Jan 25, 2019
Athletic training was essential to the Ancient Greek identity. Athletics were viewed as both a preparation for military service and athletic competition, and a way to show off physical prowess. At Washington Latin, we believe that athletics play an important role in developing a well-rounded person. Besides promoting physical fitness, participating in athletics can foster positive mental health, enhance social skills and nurture self-discipline, patience, persistence and resilience.
This year, our athletic department is capably managed by Mr. Bob Eleby-El and his brand new assistant director, Ms. JerBria Smith. Mr. Eleby-El has worn many hats at Washington Latin as a basketball coach, Assistant Principal for Student Life and business manager. In his new role, as Athletic Director, he is doing what he has long wanted to do: apply the skills learned while earning a BA in Sports Management and an MBA to help to build a program that is comprehensive, inclusive, competitive and sustainable. Drawing on his love of teaching, his rapport with students, strong relationships with parents and the respect he commands from the faculty and educators at peer institutions, he is working to establish a program marked by integrity, transparency, innovation and excellence.
We are delighted to welcome home Ms. Smith, who was a member of the second graduating class of Washington Latin onto our faculty this year. She graduated from Barton College in North Carolina. During her academic career, Ms. Smith was named to The National Junior College Athletic Association Women’s Basketball All American Third Team, representing the top players in the country at the Division III level. She was also named to the First Team All-Region team and Second Team All-Conference. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Health Promotion in 2017. Last year she was a physical education teacher at a middle school in Maryland and coached at that school and a DC high school.
Working together, Mr. Eleby-El and Ms. Smith have helped lead students to a strong fall season, featuring outstanding performances in soccer, volleyball, and cross country. This winter, they are working to further develop our newer sports options, including Ms. Kolb’s new swim team (see details below on the first meet). They are working to support our students, coaches, and athletic program by helping with skills, organization, and academic and social support. This twosome makes a powerful team, and, under their guidance, we have high hopes for the future of our athletic program.
Valete!
Peter
Dec 7, 2018
This morning, the District of Columbia unveiled a new DC School Report Card, an interactive website for parents and families with common information about all public schools in our city, both DC Public Schools and charter schools. The Report Card site includes profiles for each school with data and information about academics, school environment, teacher information, school programming, and more.
The stated goal of the DC School Report Card is to “provide transparent and accessible information to parents and families in the District, all in one place.” Included on the site is each school’s rating on the new School Transparency and Reporting (STAR) Framework. Each school receives a one- through five-star rating based on various information, from attendance to graduation rates to PARCC score growth.
The report card, STAR Framework, and “user-friendly” website are all requirements under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), signed into law in December, 2015. The work to meet the legal requirements was led by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE), DC’s state education agency, with feedback from parents, educators and community members.
The report card is designed to offer additional ways for parents and community members to engage with schools. You can access the data and information for Washington Latin by visiting https://dcschoolreportcard.org/. There are separate profiles for our middle school, which received a four-star rating and our upper school, which received a five-star rating. There are some mistakes that we observed in reviewing our school profile and we are hoping to address these with OSSE. Still, we are proud of this external recognition of the fine work that we are doing on behalf of our students. Washington Latin is one of six high schools in the city earning a five-star rating and the only five-star school in Ward 4.
The report card does reveal areas for further work for our school. These are areas already receiving attention from our leadership team. We look forward to providing updates on the initiatives we have put in place to make progress. If you have questions, concerns or suggestions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me.
Valete!
Peter
Nov 30, 2018
During the adolescent years, young people grapple with a variety of major social and emotional issues and need to develop a variety of competencies. These include self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, responsible decision-making and relationship skills. This is a time during which students work out their identities, establish autonomy, develop intimacy and define for themselves what it means to achieve and try to find opportunities for success. Competencies must be developed as students face social cruelty (sometimes in the form of bullying), peer pressure, social anxiety and more.
Washington Latin helps students navigate the challenges of adolescence in a variety of ways, including through our advisory program, health education classes and individual and small-group counseling. One of our newest initiatives, launched this year for students in 6th and 7th grades, is our Youth Empowerment Seminar. Twice a week, students participate in hands-on experiences designed to help them problem solve and make thoughtful decisions in challenging situations, grow their confidence, and withstand criticism and peer pressure. This is facilitated by English teacher, Joe Green and history teacher, Elaina Barroso.
Because early adolescents still do not have fully developed frontal lobes of their brain and it is hard for some pre-teens to understand consequences, the class highlights cause-effect relationships so students can better understand how decisions they make can impact their friends and the school community. In the first quarter, the YES program discussed what it means to be part of a community and designed different acts of service to help benefit the Latin community or other communities in need. Students also evaluated the impact of social media.
The goal of this new student-centric program is to encourage students in a developmentally appropriate way to feel empowered and understand that they have agency to make thoughtful decisions. By teaching the skills involved in emotional intelligence, we hope to show students how to empathize with other people.
Through this program, students can select service programs like writing notes with positive messages and posting them around the school hallways and lockers, making sandwiches to distribute to people who are homeless or hungry, and organizing bake sales to raise funds for various causes throughout D.C. and beyond.
While this is becoming increasingly popular, the classical tradition has always been concerned with the education of the “whole child.” As such, we have long been committed to providing for our students dynamic and comprehensive learning experiences. YES is part of this effort.
Valete!
Peter
Nov 30, 2018
Last week Ms. Smith discussed the origins of our school’s informal motto: “Words Matter.” This week, I’d like to build on what she wrote.
