News & Weekly Letters

Raise your hand if you’ve ever seen a pair of scissors the size of the ones used last night to cut the ribbon at the Inauguration ceremony for our new building. And yet, those same enormous scissors suddenly seemed minuscule when the moment came to do the deed. We felt the collective strength of the community, as if the 300 people present—as well as those who couldn’t make it—were holding the scissors along with Philippe and the Consul General.

And here we are—hard to believe—on the brink of our first break of the year. Out of everything that’s happened this back-to-school season, I’d like to linger on last Friday’s In-Service Day, a rare occurrence with the whole team at school minus the kids! It was an opportunity for us to receive some professional development training from Sophie—talented and tireless as ever—on the Universal Design for Learning—a notion I will return to in a future letter—that had us all glued to our seats.

This week was an unusual one for me, as I made a whirlwind trip to France to be with my dad on his 80th birthday. I’ve already written about him here and here. I hadn’t planned on flying home, but when I heard that a little get-together was planned in one of Lyon’s finest brasseries, I felt a pang of regret and booked my flights on the spot. I’ve missed a lot in my more than 20 years living abroad: birthdays, anniversaries, and more difficult moments too—waiting anxiously on the phone, hoping for good news, and not being able to say goodbye to my grandmother, who passed away when I was living in Shanghai.

I was struck once again yesterday by the wonderful energy of our community, gathered on the roof of 206 for the first Apéro of the year. It was pretty warm up there, but we had a lovely time, with the added bonus of no sudden downpour putting an end to the party. The evening was all the more welcome because my first few weeks (and Sophie’s) have been and will continue to be largely dedicated to something else entirely: the renewal of the school’s accreditation. For those who don’t know, The École is accredited by the French Ministry of Education, which means we are accountable to the French authorities, which is only fair, given the numerous benefits the accreditation brings, from allowing us to recruit certified teachers and access professional development opportunities, to belonging to an international network of French schools.

Even though we’re settling into new routines, we are still making discoveries in our new space. For example, yesterday evening, while fiddling with a button, trying to figure out what it was, someone accidentally set off an alarm during After-School. The good news is that everyone who was in the building immediately took the necessary steps. It was the second time an alarm rang out yesterday at 115t—earlier in the day, the whole building had a fire drill. Again, everyone did as they should. Proof that, unlike me—who still barges into Mireille’s office every five minutes thinking it’s mine—everyone is finding their bearings in the building.