We Are Not Having a Field Day with the Scheduling

During the D Block enrichment LAB, a middle-school wide field day was held. There were games of musical chairs, basketball, and all sorts of fun shenanigans. That’s where the excitement of the day stopped, I’m afraid. After I returned to Ms. Kleinfelder’s office after chaperoning some of the middle school’s activities, Ms. Kleinfelder and I tackled the rotation schedule for the 2019-2020 school year. At first I thought counting out where days fall on the calendar would be simple… but boy was I wrong. I encountered discrepencies between the dates events had been labelled with, as well as the ever- frustrating fact that the days of the rotation would not line up on the start and end days of each quarter. Eventually, after I had mapped out as much as I could, I gave up and turned to playing with Ms. Kleinfelder’s golden retriever Tilly, who Ms. Kleinfelder had brought in to keep us company today.

Should Sex Ed Be Mandatory?

Sex education in schools is often a topic of debate, especially between parents and educators. As part of my project, I have begun to create a trajectory for our school’s future sex ed curriculum. While I was researching different approaches and thinking about the best options for Williams, Ms. Kleinfelder showed me multiple legal perspectives on whether opting out of sex ed should be an option, and what kind of legal and moral imperative there is to provide it in schools. I reached the conclusion that in the best interest for the Williams community, sex ed should simply be built into the curriculum and should not be disputed unless there is a truly significant reason to, such as serious infringement of religious rights. My logic behind this conclusion is that if we deny sex ed to any student, we would be going against our school’s promise to ‘prepare students to be active members in a changing society’.

Health and Wellness becomes C.R.E.W

Citizenship

Resilience

Empathy

Wellness

The inspiration for the “C.R.E.W” program originated when Macy Kleinfelder revealed her plan to rename Health and Wellness to “Personal Growth and Well-Being”. She expressed that this name was hard to remember, and personally, I thought the flow of words became clumsy to repeat. There was therefore a need for a shorter, pithy, perhaps flashier name for a program that would encompass the same goals and values as the proposed “Personal Growth and Well-Being”. I came up with the acronym CREW, primarily because I believe the Williams community aims to foster a collaborative and trusting attitude, where people work together as one “crew”, as on a ship or rowing team. The words included within the acronym (Citizenship, Resilience, Empathy, and Wellness) all reflect and remain in accordance with our institution’s core values of scholarship, character, and community, as well as the core mission of “Personal Growth and Well-Being”.

Words of Wisdom

Today, after a discussion about the latest school issue, Macy Kleinfelder gave me some words of advice: ” One of the skills that make this job is the ability to slow things down”. As a school administrator, Ms. Kleinfelder understands that jumping to conclusions and rushing into decisions doesn’t benefit or respect the system of solving disciplinary issues. She therefore empasized that while investigating and reaching educated conclusions, the system, handbook, and student(s) involved must all be honored throughout the process. This ensures that all perspectives are heard, and no one is wrongly accused or punished. Extending the disciplinary process also allows for review and reflection.

Senior Day is coming!

Senior day is a much awaited tradition at Williams, and is always a great day to get away from the daily routine of classes. However, the senior class often has a tough time planning it! To make the whole process a bit easier, Ms. Kleinfelder and I are creating a new, comprehensive senior day planning checklist, to ensure the senior class can actually have a fun day planned in time.