One of the critical indicators of students’ success in school, on standardized tests, and indeed, in life, is their vocabulary. To support vocabulary development, we teach Latin, the building block of so much of the English language. We also encourage reading and writing across the content areas, where students learn or reinforce basic vocabulary (tier one words), high-frequency words or words with multiple meaning (tier two) and subject related words (tier three). We also emphasize literacy through analysis, debate, and language instruction.
However, it is not just essential to encourage students to know many words. We believe words have the power to inform, provoke and inspire. We want words to move our students. So, we fill our hallways with quote boards that explore timeless themes. Want students to use their words wisely and productively. We give students numerous outlets for language use, from Model UN to the Debate Team, to school plays and the school newspaper and literary magazine (Quick commercial plug: Be sure to catch opening night of 12 Angry Jurors this evening, or one of the performances on Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon. The Music Man is coming in February!). Students also embrace a history of compelling writing by taking dictation and learning famous speeches in classes from English to history to Latin and World Languages. Our students take on leadership roles in clubs and assemblies to practice their public speaking skills as well.
We are also very much aware that the way we use our words matter when it comes to using language to educate, encourage, edify and embrace, rather than to debase, deceive, defame or deplore. As a result, this year we have launched a program to enhance social-emotional skills designed by teachers and administrators (more on that in my next Legenda letter) and our peer mediation program, run by Anna Laura Grant, who holds a graduate degree in Conflict Resolution. Our distinctive approach to addressing conflicts involves having in-depth discussions, working collaboratively with students and teachers to solve problems, and realizing that our ability to discuss reflectively helps us solve problems.
We know that in a time fraught with division and disillusionment, being able to use words to solve problems peacefully is one of the most important skills children and adults can learn. An ancient philosopher once wrote: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” This quote represents an ideal toward which we continue to work.
Valete!
Peter
Nov 30, 2018
Over the years, many of you have asked about the origin of our unofficial motto,“words matter.” This simple phrase strikes a chord with so many – and especially now in the current atmosphere of verbal virulence. The story of its origin is equally simple: the fact of the matter is that we are not quite sure how it started! In the summer of 2008, Martha Cutts, our former head of school, and I were
making our way through our endless to-do lists: 1) get a building; 2) design a logo; 3) write a high-school curriculum – easy tasks like those – and we realized that we needed a motto. We came up with “Discite, Servaturi,” (Learn, those who are about to serve), as the official statement on our crest. This motto underscores our belief that learning and stewardship are paired: A good steward must be educated, and an educated person must put learning to a good purpose.
But while our official motto does its official business, the phrase that has really stuck in our community is “words matter.” Martha and I were talking one day, no doubt about the above “to-do” list, and one of us said, “you know, words matter.” From that, we realized the multiple levels of meaning of that phrase for a classical school — and for two women who love languages and words, and who have spent a lifetime helping students see that they can wound and bless with what they say. We both started to use the phrase. It stuck, and people started to repeat it. A student made a poster for Mrs. Cutts with the words in big letters, a poster that still hangs in our school.
Words matter! How appropriate for a school that is trying to emphasize the importance of the liberal arts at a time when programs in the liberal arts are being cut everywhere! How appropriate for a school that requires more language instruction than any other school in the city! How appropriate for a classical school that aims to teach students to use their words well publicly, and to be able
to present, in the long history of rhetoricians, a clear, clean statement of their thoughts! How appropriate for a school that is trying to combat the technological McLanguage of the day, encouraging students instead to do justice to the ambiguity and nuance of their ideas in equally nuanced language! How appropriate for a school that is trying to help students curb their tongues and not fall prey to the verbal nastiness that seems to pervade our society! How appropriate for a school that believes, at its core, that we will begin to understand and appreciate one another when we begin to communicate.
Such a simple yet powerful phrase! May words matter for a long time to come!
Sincerely yours,
Diana
Nov 2, 2018
With election day looming next Tuesday, parents have a wonderful chance to turn local politics into a civics lesson for their children. If it is possible for you to take your students with you to the polling station, you should do so. Talk with your children about the candidates, the issues and the process.
Washington, D.C. offers an extensive early voting program, which allows residents to vote in any of the 8 wards, so people have the possibility to vote near work as well as near their homes. This might help explain why Washington, D.C. was one of the few districts in the country that had more than 50% of the population vote in the 2016 election. Early voting ends today. I voted last Sunday.
With a mayor’s race and some city council seats up for grabs, 2018 is an important year for local politics. While your children may hear more about national races, it is worthwhile to review for them the city government structure, so they understand how our city is governed. Also, with important nearby races for Governor in Maryland and senator in Virginia, you may want to consider taking your children to do Get Out the Vote work this weekend for local campaigns just outside the District. While children may feel that the lack of representation makes Washington, D.C. residents lack electoral power, there are still multiple ways for students to exercise their civic duties, and they may enjoy putting their rhetorical skills to use discussing upcoming races with people from Maryland and Virginia.
Politics is a natural means of discourse for graduates of Washington Latin because of our focus on public speaking, writing, and critical thinking. WLPCS Alumni have gotten involved in local politics both as an ANC Chair and as a political reporter for City Paper (see news blurbs below). Ms. Smith always reminds teachers to “teach the controversy,” so political discussions are often a part of a wide variety of our classes. Our community council helps student take part in a simulation of a city council, and our student journalists at Sumus Leones enjoy interviewing their peers about current events, from Supreme Court confirmations to civil liberties issues.
Valete!
Peter
