Back to School

This is it--the first week of school.

After three years of moving, all the students are on one campus, and the campus is ALL ours. We don't share with Larchmont Charter, and we don't share with Rosewood. We don't have to tiptoe around and make other principals happy and pretend it is not a big deal. And all of our students can be on one campus--with noone squeezed into a divided classroom.

We can paint the way we want to, set up our library the way we want to, and grow our garden the way we want to. Our school now starts at conventional hours and we make our own rules.

I always felt blessed to be at LCW, but what a huge difference it makes to have a place of your own.

Psychologically it feels like now Kristin (our amazing principle) can settle in and really hone the vision, work on the education, think only about the students.

Of course this is just an illusion.

At this moment our current campus is at capacity. We fit K through 3. Next year, when we add the new kindergarten we will be K through 4, and then what?

But here is the most fascinating thing. In three years the school has gone from being a pioneering experiment that drew parents willing to take a wild chance on a start-up, to an established and desirable school with hundreds of people in the lottery praying they will get in. The teachers are set, the curriculum is set, some test scores are in (yes! the constructivist education currriculum with an eye to academics and an acceptance of state testing is really working! wow!).

And already the vibe of the school is shifting from the homesteader/pioneer mindset to the safer, I just want a good school for my kid, mindset. Both are important. And it is good to have a rest. It is exhilarating, but also tiring, to always be a pioneer.

Besides, come January, the crazy scramble for site will begin again.