OHS Spotlight 2022

SPOT LIGHT

The 2021-2022 school year saw the girls of Orchard House School trying new things and discovering additional ways to bring the OHS mission to life. With outdoor performances of The Quiltmaker’s Gift and the annual talent show, student voices and the cheers of community support were broadcast through our home in the historic Fan neighborhood.

The Class of 2022 started a new tradition by heading to Camp Horizons, where they crawled through caves in the mud and participated in collaborative challenges that tested their problem-solving and strengthened their bonds even more.

OHS reimagined its Explore program, establishing dedicated quarters to coding, social media acumen, diversity and equity, and mental health.

As Orchard House gets closer to its 25th anniversary in the 20232024 school year, programs will be updated and traditions will evolve, but the responsiveness to the needs of middle school girls that the school was founded on remains constant.

Students (and faculty!) stepped up their game during Spirit Week.

A 5th grade student hangs window clings to accompany the all-school read Flight of the Puffin.

6th graders planting flowers with homeroom teachers Jennifer Brookman and Janine Russo.

(top) Scene from a studentorganized rally for climate justice.

(left) Soccer joy. (bottom) 5th grade theater studio performance.

WELCOME TO THE SPOTLIGHT

Our Orchard House mission is a guiding light for our school. A copy of it hangs on my wall across from my desk and I read it often as I’m working. I reflect on different words and phrases and measure the work we are doing on a daily basis against it. As I write this welcome to our 2022 Spotlight, the phrase “engaging community” stands out for me.

Indeed, in the past year, our students have had so many rich opportunities to connect with our greater OHS and Richmond communities. Alumnae have returned to share their passions with us. Students have ventured beyond our location at 500 N. Allen to learn about history, architecture, and neighborhoods. They have taken part in service projects, giving back to the community which gives so much to us. Our curriculum has expanded, providing more chances to explore something new and develop competence and confidence. All of this is reflected in this issue of our Spotlight.

Laura Haskins Head of School

Orchard House School

We celebrate the 21-22 school year in this Spotlight edition. As we move into the 22-23 school year, we will be entering our 24th year, preparing for our 25th anniversary! I hope that the stories you read inspire you to stay connected and come back to visit us as we approach this significant milestone.

Sincerely,

OHS WELCOMES LAMECCA COATES AS ASSISTANT HEAD OF SCHOOL AND DIRECTOR OF DIVERSITY

After a nation-wide search, LaMecca Coates was hired to join Orchard House as Assistant Head of School and Director of Diversity beginning on July 1, 2022.

LaMecca Coates is an accomplished educator with over two decades of experience as an administrator and teacher in independent and public schools. Over her career she has held roles of History Teacher, Master Scheduler, and Director of the Single Gender Education Program at Drew Freeman Middle School. She received her Master of Arts in Teacher Education at American University and a Master of Science in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from Albany, State University of New York.

Most recently, she served as Dean of Students at The Langley School in McLean, Virginia, where she assisted with the day-to-day operations of leading the middle school. As a member of the academic leadership team, some of her responsibilities included supporting students and their families, coaching teachers and leading professional learning opportunities, developing curriculum, and assisting the admissions team.

As Director of Scholars Academy, Emerging Scholars in Arlington, she worked with fifth and sixth grade public school students and their families to gain access to independent schools and served as a support network for them. During her time with the Academy, she maximized opportunities for students through innovative programming, responsive curriculum, and grant opportunities.

Throughout her twenty years in education, the values of equity and inclusion have been central to her work. She has led or participated in a number of initiatives aimed at creating and maintaining diverse and rich school communities.

We warmly welcome LaMecca to the Orchard House School community!

LaMecca Coates

Assistant Head of School & Director of Diversity

CRACKING THE CODE

We all know the usual maxims about persistence: You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. Give someone the opportunity to tell you no. If you don’t succeed, try, try again. But how about, “If your sprite is glitchy, find one part of your code to change until you find the problem?” Or maybe, “If your voice recording is tough to hear, try playing with the filters to see what you can make happen.”

While students have been learning robotics and coding for years during science teacher Jennifer Brookman’s long-established Tech-Sci Fridays, this year Orchard House invited CodeVA to add to this program during our weekly Explore sessions. Explore is designed as a curriculum that is responsive to the ever evolving needs and issues that impact the lives of middle school girls. Each grade focuses for an entire quarter on one component of Explore—coding, social-emotional learning and discussion, healthy social media habits, and diversity and inclusion.

creation.

(Left) 8th graders collaborate on code experimentation.

