News & Weekly Letters

February Break was an opportunity for me to hit pause on my regular routine and take some time to think. In moments like this, I like to retrace the path I’ve taken and the decisions I’ve made since I took over as head of The École in 2020. It helps, as I prepare for the 2026-2027 school year, ensure that the steps I take now are a logical continuation of what has gone before and are taking us in the right direction. Retracing that path, telling that story, is also a reminder that everything we hope to put in place ultimately takes shape through our colleagues.

This morning, in an attempt to better protect myself from the polar cold that has us all at its mercy, I put on a big pair of boots I hadn’t worn in a long time. So long, in fact, that I had forgotten I had lost one of the tips at the end of a shoelace. That tiny piece of plastic, perfectly anodyne at first glance, is nevertheless of critical importance—and so my day got off to a rather poor start as I struggled to thread a stubborn, frayed lace through a minuscule eyelet. You know me well enough to see where this is going: there is most definitely a metaphor coming!

When I was growing up, my granddad would tell me tales about the winter of ’54, a winter so epic and so bitterly cold that a local lad who had the bright idea of licking the icicles on the Sablière bridge ended up with his tongue stuck to the railings. Warm water was apparently used to free him (my grandfather was a veritable source of anecdotes of dubious veracity). And then, in January 1986, a massive snowstorm hit my small village in the Ardèche, followed by an Arctic freeze that brought all activity to a standstill for two weeks.

There are many ways to gauge a school’s good health. Some are more subjective or harder to define than others. You can mention, for example, how happy our students are when they arrive in the morning or when we see them skipping along the corridors (they never walk; they only skip). You can feel the sense of community at events like last night’s apéro, when we toasted the start of 2026 over a glass of champagne. You can listen to the stories families share about their experiences at The École, from those who have been with us for years to those who joined only a few weeks ago. Each individual account is deeply personal, but pieced together, they sketch out a collective experience. Even though these indicators may seem intangible, I find them invaluable, and I was glad the inspectors felt the same way when they were here in December.