁde entrepreneurs eons before the waters of television’s Shark Tank were open for swimming. Shortly after high school they married, and armed with only a dream, they left behind their familiar New Jersey childhood environs to build the foundation of what would become a gastronomical empire in St. Augustine, Florida. Passion for cooking, food, and feeding others was their joy and purpose. On a Thanksgiving afternoon in 1980, my parents were hosting their traditional annual Italian feast for friends in the large dining room of their namesake Mario and Chickie’s restaurant. The endless food, in true Italian fashion, was lovingly cradled from out of the kitchen to the rectangular tables that sat about twenty-ﬁve guests. Somewhere between the homemade pasta platters and the Turkey course came the moment that empowered me for life and altered my trajectory.

While my uncles and cousins unfastened belt buckles to relieve bloating bellies, the ﬁnal course arrived like a Macy’s Day parade of pastry: Tiramisu, cannoli, chocolate biscotti, and cheesecakes. I was sitting at the “kids” table, bored from listening to hours of inconsequential adult conversation when, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a man across the street from the restaurant’s entrance. His gait signaled inebriation and his oversized, craggy, mismatched clothing was a sight to see. He stopped at the town’s monster-sized green dumpster. I was transﬁxed as he scavenged through the holiday-rich heaps of trash.

By DEAN J. FUSTO | Head of School, Brandon Hall, Atlanta, GA

Initially, I felt a sharp pang of guilt courtesy of my religious upbringing. Next, I began to grow angry at those at the table who seemed hypocritical for not seeing the irony that I did. Those feelings, however, weren’t going to help the man’s current plight. I ran to my mom and yanked her from the animated table conversations. I found us a quiet spot in the cavernous kitchen and let loose, “Mom, there is a man across the street eating out of a trash can!” She looked at me and smiled. “Mom, we’re here on Thanksgiving eating nonstop and he’s digging for our scraps.” She peered at me through loving eyes and remained silent. “ Mom, you even have priests here at the table and no one cares!” She stopped me, pulled me towards her, and responded in a way that ﬁrst disarmed me and ultimately empowered me with a call of action. She took my hand, pointed to a distant part of our restaurant’s kitchen near the fryers and the grill, and simply stated, “Dean, you have grown up in this business. You know exactly where the “to-go” containers are that we give to customers. Go get as many as you need, ﬁll them with food, and do something to help that man!” At that point, she smiled, turned her back to me and returned to the feast.

What school mission statement doesn’t glow with aspirational platitudes that purportedly express a school’s raison d’etre? Studies have analyzed the most commonly appearing words utilized and the uniformity across the independent school landscape is uncanny. The nature of our business as school leaders is to highlight the diﬀerentiators that make us stand apart, yet the very symbol that deﬁnes us are the often-homogenized statements of mission in our viewbooks and websites. Schools should call our communities to scale mountains and to be better, but often we are guilty of knowingly denying the chasm between what is articulated and what is lived. Among the litany of beautiful concepts like “truth,” “diversity,” “social justice,” and “global citizenship” is the word empowerment.

assert that they empower students by virtue of the existence of a student government or a few clubs, while missing rare opportunities to equip kids with something more real and enduring. We have to strive higher than to narrowly deﬁne an empowered student as one who is free to speak his or her mind. In fact, in order for empowerment to matter and have impact, it must be seen and practiced on a much deeper and experiential level. There are three integral and integrated ingredients to fostering authentic empowerment in schools: voice, ownership, and altruism.

The notion of empowerment in schools is rendered innocuous when it lacks an authentic way to practice, experience, and understand the nature of what it means. Schools often righteously

The original shed which students of Brandon Hall transformed into a greenhouse (see the previous spread) as part of their empowerment lesson.

Student voice is to empowerment what sound is to an expertly played musical instrument. Voice can’t simply be given to our students without loving lessons on how to shape, utilize, and express it. Voice, as a component of empowerment, needs time to breathe and utter both whimsical absurdities and poignant profundities. A teacher or school’s role in honoring student voice comes with a responsibility to provide that very student with constructive feedback and support to construct language and express oneself with clarity and purpose. This is accomplished in classrooms that aren’t afraid to debate, deliberate, and discern.

If voice, to continue the metaphor, is the sound of the instrument, ownership is the way one holds and cares for the instrument and lovingly plays it. Empowering our students is insufficient without ownership dancing along at every step. Consider the popular and well-intentioned example of trying to empower students to propose policy changes to a dress code. To make this empowerment opportunity meaningful, help students do the hard work of crafting, articulating, and spiritedly defending their ideas. How? First, require them to research a fair and relevant sample of what “other” peer schools do with similar policies like dress code. Second, to avoid groupthink or serving the needs of just the

handful of students doing the research, help these students conduct a comprehensive survey of the student and faculty communities, so that diverse voices are heard and considered. By doing this, you avoid creating some ephemeral policy that was only pitching an idea for change dripping with self-interest. Third, give students a stage to meet with school leaders and ﬁeld challenging and provocative questions. When students have gone through all these stages, then ownership is possible because they will have stayed the course despite necessary and strategic obstacles to their progress. Having worked for decades with students in leadership development, I can share that there is no greater feeling for all

Empowerment, in a school setting, should ultimately lead to making some aspect of the education or the community a better place to learn, live, and work. Altruism is the highest form of empowerment because it connects directly to the impact a student can have on others. Consider those rare schools who engage students in problem solving and push them to oﬀer solutions to societal or school-based challenges. To simply empower someone without also expecting that it will be used to help and contribute to a caring culture seems selﬁsh on the part of school leadership. At Brandon Hall, students are encouraged to take a passion and shape it into an idea that ultimately sinks or swims, based on their own volition. The criterion that matters the most to me is that the idea is powered by an altruistic engine.