CodeVA is a statewide organization dedicated to bringing computer science to students and educators across Virginia, with trainers and teachers based in Richmond. Instructors led our students through a variety of projects to increase their programming experience and develop their computational thinking. Using the open-source platform Twine, students worked on coding and narrative structure by programming interactive storytelling games. 5th graders built robots and used iPads to program them, in addition to exploring circuits with clay creations and LED lights. 8th graders used Adafruit Circuit Playgrounds to program creations using the Arduino IDE programming environment.

Throughout the grade levels, students were surprised at how much the work of debugging and iterating actually felt like play. One student commented, “It was basically just a calming, relaxing thing you can do after classes. Instead of doing more schoolwork, you can just sit down and code for 13 minutes or so and then test it, then code for another 13 minutes. And build things!” Through their exploration, students figured out the rules of their materials and the conventions of the coding environments and were able to troubleshoot any hiccups they encountered along the way. In 5th grade technology class, students had a similar experience

learning to use the digital audio editing software Soundtrap. Students rounded out the semester by listening to and discussing a wide range of podcast episodes and getting a chance to record and edit their own podcasts. Student podcast topics ran the gamut, from informational podcasts about where to find the best sweet treats in Richmond, to bite-sized mini-episodes about caring for your new pet. Just like with coding, students were surprised not only by how the assignments didn’t feel like assignments, but also by how much they could accomplish: “I was surprised by how simple it could be. It didn’t have to be so complicated. With the three minutes we had, there was a lot you wanted to say, and it might’ve not seemed like enough, but you can actually get through a lot in three minutes, and it was really fun.” From loops and music, to recording interviews on Zoom, removing unwanted background sound, and rearranging sound clips for a narrative flow, students experimented with the controls in Soundtrap to create polished productions.

CURIOSITY

Cover art for a 5th grade interview podcast.

The skills students gain in these digital environments are not limited just to computing and audio production. Students are required to break multi-part projects down into digestible components, often using planning documents to outline materials needed, work they will expect to realistically finish, the order of completion, and an estimate for how long each part may take, all of which are executive functioning skills middle schoolers are actively developing. When participating in the debugging or editing process, students become accustomed to looking for and paying attention to patterns that would lead them to their desired results. This could be in the way collaborative work is synced across machines, in variables in blocks of code, or even in the kind of background music that elicits a specific emotion in an audio narrative. This approach to analysis is essential to effective and quick problem-solving in all fields.

Beyond the problem-solving skills they hone, students are most excited to share their creations. One 8th grade student demonstrated the touch-sensitive night light she built out of a paper cup during Explore. Another played a tune on a miniature handmade cardboard upright piano. 5th graders listened intently, laughed along, and beamed proudly as classmates offered feedback on each episode played during their podcast listening party. In the end, students were excited that these projects that sounded beyond the scope of their abilities were not only in reach, but way simpler—and way more fun—than they’d ever expected.

5th graders design clay components to interact with circuits.

MIDDLE SCHOOL MINDFULNESS

Sarah Austen has been leading weekly afternoon yoga classes and dropping in for yoga sessions with our PE students this year. She’s found that while she plans fastpaced classes to match young students’ desire to move quickly, she is still able to talk in-depth about mindfulness and tools for stress relief throughout the classes to make sure that the girls are picking up on the larger goal of the practice. “Mindfulness was never really explained to me when I started yoga. The point is to move, of course, but to pay attention to the moving and the breathing and, ‘Oh, how is my mind reacting to this one pose we’re in, or what do I start thinking about when I’m in this uncomfortable shape, or when I’m comfortable and bored?’” She encourages students to notice some of the patterns their bodies and minds slip into—wandering minds around lunchtime or restlessness—and links the techniques in class to the ability to bring yourself back to the moment. With anxiety on the rise in middle schoolers, Sarah Austen is especially interested in teaching students that there are many ways to try to keep it at bay. “It’s important to know how to self-regulate. That is gold to learn at a young age.”

Sarah Austen Holzgrefe OHS ‘09 made her way back to Orchard House this year as a component of the school’s incorporation of mindfulness into its programs. As an independent yoga teacher in the greater Richmond area, Sarah Austen’s path started with a wish to explore mindfulness and self-inquiry. She had often incorporated yoga into pre-activity stretching, but coupling the two practices shifted her perspective. “It changes the game when you try to pay attention to what you’re doing, which is just like life. Everything changes when you pay attention to what you’re doing.” The next turn in her path is one that is familiar now: “COVID happened, which is everybody’s story. We started working from home, and I was able to spend a lot more time doing yoga. I got my 200-hour teaching certification over COVID and was able to really build up my business and teach more classes.”

