ParentNewsletter The La Salle
FOR PARENTS AND FRIENDS OF LA SALLE HIGH SCHOOL • PASADENA • CALIFORNIA • APRIL 2016
La Salle Matters Henry David Thoreau captured, I think, the significance of how transitions work in our lives when he wrote in his journal:
Learn•Serve•Lead
“We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.” Whether it is a transition from high school to college, one job to another or one location to another, there is always an element of the unknown that shrouds the process by which we move our lives forward. And, while we are often the agents of a transition, we aren’t necessarily its manager. Old patterns of behavior become irrelevant, new people enter our lives and unfamiliar expectations emerge. While we think we know what lies on the other side of a transition, we really don’t. At some point in the transition process, we must, as Thoreau so adroitly notes, “leap in the dark.” La Salle is in the midst of “leaping in the dark” as we search for a new principal. But that transition must be placed within the context of an extraordinarily exciting and challenging year. At the very same time that the School is looking for a new principal, we are also in the midst of pursuing public approval for our Campus Master Plan and have successfully concluded the WCEA/WASC accreditation and Strategic Planning processes. All four moments – together - represent a significant transition in the wonderful story of La Salle High School. We are faced with hiring a principal who will, more than likely, preside over a school that – for the first time in its 60 year history – has no Christian Brother present, we are also charting the course of the next ten years through the creation of a Strategic Plan and the implementation of an Educational Improvement Plan (EIP) which is validated by the WCEA/WASC accreditation process (cf. last month’s La Salle Matters in the ParentNewsletter on our website).
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More About The De La Salle Christian Brothers Saint La Salle is identified with the "Simultaneous Method" of teaching. By the "Simultaneous Method" the pupils are graded according to their capacity, putting those of equal attainments in the same class, giving them the same text-books, and requiring them to follow the same lesson under one and the same teacher. This method has stood the test of time and experience, and is that which the Brothers of the Christian Schools employ in all grades of instruction even to the present day.
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