The three elements of empowerment: voice, ownership, and altruism were woven together beautifully during the 2020-2021 school year at Brandon Hall. A dilapidated greenhouse sat on our property for decades, forgotten by time and bereft of any life. A visionary junior rallied a couple of her compatriots who shared a similar love for farming, including a hydroponics whiz kid from Vietnam and an Atlantan with a passion for construction. They wrote a proposal for the resurrection of the greenhouse. I dangled the carrot of potential school funding if I found that they were empowered enough to present and execute a multi-year vision to a committee of teachers and school leaders. Over several months, these students never wavered. They shared designs, researched appropriate plantings, and presented compelling arguments for a chicken coop. No matter the obstacle, they responded with energy, worked through setbacks, and were awarded seed money to enact the vision. Today, the greenhouse and chicken coop are a point of pride on every school tour, and what these students gifted our school will outlive their time as students at Brandon Hall. Empowerment. My mind drifts back to my mom now. Her one-minute proclamation on a Thanksgiving Day 40 years ago empowered me for life. She has long since passed, and I wish she knew the enduring impact she had and how I have tried to pay it forward in my life. As for that man at the dumpster, I can only hope that surprise feast delivered in a mountain of to-go boxes made some diﬀerence. It did for me, for the schools I’ve led, and for the students I have helped to empower.

Inspirational, Digital Poster. By Linnaea Mallette.

parties than to know that a legitimate and arduous process was followed. Shouldn’t empowerment be built upon such a foundation?

CHERIE JONES is a lawyer from Barbados who was going home one day when Lala, a character from this debut, award-winning novel, began to speak in her head. From this process, grew a story centering on four characters in Barbados, putting a spotlight on intergenerational abuse. Her novel has been called abstract ﬁction, been heralded as an epic, and praised for the stark brutality with which it depicts sexism, abuse and oppression for its female characters. The story takes place in the 1980s and the characters will climb straight into your heart as you dive into their world. This is not to say that Cherie places any contrivances of technique, metaphor, or structure between you and the lives that bleed on the page. Themes like drugs, class, love, race, and parenthood are seamlessly woven with the vicious realities of the society. Cherie’s story may be dark and all-too-real, but her prose is so vivid, the reader does not feel any shield between their mind and the characters’ lives. We feel as if we sit, eat and breathe with these characters and feel every wound and hurt on our skin.

Cherie does not lose time diving straight into the machinations of her plot. A wealthy tourist is shot dead in a failed robbery in the resort town, at the very outset. A second murder investigation opens soon at the suspicious death of a baby. Rape, abuse, incest and more take place. Like locals cracking open the head of a coconut, the story cleaves through the tourist postcards of a tropical paradise, revealing ﬂesh that is, alas, not as pristine as a coconut’s inside. The impoverished reality of the locals is especially gruelling for its women. They experience the tropical delights — rain, fruit — as “daggers” and “missiles” and go through childbirth like “an injury. Despite all this bleakness, Cherie manages to leave a glimmer of light and hope at the end of the maze. The novel is a must-read for how it universalizes the feminine experience and the agony and anguish that is all too familiar for anyone cognizant of these issues in other cultures and parts of the world.

The novel exposes the darkness that exists behind the tourist hotspot.

is a young, freelance journalist who has become dispassionate with the perfectionist pop culture of today and the ways it fails our growing adults. She has been exploring this theme in her journalistic discussions with countless young people for many years. She decided to write this book when she realized how common of a feeling it was: the youth today are either hellbent on being driven and defeating everyone else in a competition, or getting tired of falling short in the neverending competition. In an interview to Esquire, she says: “The five markers of adulthood have been postponed for many people. That’s getting married, having children, finishing school, moving out of your parents' house, and entering the workforce. These milestones are not functioning the way they did fifteen years ago.” That’s why she prefers the term “emerging” adults. This is an age group in transition, who stand before a shelf full of blank awards waiting to be inscribed in their names. But with no system, support, or strategy in their nations and communities to actually make that possible.

She has woven in personal narratives and blunt reflections, interviewing both the young and the specialists. In 12 chapters, Stauffer examines work experiences, homebuilding, college, online presence, love and dating, self-care; and, explores identity, perfectionism, meaning in life, community and loneliness, and growing up and being ordinary in general. As she says in the first chapter of her book: “It’s a challenge not to feel as though finding yourself has been turned into a competitive sport. Now, it seems, striving to be extraordinary, being exceptional, and being special are the same as being capable, being fulfilled, and being happy.” She tries to prescribe a manner forward without losing oneself or giving oneself the short end of the stick all the time. Her suggestions include reframing young adulthood as a growing age like any other, approaching achievement as a process, rather than an end, and accepting today’s inequalities, systemic racism, economic instability as part of the bargain. Falling short or needing support on different areas of life must be accepted as a part of the normal experience rather than something to be ashamed about. High school professionals are already seeing the uber-maturation of youth, not yet adults, in classes everyday. Stauffer’s book sees the world with their eyes and finds ways to navigate in a flexing and perturbed reality in terms they understand.

A sashimi platter featuring salmon with ponzu.

Get Sushi-grade Salmon 100g Sushi-grade ﬁsh is declared safe for eating raw. Salmon is commercially frozen 0F for 7 days (or ﬂash-frozen -35F for 15 hours) before it’s labelled sushi-grade.

Season with ponzu sauce and pickled ginger. This Japanese condiment is based on 3 diﬀerent citrus fruits (sudachi, yuzu & kabosu) along with sugar, vinegar and dashi - Japan’s favorite broth (made from mushrooms or various sea-food). 2 Tbsp is enough for the tangy ﬂavor. Make authentic pickled ginger at home by boiling some rice vinegar with sugar to taste in a pan then pour over small ginger pieces in a jar.

Cut the fish into 2cm thick squares Add side ingredients. Skin the fish, if needed. Use a sharp, chef’s knife to make clean cuts into the fillets against the grain.

While rice jelly, cucumber and pineapple are as good additions to complete your sashimi, as are bean sprouts, beetroots, white radish, melon, spinach or avocado. Feel creative! Grate fresh Wasabi rhizome prior to preparing your serving for its authentic, hot taste that oﬀsets the smell of the raw ﬁsh.

Add ﬁnishing touches Shower the dish with toasted sesame oil to enhance the umami! Garnishing choices include black sesame seeds and kale. Enjoy You can add to or replace with any sushi grade ﬁsh to this recipe, such as tuna or hamachi. .