For middle schoolers in 2009, mindfulness wasn’t yet a large part of the conversation about adolescent girls’ mental health. Sarah Austen says, however, that the emphasis on the arts at Orchard House had a similar effect for her. “There was dedicated time for a whole quarter for dance. My body needed that movement, and Ms. Arthur was just one of my favorites.” With each grade focusing on a different arts discipline per quarter, that outlet is available throughout their middle school experience. She likens the time to work on creativity to a regular meditative practice. “I think it’s very similar because you get into the flow of just doing it. I loved the art classes, and music and theater! I think those in themselves can be such great mindfulness tools.” Many of the Orchard House customs contain creative components—thrones, quilt squares, masks, sanctuary boxes, and murals—that allow for students to reach that flow state of creation while participating in community traditions.

5th graders practice their shoulder stands in yoga teacher Sarah Austen Holzgrefe’s outdoor yoga space.

“It’s important to know how to self-regulate. That is gold to learn at a young age.”

Sarah Austen Holzgrefe Yoga Teacher and Orchard House School Alumna

MIDDLE SCHOOL MINDFULNESS

This integration of the arts is a core tenet of the Orchard House experience. On any given day of school, each student will be engaged in a creative project for one of her academic subjects. Painter’s tape is a highly valued resource as science students build themed obstacle courses for their robots to navigate through code. A history class builds a metaphorical representation of the Five Pillars of Islam and composes songs about journeys along the Silk Road. Dreams bloom as one English class constructs flower boxes that represent their hopes and goals during their study of A Raisin in the Sun, while another writes dream poems based on the work of Langston Hughes, transforming each poem into a quilt square. One group of math students hang posters around the Great Room promoting interesting facts about the number 7, while others create artistic works building on the spiral of the Fibonacci sequence. Spanish students illustrate and label houses and village squares as they study descriptive and directional vocabulary. By injecting the arts into all subjects, teachers are able to allow students to display their knowledge while encouraging them to tap into the calm industriousness of creativity. The designated arts classes provide a further opportunity for middle school girls, who are deep in the developmental process of identity formation, to discover and express themselves creatively.

“Do everything that you can to keep the relationship you have with yourself. Try your very hardest to be compassionate with yourself through these tough, tough years.”

When asked what advice she would give to her middle school self, Sarah Austen’s focus was on self-compassion and treating yourself as a best friend. For her, yoga is one path to exploring and strengthening this connection with the self—getting to know yourself as you move through different poses, knowing how your body reacts in poses based on what kind of day you’re having, and learning how to be kind to all versions of yourself. Her advice to 2009 Sarah Austen and all middle school girls? “Do everything that you can to keep the relationship you have with yourself. Try your very hardest to be compassionate with yourself through these tough, tough years. Middle school and high school are hard and stressful. Keep yourself really close, like a bud that you can really count on and be with through hard things. I’m still learning— and this work never ends—so to start young is such a gift, because this is some of the most important work you can do, the work with yourself.”

The afternoon yoga class breathes in the fresh air in the OHS play space.

Clockwise from top left: Student pyramid, Model of the cell as a bike helmet, Architectural design inspired by Richmond’s Markel Building, Fibonacci art.

Flower pots recall symbolism in A Raisin in the Sun and represent 8th graders’ goals.

DRESSED TO THE NINES

In February, students began a project where each of 20 groups studied a different Black architect and their work, composed a poem to describe one of their signature buildings, and designed a costume based on that building. We were able to present the costumes and poems at a fashion show.

AT THE DRAFTING TABLE

7th graders constructed models in response to a challenge from the Branch Museum of Architecture and Design. After visiting Richmond’s Markel Building for ideas, students designed and built their own structures inspired

by the unique look of the Markel Building—namely, crinkled foil, sloping walls, and, by association with foil, potatoes. Each building was truly unique and representative of the design group’s personality and collaborative efforts.

TAKING CARE OF OUR PLANET

A huge thank you goes out to the parents and staff on the Black History Month committee, as well as to our wonderful speakers— architects Ashleigh Brewer and Katherine Williams, Sixth Mt. Zion Baptist Church historian Benjamin Ross, and community leader and Jackson Ward enthusiast Gary Flowers.

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

Our hardworking Board of Trustees gathered for a retreat focused on the strategic plan. After collecting input from our community—current and past parents, faculty members, and alumnae—the Board is finalizing the Strategic Plan that will guide Orchard House School as we approach our 25th anniversary in the 23-24 school year.

To support the OHS mission, visit the support page on our website.

tinyurl.com/supportohs

OHS families broke out the sunscreen, sun hats, and trowels to volunteer with Capital Trees, removing invasive species and planting native grasses on their newest public green space, the Low Line.

Capital Trees specializes in sustainable landscaping of public green spaces, and the Low Line is located along the Capital Trail near Dock and 17th. It’s freshly weeded now, but like all public green spaces, it’s a work in progress that takes regular upkeep.

