Dear Parents,
As we begin the first day of school, a new chapter in the story of Escuela has already begun. On August 1, I officially became Executive Director of Escuela del Sol and Harwood Art Center. I am so excited to join all of you in this wonderful community! It is an honor to be the organization’s first new executive director in many decades. Friedje, our beloved founder-director, will continue to offer guidance and expertise as we navigate this change. And, when the whole community is able to come together, we will celebrate her, and her 41 years of dedication and service, as well as new horizons that lay ahead as we move forward into Escuela’s future.
The staff has been working together this summer to prepare for an amazing 54th school year for Escuela del Sol. We are looking forward to partnering with our community in the nurturing, education and care of your children. We are excited to have some new faces around campus: we have new classroom guides at all levels, and we welcome the many new families who are joining our community.
By design, Friedje and I wanted to work together to make this transition from founder-director to new Executive Director feel organically “Escuela.” As a leaderful organization of lifelong learners, we wanted to ensure the transition process tapped into the deep well of knowledge in our community of experts. As valued members of our community, I’d love to share with you a bit of context as to what that transition process has looked like thus far:
In January 2021, I began the process of meeting with every member of the Escuela and Harwood staff to learn about the organization from the people who are at the heart of it. Those meetings were about looking at the organization as whole and discovering each person’s Escuela story. By March, with the guidance and support of Linh Nguyen: former parent, current Harwood Artist, and nationally-recognized expert on organizational development and change, we began setting a path forward, beginning by defining what we are calling our Guiding North Star. At Escuela, it is the child who guides us in everything we do. We follow each child on their unique path to becoming a lifelong learner. And the Harwood Art Center – celebrating its 30th anniversary this year!– as the community outreach arm of Escuela, is a natural extension of that mission.
The process continued with a series of stakeholder meetings — guides, administrators, Harwood staff, Board Members, and you, the parents, to begin a process of co-envisioning the future we want to build for Escuela based on the incredible work done by Friedje and all of the members of the Escuela community — not just for the immediate future, but for the next 50 or 100 years.
Each meeting produced a beautiful series of questions about our needs as individuals and as an organization. And one of the main themes that has emerged was the need to define and clarify staff roles. For many years, Friedje has served as both Executive Director and Head of School, but this process revealed that the organization has outgrown that model. As a result, I will be focusing my energy on growing Escuela and Harwood as the Executive Director to support our organization’s growth. I will be working with our Level Directors for Early Childhood, Elementary and Jr. High and, rather than having a Head of School, we will function as a leadership team, along with the Administrative Director overseeing the administrative aspects of the school. This team of experts will allow us to maximally support children, families and guides as we continue to deepen and expand our mission.
The reorganization of roles might look different on the surface, but while some of the titles have changed, we are building on the coaching system that has been in place at Escuela for nearly three years. We’ve chosen to rename these roles from level coordinators to Level Directors. Director is a verb, and these roles require action and innovation in supporting children, families and guides. As trained Montessori educators and coaches, Ms. Dana McCabe (Early Childhood), Ms. Sarah Louderbough (Elementary), and Ms. Tanesia Hale-Jones (Jr. High) have years of classroom experience, and have been part of our community, as guides, students and parents, for decades. What is so exciting about this model is that it allows our leadership to get to know each child and family in a much more in-depth way, to have time in the classroom and weekly one-on-one meetings with guides, and in general to be of service by working (in collaboration with guides and families), to best serve the children in their level.
By refining and redefining some of the innovative educational practices Escuela has been implementing for years, we strive to model the culture of lifelong learning, adaptation and growth mindset that we aim to build for our community in their educational journey at Escuela.
COVID PROTOCOL UPDATE
Finally, while everyone at Escuela is ready to move on from this global pandemic – and we are sure you are, too – I want to assure you that we are still taking a thorough approach to ensuring the safety for your children and our entire community. You’ll see that we have clarified our drop off and pick up procedures, and updated our policies on parents entering campus, as well as making changes to comply with New Mexico Public Education Department (PED) and New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department (ECECD) guidelines. Please read the Operating Plan carefully, and feel free to contact the office if you have any questions.
It was my pleasure to meet some of you as we welcomed parents back onto campus for our Classroom Visits, and I look forward to meeting each and every one of you in due course. I am thrilled to be a part of the growth and blooming of Escuela-Harwood as we embark on a new school year together!
Warmly,
Kate Chavez,
Executive Director