By Thomas Schenck

ROR SCHOOL

President of Dartmouth Association and ROR Workshop Leader, Mr. Schenck presents his results oriented recruiting ideas. Illustrative diagrams by Rhodora O.

NOT TUNNEL VISION

FUNNEL VISION,

ven though the pandemic has completely changed the landscape of admissions in the world of independent schooling, currently, many admission officers still have what I call “tunnel vision.” That is to say, they are falling back on the same strategies for enrollment that worked more or less before COVID-19 outbreaks shut things down. My mantra is: new era, new game plan. Post-pandemic, we need to adopt what I call Funnel Vision which is aware of and attends to three funnels simultaneously: the marketing funnel, the admissions funnel and the re-enrollment funnel. This means that a new critical level of energy must be prioritized in the oft-neglected marketing and re-enrollment funnels. Without paying attention to all three funnels, planning ahead for all of them, and then organizing staﬀ routines and procedures to make sure they are engaged in strategies that produce direct results, private school enrollment could dwindle further. Start with the market funnel. It is the one that takes people from the “ignorance” level at the top (where they don’t even know about your school) all the way to the top of the admissions funnel as an inquiry. Your goal is to keep the prospective family moving towards the admissions process, enrollment and ultimately matriculation. Thus all funnels are busy in a continuity and every family falls at one stage or another of one of the three funnels.

What does it mean to move people down the marketing funnel once you have made a start by getting your school’s message in front of the people? It means engaging those families who have now become aware of your school to become active inquiries in the admissions funnel. What that takes is to have a plan for reaching out and continuously following up via phone, text, video or email to people that neither knew the school before nor the admissions officer approaching them. This is the act of “cold calling,” a term that strikes fear in the hearts of even the most seasoned executive. Putting themselves in a position of being repeatedly rejected is not something human beings enjoy doing. This, however, is a skill that must be learned and practiced.

The rest of the admissions funnel requires the same tenacity. Families will forget, neglect, slack off, or change their minds even after filling out the forms. Staff must follow up until the forms have been properly filled and submitted, with the necessary payment structures in place. Since the pandemic hit the economic situation of most families, the re-enrollment funnel has become as important as the other two. Oftentimes our assumption is that we pursue re-enrollment when the contracts are sent after the first of the year. Only then does the admissions office send out that letter assuring the family of how much the school appreciated having their child and

how much they look forward to having them back. This is too late, especially post-pandemic. If the child had any unresolved issues in the fall they may have already decided to not return. Not that the funnel vision is grounded in strategies applicable and necessary under all circumstances regardless of the national health conditions. While Covid certainly posed major challenge to admissions officials, it was merely a ﬁlter that put more heat and light on the weak leadership and under-skilled admission practices already prevalent. Let’s consider this a time for reﬂection and regrouping and be conscious of all three funnels, moving forward.

ROR CI was a restless soul, both in life and death. While he left a huge legacy and a gaping hole in the hearts of all his contemporaries, he also left a veil of mystery over the parts of his life that were totally distinct from his onscreen persona. Oscar-winning documentarian, Morgan Neville, has attempted to look into that other side of his life, carefully and cautiously, by piecing together interviews from his friends and family who were still mourning his death by suicide. Neville puts together a selection of those behind-the-scenes moments from Bourdain’s familiar on-screen achievements that deepen our view and understanding of this man. Before, these layers were perhaps only first hinted by that act of suicide. Through little moments here and there, we see that, yes, Bourdain revelled in his celebrity by acting out his passions for his own and his audiences’ benefit. But he also, throughout his 20-years’ fame, struggled with the downside of that celebrity. That loss of privacy, the crippling anxiety at being the center of everyone’s sights, and that painful realization that happiness can still elude us no matter what else we achieve. Was he chasing happiness through his relentless work schedule and the obsessive nature of his perfectionism? This superlativeness as an artist brought him great respect and regard, but it may have also driven wedges between closer friends who got to deal with the abrasiveness such perfectionism is usually conjoined. Thankfully, Neville is not after superficial answers; only to understand and appreciate more.

The one thing that serves against this documentary is Neville’s controversial choice to recreate Bourdain’s voice via an artificial intelligence program and, on top of that, to withhold exactly which three sentences (among authentic narration in Bourdain’s voice pulled from existing audio files) were artificially narrated. These decisions have opened a debate into the ethics and boundaries of use of A.I. to meddle with “the dead” in media. For better or worse, Neville has created unintended cinema history here.

Mural honoring Bourdain, created by Ketones6000 at Sticky Mango, Waterloo, London. Flickr.

INEMA is on fire in his well-deserved Oscar-winning performance as a man drowning in the quicksand of dementia. We have all dealt with, or heard of, the demon called dementia one way or the other in our lives. Nearly 50% people all over the world suffer from it, more than 6 million of whom reside in the US. We have had movies on dementia issues before — another Oscar-winning performance by Julianne Moore in Still Alice comes to mind — but nothing like this. Through the graceful mastery of his direction, Florian Zeller let’s us see what’s cooking inside the mind of Hopkins’ character named Anthony. He meets his daughter, but now someone else is the same daughter. He is as confused as us as to which is real. The scary part is that, for Anthony, there is no way to determine which is which, as both experiences look the same in his perception. Audiences are given smart clues to slowly tease out the real versus unreal, but that only increases our empathy for him, as he still finds it hard to be certain. One never realized that the world of a demented mind could be time-warped with convincing fantasies that are impossible to tell apart from the puzzle-pieced smorgasbord of actual, present events and reemerging memories. Sometimes, his perception is not unlike lucid dreaming. People morph into other persons and props around the house are completely different from one scene to the next. We can only tell later if the events of the last scene happened after or before the events of the scene before in Anthony’s life.

The movie is not a one-man show. Olivia Colman plays the daughter who doesn’t quite know how to tell the father he would have to cooperate with the new carer or go to a nursing home. The daughter laughs with the father in those rare moments where his original, roguish charm resurfaces, but this laugh is nervous and edgy, the one you give when you want to be crying instead. And yet it’s the genuine laugh of the caring daughter, trying to be there with the father as he meanders in his inside world. Both Zeller’s craft and Hopkins’ inhabited performance are a once-in-a-lifetime ticket to a fascinating stage where the main actor is desperate to hold on to kernels of his past, fishing for the pebbles of his truth as they flow away in the flood.

