The faculty at this school are tinkers....always honing systems, poking at policies, trying anew. The block schedule, for example, is amended slightly every year, and now features a new G Block. We start each school year with a novel approach, and yesterday--while returning students returned--dedicated attention to new students and their on-campus orientation. Moving in groups, we met with faculty responsible for health, mental health, athletics, information retrieval, math placement, harrassment issues and technology. It worked. Here, early in the day, a drowsy crowd checks out Lovejoy Library:
While the Harrassment Team might be called upon to pursue actual complaints, its function today is tone-setting: establishing a campus climate in which everyone can feel safe and comfortable.
Ninety minutes are dedicated to technology, as--for the third year in a row--laptops are distributed, plugged in, turned on, and explored for the first time.
Teachers are similarly focussed on a new database program that brings every course syllabus, roster and gradebook to one's personal homepage. More on that later. Today, we march through all six academic blocks in a schedule designed only for this special moment. And so it goes.
