From the director:

Welcome to the 2003-04 school year! It has been great to see so many of you this week on the sidewalk, at the open houses, during kindergarten visiting day, and at the middle school potluck for new families. A special welcome to all new families—we are delighted to have you join our community, and look forward to getting to know you as the year progresses.

Please also welcome our new Spanish teacher, Andria Orejuela, who will be teaching grades K-3, 6, and 7. Andria is a native Spanish speaker whose undergraduate degree is in Cultural Anthropology with a minor in Visual Arts, from Occidental College in Los Angeles. She has a Master of Arts in Teaching from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, where her program focused on Native communities and multicultural education. Andria is certified to teach art, Spanish, history, and social studies. She student-taught high school and middle school social studies and English, taught special education students in Massachusetts and Washington, tutored K-12 students at the Squaxin Tribal Center in Shelton, Washington, and most recently taught high school Spanish in San Lorenzo. We are very happy to have her! Thanks to Josefina, Karen, Mohammed, and Ann for helping with the late-season hiring.

This was a productive summer at PHS—the first in recent memory that we did not have to move the entire school. Pascale completed the audit in July, a gargantuan job; Martin leapt into his new role working with Dedee and me; Jana interviewed and enrolled several new students; Ann, Karen, Mohammed, and Sara prepared for the start of school in myriad ways; Lisa J made great strides setting up the library with volunteer help from Mimi Palefsky and Abra Greenspan (thank you!); Adra put together our first comprehensive staff handbook; Phil re-organized our network; and much more. It was refreshing to accomplish more than packing and unpacking! Your entire wonderful PHS staff was here for meetings during the week of August 25, and it felt like a great start to the year: high energy, cooperation, enthusiasm, plenty of good ideas, and plenty of laughter. Plus, we now know where all the fire extinguishers are (including the one being used as a door stop). Be sure to check out the new surface and lines on the play yard!

We are developing a new approach for the Friday Letter, which we hope you find useful and informative. Our goal is for the entire community to be better informed about curriculum and other activities at school. There will be weekly remarks from me, and from the deans and teachers on a rotating basis. Lower school classroom teachers will still write a weekly missive. We plan to feature updates throughout the year from the board, strategic planning committee, diversity committee, LD parents’ group, library, service learning program, after-school program, technology department, etc. There will be space for student writing and art, and of course for announcements. The Friday Letter will evolve as the year progresses —we hope you enjoy it!

Again, welcome to the year. It ’s going to be a fine one!

From the deans:

On my very first day as a ninth grader at Lick-Wilmerding High School, I can vividly remember my first history class. I was nervous and eager and awkwardly aware; this place was new and different for a ghetto kid like me. My dad was a historian, and I loved history, so I figured I should have no problem with the course. My classmates and I were diligently looking at a picture of the Parthenon in our history books, when our teacher asked, "How many of you have been to Greece? "

The question gave me tremendous pause: "Greece?" I began to chuckle to myself, "Who could afford a trip to Greece?" My parents could barely afford the monthly Muni Fast Pass ($5) I used on my forty-five minute trek across town to Lick. My laughter ended when the hands of my classmates rose like the tails of a pack of happy, excited dogs. As I scanned the room, I realized that I was the only student with my hand down. A sudden panic took over—I was the only one who had not been to Greece! My teacher was the first to look upon me as a bizarre anomaly, stares from my classmates followed. As I scanned the room, confronting the silent audience of eyes, tears formed, and a strange mixture of fear, embarrassment, bewilderment, and anger collected in my throat.

Presidio Hill School is a place of exploration, growth, and learning, but it is also a place/space of power and awe. PHS’ location alone, between the opulent mansions of Presidio Heights, will intimidate many new students, parents, and "staculty" (i.e. staff and faculty) members. As a growing community, it will be increasingly necessary for our socio-psychological health to continue to address issues of class, privilege, and access alongside race, gender, ability, and sexuality.

After a short summer spent gathering information about PHS dynamics, I strongly believe that the Office of Multicultural Programs and Services (OMPS) needs to spend this year focused on community-wide healing. My goal is to put the fun back into diversity and multiculturalism, to promote a truly inclusive, positive environment that honestly honors and celebrates everyone’s culture and ethnicity, regardless of class and circumstance, to elevate our student body with rich curriculum and unwavering support, to create a real and earnest place/space where no question is stupid, where every movement we make contains the conscious essence of love.

Lofty? Yes. Doable? Yes. As the Dean of Multicultural Programs & Services, I am hoping to be the person/resource I wish I had years ago at Lick-Wilmerding High School when I didn’t understand or I felt alone. Culture is relative, but our hearts all have the same wondrous capacity to grow and feel and discover beauty in otherness; we see it everyday in our children. Now I realize that it was not about Greece, or access, or privilege, but about not having someone there to fill that space between my questions and my heart.

Mohammed Soriano-Bilal