A Tedious Conference, Francois Burney (1849-1926).

What’s Happening, ROR?

02 September, 2021

AISAP Webinar: “Make a Virtual Escape

08 September, 2021

ISM Webinar: “How to Use

10-12 September, 2021

4th International Conference on Teaching, Learning and Education:

Room for Your School” - “Learn how to create a virtual escape room for prospective students to explore your school in an interactive and slightly competitive game. No need to be a technology guru to attend.” - USA

Content-Marketing to Attract Mission-Appropriate Families” - USA

“It addresses the most significant questions in the areas of early childhood education, public education policy, machine learning, theory and practice of physical education development, and more. Our prestigious panel of speakers will guide the discussion for maximum engagement, offering you a unique opportunity to learn from your peers from all around the world. Finally, it is your chance to share your knowledge with thousands of members of our network, be it through paper publications, poster presentations, or networking sessions.”

14 September, ILA Intensives Digital Learning 2021 Event: “Supporting Multilingual Learners with Translanguaging Strategies.” - USA

21-25 September, 2021

EMA Annual Conference: “Are you ready to recharge, reunite, and recommit? Enrollment leaders around the world have reinvented their work, their schools, and themselves. Chances are you might be looking forward to an opportunity to fill up on inspiration, energy, and hope. AC21 is the place to start!” - USA

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What’s Happening, ROR?

22-25 September, 2021

102 NCTM Annual Meeting & Exposition: “The event may look slightly

27-28 September, 2021

WASET International Conference on Computer, Information and Education Technology: “aims to bring

29 September, 2021

ISM Webinar: How to Maximize Your

29 September, 2021

NAIS Webinar: “Supercharge Your

5 October, 2021

EMA Meet-Up for LGBTQ+ Enrollment

different this year, but you can expect the same high-quality mathematics education-building content and networking opportunities that make this event unique. Guided by the program theme “Empowering the Voice of Teachers: From Critical Conversations to Intentional Actions,” together we will lay a strong foundation for the upcoming school year and beyond.“ - USA

together leading academic scientists, researchers and research scholars to exchange and share their experiences and research results on all aspects of Computer, Information and Education Technology. It also provides a premier interdisciplinary platform for researchers, practitioners and educators to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, and concerns as well as practical challenges encountered and solutions adopted in the fields of Computer, Information and Education Technology.” - USA

Leadership Capacity in the First 100 Days of School - USA

Recruitment with NAIS Market” - USA

Professionals: “Connect and gather your thoughts about how EMA can best support LGBTQ+ professionals in independent schools.” - USA

What’s Happening, ROR?

5 October, 2021

NAIS Webinar: “Data and Analysis for School

5-8 October, 2021

CDA’s Early Educators Leadership Conference: “Join us this fall at the Early

Leadership: Data Entry - Getting to 100%” - USA

Educators Leadership Conference (EELC) in Leesburg, Virginia, October 5-8. This year the conference will explore Shaping the Future: A Time for Resilience, Renewal and Reform.” - USA

17 October, 2021

SAIS: Board/Head Workshop: “This interactive session for heads and trustees will unpack how leadership, governance, financial sustainability, and organizational stewardship intersect.” - USA

SAIS Annual Conference: “An informative, 17-19 October, 2021 innovative, and comprehensive opportunity for independent school leaders to gather and discover proven strategies and emerging trends. Attend sessions that fill in gaps in your experience, converse with leaders from schools with a similar size and budget, and learn new strategies for success from top-notch speakers. Content will be geared toward heads of school, division heads, deans, directors, and other administrative and aspiring leaders.” - USA

International Dyslexia Association 21-23 October, 2021 (IDA) Annual Reading, Literacy & Learning Conference: “The 2021 Annual Conference, offered as a limited in-person experience in Charlotte with virtual access on IDA TV, is a hub of information and support for anyone affected by dyslexia... This year’s conference theme is “Envisioning A Future with Structured Literacy - Reading Instruction that Works.”

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What’s Happening, ROR?

104

ISCA Fall Governance Conference: 28-29 October, 2021 “ISCA will be holding its Annual Fall Governance

Conference virtually this year on October 28-29, 2021. Details on the program will be announced soon but please save the date so you can join us! There may be opportunities to gather together in small groups to view the conference in your geographic region.” - USA

28-30 October & 11-13 November, 2021

National Science Teaching Association Area Conference on Science Education, Portland & National

3-6 November, 2021

ISM’s 25th Annual Heads Retreat (San

8-9 November, 2021

WASET International Conference on Literacy and Education: “Aims to bring

Harbor: “Come to reconnect with your friends and colleagues and check out the latest and greatest science education resources available. Learn about creating inclusive classrooms, supporting students post COVID-19, developing authentic assessment strategies, linking literacy and science, and so much more.” - USA

Antonio, Texas): “Gather with fellow Heads to examine the latest research to support your decision-making, engage in deep conversation, and network with peers who share your challenges to discover new perspectives.” - USA

together leading academic scientists, researchers and research scholars to exchange and share their experiences and research results on all aspects of Literacy and Education. It also provides a premier interdisciplinary platform for researchers, practitioners and educators to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, and concerns as well as practical challenges encountered and solutions adopted in the fields of Literacy and Education.” - Dubai, UAE.

What’s Happening, ROR?

