Principal’s Report
June, 2007

Staffing and structuring: What we proposed earlier in the meeting should engender confidence in the staff’s resilience, dedication, and talent. I think we have, in fact, solved several problems at once and gone beyond merely assuring continuing coverage of subjects and program and actually improved what we’re doing for kids in numerous s areas. We’ll be a stronger Adams School.

Whoosh factor—better this year. We met as a faculty at the beginning of May and made a solemn pack not to add any “new business,” once May and June had been planned. We’ve stuck to it, and so the close of the school year actually has less going on, and a much saner tempo. Perhaps you feel it too?

Summer work on building: My goals are to have a thorough attic clean out in August—we have the possibility of an MMA football team crew doing community service by forming a “bucket brigade” down the stairs from the attic and into the waiting dump truck; painting and cleaning the normal number of rooms. Modest room remodeling, as needed by restructuring room usage.

No Otter House camp this year. We have had no request from Otter House for their usual summer camp use of the school.

Graduation: Next Wednesday at 12:30.  Four 8th graders will graduate: Storme, Dave, Colby, Matthew. I hope you can join us as we honor them and send them on. We’ll have a few other moments in the program to reflect on this year, and honor other contributors to our success.

Yearbooks 2007 Edition…sneak preview—tonight only! The plan is to hand them out early next week, Monday or Tuesday. We’ll have DVDs of the school play too—one to a family.

French box and correspondence: Dolphin, and all manner of Castine artifacts and goodies, are on their way to the kids in St. Castin, France. A huge box was ceremoniously mailed on Friday, the whole school walking it to the P.O. and turning it over to Mr. Rollins. I’ll open it with the St. Castin kids when I arrive there the week of June 25th. Meanwhile, we’ve been sending them letters with photos—they’ve been received over there. Nice correspondence developing. Maybe more? Je ne sais pas! Peut-etre.

8th grade trip: A great success—I think the two boys would agree. In addition to some very entertaining Boston shows and places –Blue Man Group, Hard Rock Café, etc—we repeated our behind-the-scenes access to the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology and the New England Aquarium. Of course most of the learning took place just navigating the subway, sidewalks, and escalators of the big city.
    Thinking about next year’s trip has already started: numerous kids have asked, “Do we have to go to Boston?” Can they possibly be jaded by 7th grade?

Timber Frame: It made it through the winter in good shape, but we gotta finish it this summer! Still need porch roof and lots of shingling…sometime in July.

Kindergarten Screening: As expected, we had two kindergartners pre-enroll for next year.



Todd R. Nelson
Principal
nelsontr@verizon.net