Back-to-School Time!
Dear Soundview Family,
It’s back-to-school time! A big welcome to our whole Soundview family! The faculty, staff, and I are excited to see you all soon! We’ve been busy preparing the campus and curriculum for the upcoming school year. We’re looking forward to outdoor school, the Fall Ball, new units, and more.
The start of any school year is a big transition for children, parents, and teachers. Here are a few things, appropriate for all early childhood through eighth grade aged students to help with this transition:
Expect the full spectrum of emotions from yourself and your child. Remember that an emotion is not a problem to solve. Emotion does not always require explanation. Embrace our natural transition process. Practice holding space for emotions to come and go.
Start practicing an evening and a morning routine. Work together with your child to make a simple checklist for your routines. Reign in screen-time and write a set of screen-time agreements with time limits for the entire school year.
Remember that you don’t need to have all of the answers to your students' questions about, “what school will be like.” Write them down and bring them to Dolphin Day (see below). Or, use questions as a tool for processing and naming emotions that come with the start of school.
We have a few announcements to share:
The Soundview board of trustees has been working for the last year on the next set of strategic priorities for Soundview. These are the priorities and goals for the next three to five years. Look for regular communication about the strategic priorities. Three independent school consultants facilitated planning sessions with our board and community members last school year. This school year, we start work on two priorities, which are:
Deepening Soundview’s commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.
Defining Soundview’s future growth, including a campus and facilities plan.
Soundview was the first International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Program (MYP) in the state of Washington. Every five years since our authorization in 2009, we go through a program evaluation. The evaluation process includes policy and curriculum review, as well as a visit from IB educators. 2023-2024 is an evaluation year for our middle years program. Look for more information throughout the year.
See you soon,
Chris
Chris Watson, Soundview Head of School
One more thing:
On this day in 2012, NASA’s Voyager 1 was the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space. It was launched on September 5, 1977, left the heliosphere — the part of space that is influenced by our Sun — on this day. In February 1990, the spacecraft took the first overview picture of the solar system. It is the most distant man-made object in space. Learn more about the Voyager missions HERE.