8-12 & 11-13 November, 2021

TABS Annual Conference (Virtual and

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In-Person): “TABS’ Annual boarding-schools focused conference is offering both in-person and virtual conferences this year with many seminar topics.” - USA

10 November, GovNet’s Independent Schools Conference: “We are excited to welcome back 2021 over 400 independent school leaders for an in-person celebration of the independent education sector’s resilience in what has been an extremely challenging time for every school. By attending the Independent School Conference, you will join like-minded peers and discuss ways to tackle emergent challenges of the post-pandemic world. With peer-led, resolution-focused discussions as well as practical seminars, the conference is designed to help leaders survey market trends and align their strategic and operational objectives.” - United Kingdom

18-21 November, 2021

National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Annual Convention Equity, Justice, and Antiracist Teaching: “Let us come together to cocreate a healthy, more just world for our students, families, and ourselves. Let us move toward June Jordan’s belief that “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for” (see “Poem for South African Women“), as we reimagine and strengthen our commitments to English language arts and literacy teaching, research, and engagements. Join us this November for an amazing learning experience.“

By Nelly Neamo

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Being present and attuned to the moment is akin to looking for lost treasure. Treasures we lost to materialistic pursuits. Treasures that are close to the simpler essence of man.

calm

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the intricate nature of a man. We are aware of our lost treasure. As soon as we get too busy in life or stressed out by it, we start feeling that something is missing. There is a gnawing sense that material reward is not enough.

your breath? Or, when was the last time you celebrated your little victories? Those were times when you were living in the moment. The periods of laughter, calmness, fulﬁllment, and contentment have the quality of being mindful of the moment.

The treasures ﬂow from within when we are in control of the present. When we get rid of the thought of being swallowed by our tomorrow, that is. Take a break, ask yourself this question: “When was the last time I laughed? How did I feel at that moment?” The golden feeling of a laughter is the result of the awareness and active involvement in the present.

We can only pay attention to our experience and environment when we are calm. Mindfulness is the act of paying attention to our body and surroundings, without judgment. There are two paths to mindfulness. One path involves experience what’s around us through our senses. The other involves being attuned to our own thoughts and feelings. Mindfulness prunes away the habit of reacting to things around us or feeling overwhelmed by the routines and upheavals of daily life.

Do you ever stop to wonder when was the last time you intentionally regulated

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Some of the most striking outcomes that we’ve discovered in our research are several, one is simply the fact that mental training practices, such as Mindfulness, can actually change our brains both functionally and structurally. The changes can be beneficial in cultivating resilience in developing improved capacities for regulating emotions and also in developing refined skills of regulating our attention.

We systematically pour energy in the form of attention and awareness into what is already right with us. We are not ignoring what is wrong, just letting the rest of the health-care team take care of that; while we attend to those very basic elements of experience - often taken totally for granted. When we bring these dimensions of our being in into awareness, life itself becomes a meditation practice.

Dr. Richie Davidson, leading researcher on mind-body medical frontiers, in a 2016 interview at Mind Life Project.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, the originator of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in Mindfulness for beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment — and Your Life — JAICO Publishing House, 2017.

Jeffrey Santee, a psychologist and mindfulness instructor in Wheaton, IL, in Chicago Tribune, 2015.

Patricia Karpas, co-founder of Meditation Studio App, in a 2019 podcast interview with David Dune.

Mindfulness really means paying attention on purpose. It's being in the present moment so that you're aware of what's going on in your own mind, and stepping back enough to be an observer of it. That way, you're not too attached to whatever particular thoughts or feelings are passing through.

Integrating mindfulness is about taking a moment to pause, so you're not always on autopilot. The idea is to get curious versus being judgemental. Step back, be curious and wonder. The practice of being still and letting go can be so helpful. It helps our minds react and respond more productively. Can you be curious about yourself? Can you look at yourself with a fresh perspective? Can you observe yourself with what you know?

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A Japanese Woodblock Print. Credit: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

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This script uses your breathing as your primary tool for unwinding. It helps you release all the troubling, fearsome, or apprehensive thought that hold you tense and reduce your presence in any moment and your performance through the day. Before you start, assume in a comfortable position so you don’t have to shift and adjust for the rest of this practice. Picture in your mind’s eye how your lungs expand and contract as you breathe and release. Shift your attention to your jaw. It is tense. Now breathe into the sensations in your jaw, and as you exhale, allow it the tension to relieve a little. Inhale and imagine that you are breathing in a new way to be, letting out all the fear completely as you exhale. After the next breathe in and out, feel how your stresses stream out of your pores, your lungs, and your mind. Notice how loose and free you are feeling right now. Let another breath come in and with it imagine that your shining future is ﬂowering before you. As you release this breath, notice how worry and negativity dissipates and fades away. Focus on the words ‘calm’ and ‘serene,’ as you next inhale. You deserve this superb, expansive feeling. Remember, with each next breath you take, you are freeing fresh, new energy. Better, positive thoughts start blossoming; spring is here, blooming fast into summer. Revel in the feelings of abundance, so much that the vessel of your energy and power spills over to the beneﬁt of others around you. Envision all of this distinctively, and with as much detail as you can. Know that these positive feelings are your enthusiasm for life. See yourself full of vitality and good faith. Pretend as if you're watching a movie of yourself in bright, vivid colors. Observe yourself full of ambition, taking steps towards your next achievement.

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Keep the development of this new, re-energized, empowered you in time with your breaths in and breaths out. Let your self-view and with it your self-belief evolve, take new shape. Dare it to surprise you; it will. You are now experiencing what being happy is like. So, breathe into this delight you're creating inside of you. On the strength of this delight, take note of how you're deliberately moving out any anxieties or depressive reservations you may have had about yourself. You are leaving those junctions behind, as you move deeper into the bright, colorful summer of conﬁdence, joy, and enthusiasm. Breathe profoundly. and let your breathe out remold you into whichever new direction your future beckons. See how the old ruminations that were holding you back from experienc-ing the joy of being now look so little — smaller with every breath. Imagine these rereduced worries and fears as annoying passengers in a car you drive. One by one, their energy is released, leaving them limp, thrown out of the car at last, fallen by the wayside. As you see them go, you're liberated from their grip. Bit by bit, you get your energy back from their hold and your enthusiasm keeps increasing. Feel free to be ambitious, be ready to reach out to the stars in your sky. Watch those annoying anxieties roll away in your rearview mirror. They keep growing smaller until they are swallowed by the horizon. Now allow yourself some minutes to revel in your being. It’s time to celebrate it and rejoice in it. Take note of every little change in your sensations, thoughts, mood, and aspects of your personality revealed like the sun from behind the clouds. Refocus on your breathing. Whenever you feel ready to re-enter the world with this fresh energy., open your eyes. Commend yourself on the success of your practice. You are ready.

