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!
That was exactly what I thought once I had finally succeeded in lacing up my boots, inevitably concluding that it is often the smallest details that make the biggest difference. Take Monday, for example: while the building was closed for the snow day, a small component somewhere in the plumbing of 115 froze and stopped working properly. This triggered a sprinkler to pop, causing flooding in the lobby and significant damage—paint was ruined, and the electrical system was affected. No one is really aware, but we came very close to not being able to reopen the school on Tuesday. And when I say “very close,” it would be misleading to think we were simply lucky in our misfortune. If we were able to welcome everyone back on Tuesday, it was above all thanks to the rapid intervention of Jan, our Director of Facilities, and Raul, his trusted partner, who both—as always—responded magnificently to the emergency.
While visiting NASA during his presidency, JFK is said to have asked a member of the cleaning staff what his role was, to which the man reportedly replied: sending Americans to the Moon. One suspects that this anecdote did not unfold exactly as told, but its message is clear: there are no small tasks that don’t matter. When Jan briefed me on the situation on Monday, his explanation—unlike the water that had reached his knees—was crystal clear: his absolute priority was safely welcoming the children in a few hours. So neither he nor Raul told me—and they likely never will—that their role is to send our children to the best high schools in the city or to provide them with the best possible conditions for learning and growth, but it essentially amounts to the same thing.
Every day, I see my colleagues bringing our shared mission to life, and it all begins with the small details: a kind gesture like helping a child get dressed at dismissal; a reassuring smile; a quiet word of comfort; a minute taken at the end of the day or a shortened break to better support a child; climbing the stairs for the hundredth time in search of a missing sweater or water bottle… At the moment, students are spending a lot of time indoors, and I am a privileged witness to these everyday interactions. They often take place outside the classroom and are not part of any curriculum. They are brief and discreet, and might easily be overlooked. Yet they are crucial and play a vital role in the broader mission of The École and in what we strive to achieve through WE CARE.
To write this letter, I had to go online to look up the word “aglet,” which I didn’t know—even though I need one every day—without ever really understanding its importance or purpose. My colleagues, on the other hand, I see, and I am deeply grateful to them for everything they do. It’s just that I probably don’t tell them often enough. So thank you for giving The École that extra je ne sais quoi that makes it such an exceptional school.