Advisors in grades 8 through 12 are working hard to complete course requests for students for the 2021-2022 school year. If you haven’t scheduled yours, please know you have another week, until May 21 to finish the process. Let your child’s advisor know about when you might be available for a 20 minute meeting to start to think about and plan for the future.
Happy Birthday Charter Schools! This week marks the 30th anniversary of the first Charter School law. The plentiful variety of public charter schools in Washington, D.C. is a testament to the creativity and perseverance of educators, administrators and families. We celebrate the city and country’s charter schools for their innovation of education, the willingness to think and work outside the box, providing challenging and varied curricula and academic goals to serve student needs.
This Friday Washington Latin hosted its semiannual Hook celebration of the arts. The events, organized with help from high school English teacher Mr. Hotchkiss, is a student-run day of music, poetry, and creativity. Students have worked to develop their love of the written and spoken word, a capella and instrumental music, and this is a chance twice a year for upper school students to share their skills with the community in a supportive and warm environment.
This Wednesday sophomores joined school social worker Ms. Foster and upper school director Ms. Brady in a day of service. They volunteered to work on a farm at Marvin Gay Greening Center in NE to do site maintenance, at Gethsemane Baptist Church in NW to organize the building furniture. These events were part of the school’s commitment to ongoing community service to develop Washington Latin’s identity as a school for students who feed their brains and hearts, through knowledge and service to others.
In the final weeks of May, students will have a chance to reflect, re-see, and review during their academic classes. Grades 7 through 12 will have end of year assessments and final exams to prepare for, and as teachers wrap up the academic year, special attention will be spent on connecting to the past. Students will have a chance to compare and contrast different books, connect varied mathematical functions in multi-step assignments, make connections between historical events, and analyze classical texts with a sense of purpose during this time. The purpose of the end of year assessments is to give a chance for students to think critically and cumulatively about what they have learned, make abstract connections between ideas, compare and analyze from a vantage point of expertise. This is also a particularly important time for students to attend tutorial to review and ask questions as they look back!
It has been a tricky year for the graduating class of 2021. Students completed college applications, handled AP and academically challenging classes, and various rites of passage without the daily comfort of face-to-face learning. The seniors have taken these challenges in stride, and as they began a busy week of AP testing, this was also the beginning of a period of celebration of their hard work. Seniors met for a luncheon on Wednesday and will meet for a bonfire at Ms. Smith’s house tonight with several of their teachers. And the next months includes many more celebrations for seniors, including the prom May 21st, the cookout June 7th, Upper School Valediction June 11th, and graduation June 14th.