“My Take on an Ion” — Artwork by Jené Stephaniuk

BY ALISA EVANS, FOUNDER & PARTNER, MISSION ENROLLMENT

very new school year is like a fresh start — a new beginning. Students return and fill the hallways and classrooms as a new season for admissions and financial aid circles around again. Before the new wave of prospective families begins their independent school search, it is an ideal time to review the financial aid section of your school website. Part promotion, part procedure, the information your site gives about the program should apprise prospective families about affordability and the process of applying for aid.

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Because an independent school education comes with a cost, the ﬁnancial aid webpage is likely one of the areas a family will visit early on. Information shared about your program can attract their interest in applying or be an unintentional detractor. How do you refer to “ﬁnancial aid” at your

school? Is it a traditional, need-based aid approach or a part of your enrollment strategy? Think about how you communicate “aﬀordability,” then craft messaging and include elements that will resonate with prospective families — that access to private education for their child is possible.

115 Here are three tips for making your school’s ﬁnancial aid webpage inviting and supportive for families:

Give the 411 for your financial aid process Set the expectations from the get-go. Make sure timelines and deadline dates are prominently listed. Give relevant information on how and where to apply and what documentation is required. Conﬁrm hyperlinks point correctly to the application by your ﬁnancial aid provider. For added measure, include your provider’s contact information to point parents in the right direction for help and support with their application and documents.

Shine the light on stats Highlight current year data about your financial aid program. Give families a quick snapshot of the financial aid profile at your

school. This should speak to why middle-income families should not shy away from applying or thinking that a private school education for their child is out of reach. Present data points like the average income for a family receiving aid is X. This will assure families that others of similar income proﬁles have successfully applied for and received aid before. Other points to consider are the percentage of families receiving aid, percentage of need met, and average award amount. Visual infographics can bring your school's aﬀordability front and center.

FAQ the fundamentals Are there speciﬁc questions that get asked year in and year out? Think about any pain points from last year’s processing and list them into your FAQ section. For example, "What do we do if we are separated or divorced?" Create questions and answers that explicitly address your process, the process for families, school and FA policies, and anything that can impact your consideration of a family's request for aid.

Whether it’s a prospective family or a returning family, the FAQ can help with transparency and provide everything there is to know before getting started. As you prep updates and changes to your webpage, like the three tips above, keep in mind who makes up most of your prospective families. Its the millennial generation. Born between 1981 and 1997, this generation is the fastest-growing group of consumers and with school-age children. Now consider this: the average attention span of a millennial is around 8 seconds. Just eight fast seconds! Approach your webpage with this point of view. Capture the attention of your visitors with the information that matters the most, is to the point, and meant for immediate consumption. While this generation, born

A vintage painting of a tree at sunset. Karen Arnold.

into the internet age, has been steered to digest a high rate of information, the volume needs to be compact, thanks to factors like text messaging and character-limiting social media platforms. In this post(ish) pandemic era, admission inquiries are back on the rise as more families seek private education for their children. With this increase comes more demand for aid. Offer transparency with families about your financial aid program, highlight affordability of your school with key awarding insights, and relay clear expectations for their responsibility in the process. Delivering a webpage that succinctly delivers all this information from the get-go, applying for financial aid at your school, inviting and welcoming for your families, thus raising both the value and the numbers of your school.

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KEEPING UP YOUR

By Junaid Qasim

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Marcin Industrial smoke pollutes an urban landscape contributing to Jozwiak climate change and creating wellness challenges for the dwellers.

WITH DAILY WEATHER CHANGES

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veryday we experience, or someone we know experiences, extreme weather conditions no matter where we turn. These conditions have a ripple effect and cause the daily weather of distant locations to topple too. Today it’s hot, but the night temperature dips, then back to sweating in the morning. Or vice versa. Under such circumstances, it can be a challenge to keep up our personal wellness and we must adapt if the weather flips and flops through the year. While we all have a lifetime

of experience adapting to the seasons of our geographical location, it takes more planning than that when, say, Dallas gets frozen over due to power outages, or the heat waves keep getting hotter when it should be raining. In this guide, we oﬀer you tips and suggestions as to how to keep the focus on health and wellness, adjusting your sleep and activity levels, nutrient compositions, hydration and even your wardrobe up to the challenge of the changing daily weather.

Scientists have long established the deep-running connections between daily weather fluctuations and our well-being. A classic study in the journal Emotion, for instance, showed how daily ups and downs in positive and negative affect can be traced to sunlight amounts, temperature levels, wind velocity and even precipitation centimeters. Other studies have shown that not only warmer weather in winter and cooler weather in summer gives a boost to our energy and outlook on life, the reverse is also true. Hotter weathers in summer are linked to anger and even partly explain increased incidence of violence in urban sprawls. These findings underscore the necessity of staying on top of our wellness strategies as it encroaches our personality, work, and social life.

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A bowl of oatmeal with a generous addition of fresh fruits is the perfect way to start your day. Photo Credit: Brooke Lark; Unsplash

F O O D I N T A K E

Food is all about nutrient balance, calorie content, and strengthening immunity. Remember your four food groups (grains, fruits / veggies, meats / ﬁsh, & dairy product) but be mindful of the dominant nutrients in each of your meals. Focus on proteins and ﬁber for your breakfast and snacks. For your one big meal (either lunch or dinner, depending on your schedule) keep carbs and fats to a minimum and never overeat.

The best way to manage your calories is to avoid all premade foods, whether from diners, or purchased from the ready-made or frozen section of the market. Foods high in ﬁber and proteins are also low in calorie content. All premade food uses processed versions of fats and several other nutrients which WHO has now recognized, disrupts the body’s natural metabolic habits, now known as cardiometabolic disease. If ignored, it can

manifest in all manners of diseases ranging from diabetes to cardiovascular issues and even has a high link to Alzheimer’s. For immunity, consider all fruits with high Vitamin C content a staple, and add ginger and garlic to your meals for their antibacterial eﬀects. Turmeric milk is a good shield for the body from pain and cold, so make it a habit. Try to have green tea at least once, for its germ-ﬁghting powers.

