From the director:

Today’s column will be a collection of good things happening around school.

Mike Orlando, 6th grade humanities teacher, has been accepted into the Klingenstein Summer Institute. This program promotes leadership among independent school teachers and administrators (and it is very hard to get accepted). Congratulations!

Our 8th graders have received high school acceptance letters from The Bay School, Convent of the Sacred Heart, Drew, International High School, Lick Wilmerding, Lowell, Sacred Heart Prep, Saint Ignatius, San Domenico, Stuart Hall, University, and Urban. This variety of schools reflects the wonderful variety we see in our graduates. Congratulations to all!

Thanks to all of our wonderful Spring Fling volunteer parents, we raised the budgeted amount of money and we had a good party. Thank you to everyone who joined the fun.

Wendy Flurry, Sue’s long term sub, was given a Best Substitute Teacher framed certificate by some of her students. This was planned and executed by students, none of the adults knew what was happening. Thanks to Wendy for doing such a great job and thanks to our kids for recognizing her talents and dedication.

Sue Marvit is doing well in her recovery and will return to teaching within in a few weeks. She is the recipient of a 2004 Herbst Award For Teaching Excellence. This award takes the form of an unconditional grant of $2,000 to Sue and another grant of $1,000 to Presidio Hill for continuing education and training for teachers. Congratulations!

We have hired a learning specialist to work with the middle school one day a week. Please welcome Lisa Mackey to our ranks. She has many years experience working in schools and teaching, holds a Master’s Degree in Special Education and is a Certified Educational Therapist. Lisa will be working closely with teachers, Ann and Karen to establish continuity in programs and to get to know the students. At this point her time is limited because of additional teaching and tutorial obligations, but she is delighted to join the school community and work with middle school students and faculty. It is anticipated that her responsibilities will continue into next year.

Faculty and staff spent time working on the Program Excellence portion of the strategic plan during the in-service day, March 29th. Stay tuned for more information about upcoming community meetings regarding the strategic plan. Other teachers visited schools including Redwood Day, Park Day, Synergy, San Francisco School, and Pacific Primary. We will spend time in an upcoming staff meeting hearing about activities and programs at these school we might want to incorporate into our teaching.

My favorite moment was sitting in a classroom to observe a visiting teacher. He asked the students to write a poem in response to a musical selection. The students were given one minute. My first thought was “Oh my gosh! This is asking too much in too short of a time period.” I was wrong! Here is a sample:

    quick, joyful music
             made for step-high dances
     go on forever

Happy Spring,

Ann Meissner
Acting Director

From The Deans

Hello everyone,

I frequently write as the Learning Specialist, so I decided to write from the perspective of the Lower School Dean this week. One of the jobs of the Lower School and Middle School Deans is to oversee the hiring process for teachers in our respective divisions. Consequently, I have literally been reading hundreds of resumes, talking with dozens of applicants on the phone and meeting with a small handful of them during school visits. I love talking about our school and showing people around. I am also very impressed by the questions people ask. One theme that emerges in these questions is around professional development. In the world of teachers, professional development takes many forms and is often considered a real job perk.

Professional development at PHS includes staff meetings, mentoring, attendance at outside conferences, regular meetings with colleagues, and shared curriculum planning. By the time the year is over our lower school staff meetings will have formally addressed dyslexia, mixed race identity development, supporting Asian American students, how to talk and teach about diverse families, attention deficit disorder/sensori-motor dysfunction, social skill development, and spelling, reading, and math curriculums. Informally, we have talked about every aspect of our curriculum – sharing both challenges and ideas.

Our mentoring program has grown and formalized this year with the addition of four new faculty members in the lower school. All new teachers and administrators were paired with a veteran staff member as their mentor for the year. Everyone involved received a handbook with expectations and topics to discuss. I have met regularly with both the mentors and the mentees to fine tune our program. And we are already in the midst of creating revisions to the mentoring program and handbook for next year.

This year some of my favorite times have been those spent in one-on-one meetings with lower school faculty. Our topics have been far ranging – curriculum, bullying and conflict resolution, parent communication, budget, classroom management, field trips. I have learned so much from these opportunities to help teachers puzzle through the hundreds of decisions they make on a daily basis. (And every once in awhile, I go back into the classroom and try my hand at teaching. I leave these experiences with a renewed sense of respect for the job our teachers do day in and day out.) So, it is with pride that I describe our professional development opportunities to teaching candidates and look forward to welcoming new teachers to PHS.

Ann Meissner
Lower School Dean, Learning Specialist