Weekly Email April 14, 2005

Dear all,

Important announcement: Parents of 11th Graders, please read this notice from Director of College Guidance Amy Shapiro about the upcoming college trip on Wednesday April 20 and Thursday April 21. The most crucial reminder - the trip starts when the students arrive at 7:00 AM on Wednesday morning!

Typically, we have hit the ground running as Trimester III begins. There were some exciting events over the past week at Charlton Street:

* On Saturday, we had an extended Coffee House. As usual, the Jazz Band played a nice number, and there were performances by a good number of student and faculty combos. We then had two featured performances by the Medics and the Hysterics, two bands which include LREI High School students. The PAC was packed, and a fabulous time was had by all.

* On Tuesday, the High School celebrated Poem In Your Pocket Day with an assembly dedicated to student and faculty readings. Many members of the community read old favorites, while others read original works. As always, long-time History teacher Mark Bledstein closed the show, this time with a rousing rendition of a monologue from the movie Slam. PIYP Day was actually designated for Wednesday; however, we read our poetry on Tuesday because of another important event on Wednesday ...

* On Wednesday, more than thirty-five high school students participated in a national Day of Silence, organized at LREI by the Lesbian Gay Straight Alliance. Each student wore a rainbow ribbon and carried a card that read:

Please understand my reasons for not speaking today. I am participating in the Day of Silence, a national youth movement protesting the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies. My deliberate silence echoes that silence, which is caused by harassment, prejudice, and discrimination. I believe that ending the silence is the first step toward fighting these injustices. Think about the voices that you are not hearing today. What are you going to do to end the silence?

The Day of Silence, a project of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Educators Network (GLSEN) in collaboration with the United States Student Association (USSA), is a student-led day of action where those who support making anti-LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) bias unacceptable in schools take a day-long vow of silence to recognize and protest the discrimination and harassment -- in effect, the silencing -- experienced by LGBT students and their allies.

There was another event on Tuesday evening - Phil, Director of Admissions Samantha Caruth, a number of faculty and students and I talked to parents of current fifth through seventh graders about the High School. Afterward, one parent approached me to say how impressive our students were as they talked about their enthusiasm for their curricular and extracurricular lives at LREI. All of these events together remind me of our commitment to celebrate the intellectual and the aesthetic and the principles of social justice, and to do so every week and every day.

Two more items:

1) Please see the attached Literary Committee "Stay-at-Home" Flyer.

2) Saturday's Family Sing dedicated to former LREI music teacher Charity Bailey was a remarkable community event, highlighted by the surprise visit of Pete Seeger, who knew Charity when she taught at LREI and came to help us celebrate her musical legacy. For more on the event, including a wonderful photo gallery, go to Nick O'Han's message at http://www.lrei.org/whoweare/family_sing.html.

Take care,

Tony


UPCOMING EVENTS

Friday, April 15 - School closed - High School Professional/Planning Day

Tuesday, April 19, 6:30 PM - High School Parent Reps Meeting, Charlton Street

Wednesday, May 4, 6:30 PM - The Big Auction


As always, please browse the web site at www.lrei.org for updates and information about goings on around the school. All attachments are in .pdf format. To view these files, please download Adobe Reader, if you do not already have it. Click on this link or paste it into your browser: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readermain.html.