121 LET THIRST BE ON YOUR MIND, BUT DRINK UP BEFORE YOU FEEL

A dehydrated body is a fatigued body. The spaces inside and between the cells of our body are bathed in plasma which is mostly water. Cellular functions are damaged when water levels go down. Time your water intake to avoid feeling thirsty. Thirst signals reduced fluids in the body, which is a no-no. In hot weather, drink at the rate of 1 cup every 15-20 minutes. Of course the need after strenuous activity such as a long walk or exercise is greater. Sometimes you’re too busy to remember or even notice your thirst. But your mood would keep worsening, your concentration at work will suffer and soon your head will be aching — all signs that you’re not adjusting your water intake as the weather warms up. While you may feel less thirsty than usual in cooler weather, your cells still need to be well-bathed to fight the extra risk of infection cold brings.

Photo Credit: Jamie Street; Unsplash.

THIRSTY.

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As professionals transitioning back to the workplace, you must dress with balance between several polarities: casual vs formal, comfortable vs professional, and, yes, warm vs cool. How to keep these many balls up in the air as climate change throws us curveballs in daily weather? Three essential tips for the going-out worker mindful of the weather:

Always Layer Up Even if the weather feels nice or warm, don’t forget that extra blazer or jacket to face that chill breeze in the evening as you leave for home. When starting out in a cold morning, lightweight coats are good to put on or take oﬀ as you need, saving you from the need to wear that woolly sweater your boss gifted, 9 to 5. A scarf around the neck serves the same purpose, if going coat-less, while also earning you points for fashion sense.

Let the Body Acclimatize Aren’t we too quick to switch our outﬁts as soon as the weather changes? Health experts are now saying changing our dressing completely to reﬂect the weather may be too fast for the body and may impact natural immunity. Takeaway? Continue dressing for the warmer or cooler temperatures for a little while longer before switching.

Build an All-Seasons Wardrobe Women’s stylist Laurie Loo recommends balancing out full sleeved shirts and dresses with a few half-sleeved or sleeveless pieces, adding a range of comfy fabric pantyhoses to formal dress pants, and ﬁnishing oﬀ with a selection of lightweight warner wear: sweaters, cardigans, coats and jackets.

Men’s stylist Peter Nguyen recommends expanding proportionally from a core of 2 jackets, 2 pants (one dressier and one casual for either category) and 8 tops. Keep the tops versatile (button-up shirts, t-shirts, and lightweight sweaters).

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“Seabed Pollution” — Art Photography by Petr Kratochvil

I know what made the hair stand up on the back of my neck the first time I heard it years and years ago. It's like a shaft of sunlight suddenly breaking through the stained-glass windows of a great cathedral that it illumines the whole scene and tears came to my eyes. Barbara Lachman, music critic.

Created for the 5th anniversary of the Boston Symphony in 1930, “The Symphony of Psalms” is a three-movement choral symphony composed by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky during his neoclassical period. This deeply moving and spiritual piece explores remarkable textures and sounds that transports the listener to an emotional and expressive realm of music. It is a unique approach, not only the psalms of the Bible but also to his own faith. The reason why the symphony stands out is that his approach resonated with the anger, judgement and even curses weaving through the text of the psalms. The symphony keeps time with the emotions generated by the psalms. The first movement emulates the cry of the sinner and provides no easy comfort to the listener. The second movement gives way to the sinner being saved from the pit in the second movement’s “new song.” The third movement is the longest and is a celebration of God through music. When you listen to it, the whole world, it seems, is joining this celebration. It begins with a slowness, almost sighing its notes, deliberately to invoke infinity and timelessness. But then comes the violent, intensity of the celebratory fervor. Repeating cycles of these two contrasting types of music evokes a pacing horse, by which Stravinsky wanted to evoke Elijah’s chariot climbing to the heavens. Technically, it’s the lack of clarinets or upper strings in the composition that suggests he intended to circumvent any ‘softness’ or ‘tradition.’ Instead, Stravinsky uses five flutes, many wind instruments, drums, two pianos and a harp. This makes for an unusual combination on particular sounds while others remarkably absent. In doing so, Stravinsky was approaching the sound of a church’s choir and, indeed, at various moments in the symphony, it seems as if all the instruments and the voices singing the Latin verses come together to emulate the organ pipes. As the voices move through the text, the rhythms do not necessarily match them; rather Stravinsky disrupts them and rearranges them. The end result is even more powerful then it would have been with a traditional approach. Time Magazine named this symphony the best piece of classical music for their Best of the Century series for good reason. Even if you have never put on classical music in your life to self-inspire and reinvigorate, this is the one not to miss out on.

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By Tom Sankara

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need no reminders of the beneﬁts of water. It dilutes the blood enough to carry nutrients and oxygen, cleanses bacteria from the bladder, protects organs, helps with digestion, regulates body temperature, and maintains the perfect, neutral-pH environment for life processes to carry on, second in, second out, without a hitch. So far, so good. But when we go online and hear all the rage surrounding detox water, sometimes we do wonder what is all that about? Let’s put that mystery to rest and see what the ultimate conclusion is about whether you need, or do not need, detox water in your life.

Detox water refers to water charged with other ﬂavors that include fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs in their natural state. Just take fresh water, put some natural, sliced and diced ingredients of your choice in it, leave it covered overnight, and you’ve got it. Some of the popular ingredients are: pineapples, blackberry, orange, lemon, strawberry, mint, ginger, cucumber, apples, kiwi, dill leaves, and more.

Some confusion exists in the hard-to-find expert bloggers’ pieces on the topic, expert being writers qualified in health and medicine or displaying a peer-review badge from such an expert. Like we said above, the label detox water exists for waters mixed in with fresh, naturally occurring, edible flora, without blending or any additional processing. One of the much-proclaimed benefit of these waters is their low-calorie content which doesn’t checked out if the calories from fruits or vegetables had been ground into the water. So be mindful, when reading up on the topic, about the validity of the blogger’s use of the popular term.

