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A new semester starts this week, and NEW is the word of the day.  Teachers are back in the rooms scrubbing, reorganizing, moving, and getting ready for another great 5 months of learning.  Click through the photos below to see photos of some of the changes and excitement (and mess) of preparation:

• Carlos is back to teach 11/12 Spanish! In a new room upstairs shared with…
• Carmen, who has a new bright, sunny, spacious art room (formerly the 7/8 room), which means that…
• McCullough, our new Social Studies teacher, is down in Carlos’ old room (which used to be the old meeting house)
• Speaking of which, check out the beautiful new meeting room floor!
• And a new schedule to highlight separate English and Social Studies teachers, and separated math classes for 5-8 – yet more in the string of academic improvements we just couldn’t wait until next year to try out

The rest of the photos (click through them) are just the mess of reorganizing and teachers excited to welcome back students on Wednesday.  It’s been a long, relaxing break, and we’re all looking forward to getting back to what we love.

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For our last newsletter, we talked with Co-Director Debbie Galusha about improvements to our academic services since she joined the school 10 months ago.  Here’s some of what we learned:

The school has recognized the wide array of responsibilities of “Head of School” by expanding it to two “Co-Head” positions.  While Rick Juliusson takes care of outreach and shares the typical director duties, Debbie is able to put much more focus on academics and meeting teacher and student needs, including:

• Regular classroom observation, teacher evaluation and mentoring to help teachers reach learning goals
• Direct tutoring of students to prepare for SAT exams, provide remedial help,  and even launch a “Saturday School” for students not completing assignments or needing extra help
• Support teachers in creating benchmarks and “sequencing” for all subjects, ensuring a smooth transition between grades and students entering high school with all the necessary background.

Some new or expanded initiatives include:

• Part-time ESL teacher (new position) to support the growing number of local students who do not speak English at home and need more support to succeed at our bilingual school
• Full-time Special Education teacher (formerly part-time) to do direct work with students and provide support and planning with the full team of teachers
• Half-time assistant (new position) for the grade 3/4 class
• Study hall continues after school where teachers provide extra instruction and support for completing assignments
• Professional development – With support from the Cresson Fund, we have contracted expert teacher Rebecca Goertzel to teach effective teaching strategies over the full year
• Big brother/sister program – popular for all ages!

For our accelerated/gifted students, we have been able to start offering:

• “Coursera” – free online college courses
• Kahn Academy – online instruction and exercises for both accelerated and remedial students
• One student has started an AP Honors course online – the first international student to be admitted to this US-based program
• Two students were taken to San Jose to write the “PSAT”, helping them identify what areas need more study before the full SAT’s, and making them eligible for the National Merit Scholars program.
• We are now certified to administer SATs onsite, and hope to do PSATs next year

Yes we have a lot of fun here (such as Debbie skipping, below).  The blog and Facebook posts are often about our Coffee House, Service Days, sports, etc – they’re a lot easier to take photos of!  But our focus on academic excellence is unwavering.  Thank you Debbie!

Four months into my time here at Monteverde Friends School, far from our families in the U.S. and Canada, we are abundantly thankful for this beautiful community and school.  My personal shortlist includes:

1. My children are happy.

  They were quickly accepted into the school, not only in their own classes but by students young and old, and the whole faculty.  They feel held, and I feel like they are getting a top-notch education – academics, social, moral, linguistic.  Our eldest boy, in grade 8, wrote, “I have been at this school only a couple months and I already feel like it is where I want to finish my education.”

2. Teamwork.

  While my co-Director Debbie was away on Tuesday, we suddenly realized that one of our teachers was home sick (and had properly notified Debbie, who unfortunately was on the bus!).  Emmanuel immediately gave up his precious prep time to jump in with the kids, sick Kate sent me the lesson plan, Danielle helped me find the sub list, brave Heather gave up her free day to rush up and take the class, and I subbed for the final hour when Heather had to leave again.  There was no hesitation – we all did what we needed for the children and for our sick colleague.

3. Community.

  Since 1950, our Quaker founders and the thousands who have followed have lived, worked and grown together with a tight inter-weaving of lives.  While newcomers to some communities have trouble breaking into such a tight shell, here in Monteverde we have been taken in with open arms.  We have quickly been absorbed onto soccer teams, Christmas choir, women’s group, Tuesday morning hikes and “Coffee Klatch”, Friday afternoon Scrabble, spiritual sharing groups, and of course committees and more committees.  Tonight we had to choose between a few invitations to Thanksgiving parties, all involving school staff, meeting members, and greater community friends.  (We chose the one with the banana-leaf-wrapped pig being roasted.)

4. Nature. 

Our family started this Thansgiving morn with a hike in the Monteverde Cloud Forest.  The boys happily (with a bribe of a visit to the ice-cream factory after) came along, discovering birds and tree shapes and life I could have easily missed with my adult eyes.  We regularly take advantage of the FREE (for school families) access to numerous wildlife preserves in the area.  And when we don’t, we still wake up to birds, howler monkeys, and hummingbirds, and walk to school through a mix of cloud (literally, through…) and sun.  We don’t visit nature in Monteverde; we live with it.

5. Peace

Tuesday we will celebrate Abolition of the Army day, one of the biggest days in this proudly-peaceful country.  From lack of an army to a very small and lightly-armed police force, to a very very low crime rate here in our cloud-forest town, we feel safe day and night.  And that same Peace emanates from the Quakers and neighbours – a people choosing Peace and love over conflict and fear.

I hope that our dear friends and supporters throughout the United States are able to enjoy friends, family and celebrate your own rich blessings this Thanksgiving Day.  Thank you for being part of our community and part of our reason to feel thankful here at Monteverde Friends School.

– Rick Juliusson, co-Director

Move over Gallo Pinto and tortillas, it’s Culture Day in Costa Rica!  At Monteverde, that means children bringing food and sharing traditions from their many diverse home cultures.

Poutine – an instant Canadian heart attack consisting of fries smothered in gravy and cheese curds – was just one of the yummy offerings children brought to share.  But before that indulgence, we were treated to various performances and presentations.  The grade 7-8 social studies class let us know about the food, armies, clothing etc of ancient China.  The grade 5-6’s each wrote and sung a verse about the highlights of their culture (evidently, Americans highly value hotdogs, Coke and baseball.  And the highschool students learned a traditional American folk dance (the guy with the beard is our beloved Benito, an MFS grad from before time began).  And of course we all played together – games from all over the world.

Monteverde Friends School is a rich cultural learning environment thanks to the mix of international study-abroad students, families who have come for one or a few years, families who have laid deep long-term roots in the community, and of course the majority of students who are from local families.  Culture Day is a fun way to celebrate and learn more about our diversity, and of course a great excuse to eat gravy and cheese curds…

We start every morning together at Monteverde Friends School. Daily assemblies provide a rich 10 minutes to gather as a community (one of the core Quaker values of our school), celebrate birthdays, share announcements, then do some fun activity together.  Not always yoga, but very often laughing.

This week we have enjoyed a sing-along song/story, learned about local bird calls, drawn names out of a hat then shared one thing we appreciate about that person, and of course, laughing yoga.

It’s no stretch of the imagination to see how laughter and movement are an ideal way to start a Wednesday morning. Children from 4 to 74 sharing in the sounds and belly-feeling of merriment, encouraging each other to express joy, and getting juices flowing to the body and brain.

We walked out to class, as we usually do, feeling like we’re in this beautiful school together. At Monteverde Friends School, learning doesn’t begin when the bell rings; it begins when we open ourselves to learning. Morning assembly, in all its creative iterations, accomplishes just that.