These are just a few of the stories that abound at Singapore American School. With nearly 10,000 students, educators, and parents, SAS is a vibrant tapestry composed of many diverse individual threads. We celebrate the uniqueness and diversity of these many threads and, equally, we need each separate thread to cohere together with all the other threads to provide strength. Without each member of our community contributing, this would simply not work. I had the opportunity last year to hear so many of your voices—students, teachers, parents, alumni, school leaders—during my listening tour. I was energized by the thoughtfulness and diversity of the voices I heard. Each voice presented their own unique ideas and perspectives, but all the voices had in common a love for SAS and a determination to help us continue to grow. One of the nicest aspects of being back in school this fall has been the chance to resume these conversations and further our dialogue. As a wonderfully diverse school with students, teachers, and parents from over 60 different countries, we celebrate the variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and life experiences that our community members bring to the school. That diversity is a principal driver of excellence in the school because it enriches our students’ learning experiences. We stress with our students the importance of respecting and celebrating the different backgrounds, identities, and cultures of each student. Equally, we celebrate all that we have in common as students and educators across our diverse cultures. During a year when we were often separated by events out of our control, the unity with which our diverse threads came together has been one of the aspects of my time here that I most value. The year 2020 was a rollercoaster ride filled with numerous ups, downs, twists, and turns. In a year where we spent two months going to school virtually and most of us were unable to return home to visit our family and friends, our community helped us not only make it through this crisis but, far more often than not, thrive in it. My family and I are grateful for the support we received from so many of you. I am also grateful for the stories I hear regularly about families looking after one another. In talking to our teachers, I have consistently heard them applaud their professional learning community teams as a great source of strength, collaboration, and support in addressing the year’s challenges.
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My hope is that we will continue to come together as a community, celebrate both our differences and our commonalities, and bring our unique talents, stories, and experiences to campus each day. Tom Boasberg Another great example of our community's coherence has been our educators’ commitment to giving back to the school. Last year, over 60 percent of our educators participated in our annual fund challenge, in which we raised well over S$100,000 dedicated to professional learning for our instructional assistants and a similar amount for the development of teacher leadership opportunities. Our educators’ 60+ percent participation rate was more than three times higher than any previous year's. It is a striking sign of our educators’ willingness to give back and support the development of their instructional assistant and teacher colleagues. Likewise, our parent community gave generously. When a number of our families encountered financial difficulties as a result of the pandemic’s economic effects, parents stepped up and donated more than S$135,000 to our new Compassion Fund. Donations to the Compassion Fund helped students stay in school despite their families’ economic challenges. It is not possible at this point to know what twists and turns lie in front of us. My hope is that we will continue to come together as a community, celebrate both our differences and our commonalities, and bring our unique talents, stories, and experiences to campus each day.
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