News & Weekly Letters

I’m writing this letter from the airport in Toronto, where I flew on Wednesday to attend a conference with 30 colleagues from other schools like ours that blend two curricula. I also had the pleasure of visiting my friend, Norman Gaudet’s school, Toronto French School, which is renowned as a model for small schools with limited resources.

I never tire of remarking on (and loving) the number of fascinating events that take place at The École. It makes things difficult when I have to travel somewhere for a few days (like Orlando, where I am writing to you from today) because it means I’ll miss something. Occasionally, I decide to turn down prestigious invitations so I can stay at school and keep my FOMO at bay.

It’s time for the first round of parent-teacher conferences, so even though I feel like I’ve barely blinked since back-to-school, enough time has actually passed for our teachers to share some initial feedback about your children. These meetings are an important benchmark in a school’s life, one that justifies the shift from the usual school schedule. This year, there’s an additional feature: a new one-day Elementary camp on Monday, organized at the request of TÉPA and made possible by our new facilities.

No two Thursdays are ever the same at The École. Foie gras and a laid-back vibe last week for the inauguration of 115; pizza and a myriad of costumes last night for the middle schoolers’ first dance of the year (I’m not sharing which evening I enjoyed the most!) Despite their apparent differences, I noticed an obvious similarity between the two events: the desire to come together and have fun. Whether it’s with a glass of champagne or a glass of soda in hand, you can feel the same bond between children as you do between grown-ups, the same wish to spend time with each other, to create connections and memories. Friendship was the overarching theme of both celebrations.

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.