2019 OHS grad Sage Parker stopped in to share her experience as Vice President of her high school’s Students for Environmental Action club, as well as a host of concrete things students can do in the name of environmental conservation. Some of the takeaways included staying mindful of the amount of methane meat production creates, building in daily routines like turning off lights regularly and composting, and remembering that the mantra of reduce, reuse, and recycle is intended to be practiced in that exact order.

Students quickly mobilized to plan a day of action for the Fox Elementary book fund following the school’s fire. We were heartened to see the widespread spirit of support throughout the school and proud

COMMUNITY FRIDGEJUMPING INTO ACTION of the students who organized all the efforts, from planning, to promotion, to collecting donations for Jammin’ in Our Jammies day. The Fox Strong support squad was able to send $511 to the Friends of Fox on behalf of the students and staff at Orchard House.

The 7th grade homeroom focused on connections this year, and one way they connected was by packing the RVA Community Fridge at Oakwood Arts full of homecooked meals and snacks inspired by Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month.

RVA Community Fridges maintains take-what-you-need, give-whatyou-can refrigerators publicly accessible 24/7 to anyone in need of healthy, homemade meals.

8TH GRADE FUNDRAISING

The Class of 2022 participated in Orchard House’s first philanthropy workshop for students. The 8th graders heard from local philanthropists about their approaches to giving over a lunch provided by Devon Henry and Team Henry Enterprises. Students talked about causes that felt important to them, as well as ways of raising funding that showcased their talents and maximized resources. They chose to raise funds for OHS Tuition Assistance and centered their efforts on Spirit Week and the school dance. Coupled with a donor match, their efforts raised over $1,600!

FUNDRAISING EFFORTS

8th graders planned, promoted, and ran a wildly successful carpool bakesale as part of their fundraising efforts for the OHS Tuition Assistance fund.

RESPONSIVENESS

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

• Morning carpool bake sale featuring sweet treats, glutenfree goodies, and vegan bites

• Daily candy count contests during Spirit Week—winners left school with that day’s entire candy jar!

• Proceeds from school dance admission ticket sales

• Raffle tickets for dance night giveaways, including a coveted history homework pass and an ice cream outing with Ms. Leeth

The Class of 2022 turned the annual school dance into an event for a cause, acting as emcees, welcoming guests, and announcing the winners of the night’s popular raffle prizes.

STUDENT TAKEAWAYS FROM THE CAMPAIGN

• It felt really great, especially because it’s going to a good cause: so other girls can come to OHS and get as good of an education as I know I’ve gotten from this school.

• We had a woman come talk to us from The Sisters Fund, which is run by Black women who donate a certain amount of money to be part of the organization, and then each year they decide, based on what they believe, what they want to support that year.

• Even though it was a lot of work getting everything prepared, I knew that this was important. This is more than a dance—it’s what we’re doing to help other people around the area.

• It has a bigger impact than just within the Orchard House community. It lets others come into the Orchard House community, and I think that’s really important.

Orchard House School

N. Allen Avenue | Richmond, VA 23220 orchardhouse.org | 804.228.2436

ORCHARD HOUSE HEALTHY MINDS

In the 21-22 school year, the school launched Orchard House Healthy Minds (OHHM) pilot program, designed to support our students as they navigate normal developmental issues with peers or academic pressure and concerns. Students worked with Louise O’Connor, a licensed therapist who facilitated weekly classes during the OHS Explore program. Each quarter, one grade had extended time in class to learn about and discuss healthy coping skills. Students covered topics like managing stress in healthy ways, conflict resolution, and self-awareness.

Setting aside class time for students to engage in developmentally-appropriate class discussions about the stressors of middle school and the specific mental health needs of adolescent girls is one facet of the support offered. The OHHM program complements the work of the homeroom teachers, whose daily class meetings form a large part of the socialemotional learning for OHS girls. A counseling pilot program also allowed students to take part in one-on-one talks with Ms. O’ Connor about friendships, schoolwork, and other dayto-day conflicts.

In addition to student programs, O’Connor also offered regular Coffee with the Counselor sessions for parents. As a middle school that begins in the 5th grade, Orchard House supports girls as they exit their tween years and begin the onset of rapid change in adolescence. Parent sessions are geared toward letting families know the kinds of challenges they can expect to see as their daughters start the important work of identity formation. Families leave the sessions with tools for having difficult conversations, for understanding the emotional roots of adolescent behavior, and for balancing independence and boundaries with love and support.

Counselor Louise O’Connor, who helped OHS establish the Orchard House Healthy Minds pilot program, which supports the mental health of OHS students.