In the best stories, we lean into the next page with anticipation eager to witness how our protagonists will be changed for the better because of what they've faced. This year our story, like all stories and each new school year, includes change. We're welcoming new 5th graders, new families and new teachers into our community, we're sharing Tony Reimer's leadership with the Lower School and integrating 5/6 and 7/8 deans into the Middle School, and we're focused on discovering innovative new ways to share our joy of learning, intellectual ambition, and passion for global responsibility. The new school year is our inciting incident - the part of our story that pushes us through the door into an experience from which we can't turn back. How we respond is what reveals our character - not only as individuals but as a middle school community. It's what we say and do that determines how we are known. There's no looking back, only forward. In order to be transformed, we have to be willing to experience adventure, and that's what we've done in the Middle School this week. We've stepped out one door and into another adventure. J.R.R. Tolkien urges us to "Remember what Bilbo used to say: It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." My hope for our Middle School community this year is that we will be known by how we kept our feet as we stepped out the door into that adventurous, exhilarating, and joyful business we call learning and that together we will be changed for the better.

Anne Atchison
PreK-8 Administrator & 5/6 Dean of Students