The detox water trend skyrocketed a few years back when some popular TV experts, Dr. Oz and Jillian Michaels to name a few, picked up on this alternative medicine strategy, and

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celebrities, such as the Kardashians, hopped on the train. The commonly hyped benefits of this type of water are that it removes toxins from the body, it helps in weight loss and removes belly fat, and maintains your energy levels and regulates your mood throughout the day, and it does all of that without giving you too much calories. Here is the lowdown on these myths according to expert sources and opinions, that is PhD doctorates in medical science and peer-reviewed health journals: Most of the claimed benefits are already pre-existing in the water, without infusion adding anything to it. The toxin-flushing benefit is pure hype beyond the already existing need of the body for a well liquidated environment. The body already performs the waste-excretion process and the ideal water intake changes depending on season, temperature, and the nature of activity — whether infused, flavored, or plain. There is no research evidence for the weight loss benefits of detox water either. In fact, the health research community has not designed to pay attention to the detox water fad at all, and research only exists for the benefits of regular water which are the same as what the detox water idea is being sold on. What research you do find in journal communities using the keyword “detox” is on either detox diet (a very different subject) or on detoxification, which is a very different kind of biomedical process and has no connection with the detox water trend. In conclusion, it seems that the low-calorie claim is the only thing that checks out scientifically.

131 Metabolic Research Center are weight loss specialists with clinics all over the USA, and have been active in the field for 35 years. While they agree with the hyped-up nature of the claims for detox water, they also remind their clients that there are no harm in a detox water recipe either. It is simply naturally occurring ingredients placed inside water in a safe way. Regardless of whether the infused water carries over the ingredients vitamins or provides any extra benefits, the benefits of water intake in and of itself are sufficient to go for it — if that’s what makes you wanna drink more. In today’s hectic, frenzied, and over-busied lifestyle, may of us tend to skip on, or carelessly cut down on, many health needs and barely reach the minimum quote the body needs for optimal functioning. The US national guideline, for instance, ranges between 11 and 15 cups of daily water requirement for people of different gender identities. We can all look at ourselves in the mirror and gauge how far we fall short of this criteria. No matter what the weather, our bodies long for water, and juices and energy drinks simply don’t stand up to it. So feel free to experiment with some of the popular detox ingredients or get creative, and mix and choose. Throwing in your favorite herbs, fruits and vegetables might delight you in surprising ways, when you wake up and get the cold jug out and take your first sip. It might well get you back on track as far as your water intake is concerned!

Try Our Grapefruit Goodness Detox Water Recipe! ❏ 1.4 Cup Strawberries ❏ 1 Sliced Lemon ❏ 1 Sliced Grapefruit ❏ Pitch of Iced Water ❏ Leave in the fridge overnight

ROR Introduction

ascade Academy began with a dream of treating adolescent girls suﬀering with severe anxiety. Adolescent girls are three times more likely to experience anxiety than boys. This need presented an opportunity to serve students and families across the country. As with most dreams, there were many obstacles to overcome to keep hope alive. It took three years to make the dream a reality. Cascade Academy was founded by John & Carol Probst, Caleb Cottle and Brad Gerrard in January 2020. With dynamic leadership forging the way, each partner has worked hard on their mission to help students and families to embrace life with courage and joy. Having worked many years in the behavioral health industry, Caleb saw a need to serve adolescent girls with severe anxiety and began his search for the perfect location and the ideal team. Uninterested in a facility with an “institutional” feel, he began a search for something that felt like “home.” Through a series of fortunate events, he was led to John and Carol Probst, respected entrepreneurs and community members in Midway, Utah. They were interested

in selling their 13,000 square foot home. With nine bedrooms, ten bathrooms, two kitchens and plenty of office space, it was the “home” he had been searching for. Rather than sell their beautiful home, John and Carol offered it as part of a partnership agreement and Cascade Academy was born. Situated in the scenic Wasatch Back just outside of Park City, Cascade Academy is the perfect environment to promote healing for students and their families. With the location established, Brad Gerrard, a well-respected and seasoned expert in the behavioral health field, was recruited and completed the ownership team, filling the role as Executive Director. Shortly thereafter Bekah Schuler joined the team as Clinical Director and quickly became specialized and knowledgeable in the treatment of adolescent anxiety. With over thirty years of experience in education, Jacki Burnham fills the demanding role as Academic Director, creating personalized education plans for each student. As the Admissions Director, LeaKae Roberts walks parents through the difficult process of placing their daughter in treatment. Porter Roe acting as Program Director makes certain that the needs of students and their families are met throughout the duration of treatment. Cascade Academy is a home away from home

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for twenty-six girls between the ages of 13 and 18 who suﬀer from severe anxiety, OCD, or OCD related disorders. Cascade Academy combines the power of traditional CBT, ERP and other evidence-based therapies along with experiential therapy modalities to create a clinically specialized, individualized residential treatment plan for adolescent girls diagnosed with anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorders. Individual, family, group, and recreational therapies along with individualized sequential exposures are a key component to each students’ treatment plan. Focus on a balanced life physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually is the core of the programming at Cascade Academy. Daily exercise, meditation, mindfulness, yoga, nutrition, and service opportunities are essential components implemented into each students’ treatment plan. Specially trained mentors provide around the clock care and are carefully trained to deliver therapeutic support speciﬁc to anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder treatment. Throughout treatment, neural pathways are developed and reinforced through continuous repetition over the nine-to-twelve-month treatment period.

Whatever a student is going to do at home they need to practice at Cascade Academy. This sets Cascade Academy apart from other traditional residential treatment centers. There is no level system. Treatment is as “true to life” as possible with no checklists or token economies. This encourages a more authentic approach to therapy and relationships. Healthy contact with family and friends is encouraged, not forbidden. This results in the early introduction of technology, allowing students to learn healthy practices with technology and social media while being supervised in treatment. Cascade Academy is committed to helping adolescent girls uncover their internal strength by living outside of their comfort zone. Through this process, students improve their executive functioning, interpersonal skills, social regulation, and conﬂict resolution. By participating in daily, organic and relevant exposures, students challenge the avoidance cycle and the ritualized behaviors that have prevented them from living lives ﬁlled with courage and joy. As students and families escape the prison of their comfort zone and boldly navigate life in the growth zone, true healing begins.

Edvard Munch created great art on the subject of anxiety including its experience in girls. “The GIrls on The Bridge, Hamburger, Kunsthalle (1901).

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A vintage poster of an art exhibition.

ROR Magazine Lifestyles of the Admissions Professional

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