Elementary School

Meet the Staff: Front Desk Coordinator Jana Bledsoe

She’s the heart of our elementary school and knows every student and their families by name. She’s worn many hats at Friends School over the last 20 years, but there’s a lot more to know about Front Desk Coordinator, Jana Bledsoe.

With Design Thinking, The Sky’s The Limit!

Creative problem-solving skills prepare our students to tackle small and large challenges both inside out outside our school walls.Friends School uses Design Thinking to teach our students how to deconstruct problems and design innovative solutions, and what parents can do to support this at home.

Honoring individuality: more than icing on the cake

Student birthdays are celebrated a little differently at Friends School. Students are treated to deliciously, sweet, kind and funny words of appreciation for their classmates on their big day. One mom shares her experience in witnessing her own child’s celebration.

Volunteer Profile: Bill Flagg

Bill Flagg is a full time dad and entrepreneur and he finds volunteering at Friends School to be rewarding. Lou Bendrick sat down with Bill recently to find out what he loves about Friends, why he volunteers, what he’s reading and what’s in his refrigerator.

The Immigration Project

Friends actively teaches empathy from preschool through eighth grade. Fifth grade teacher, Emma Thomas, discusses what it looks like to raise critical thinkers and changemakers who are able to take that empathy off the playground and into the wider world?

Read, Read, Read Some More

Friends Librarian, deana harragarra waters, loves books and reading. So do her students. When she asked our 5th graders about the value of reading, they had some great answers.

Lunar New year

Growing up in the Bay Area, Friends art teacher Bryn Pennington was exposed to a rich tapestry of cultural traditions. She felt humbled to experience the traditions of her closest friends, and today shares them with her students in Art Studio.

Friends Vision in Action

There are so many amazing things happening all around Friends School. Our 4 division directors recently shared the highlights in preschool, elementary, middle school and the Teacher Preparation Program.

Volunteer Profile: Mindy Mullins

Meet Mindy Mullins, a busy Friends School mom of three kids, former trustee, veterinarian, parent council leader and a volunteer who pitches in whenever she sees a job that needs to be done. We’re in awe of her energy level and thankful for the time she dedicates to Friends School.

Mindfully connecting with science

Kindergarten teacher, Annika Nygren, loves science. Her eyes light up when she describes Kindergarteners as natural scientists, filled with curiosity and endless questions and theories. Integrating science with mindfulness resulted in a very interesting project.

Friends School’s mission today…and in the future

by Jenefer Donovan, Friends School Community Board Chair

The new school year is now well underway and off to a great start! From day one I have been overwhelmed by the multitude of ways in which I have witnessed all the elements of Friends School’s mission in action…I have felt the energy and excitement of a dynamic community reuniting and reaching out to support one another and welcome our new families; I have been amazed by the wealth of team-building, collaborative projects and hands-on academic activities taking place in classrooms and I have been touched by the kindness of children connecting and helping others transition. I have felt the renewed energy of our wonderful teachers and met enthusiastic teacher candidates. I have admired the creative process of an elementary all-school collaborative art project and overheard middle schoolers display their passion for learning in eagerly asking when their full schedule would start! I have noticed the time taken in every grade for students to reflect on and share about themselves and listen to their peers, and for teachers and students to all get to know each other again; and I have seen the 5th graders already stepping up as leaders showing compassion and empathy for the new Kindergarteners helping them to feel safe, welcome and at home at Friends School. 

These are just a few examples of the elements of the Friends School mission being put into practice, and all of this was in just the first week!

Before Honor started at Friends School, she began looking at everything here through the lens of the school’s mission and vision. One of her priorities in her first year was to “align decision-making practices with the mission and vision of the school”. She worked to bring Friends School’s mission and vision into everyday decision-making, keeping them front and center, putting children and mission first and consistently using the mission and vision to guide her and her leadership team. She encouraged all teachers and staff to do the same. Honor has also brought the 3 core principles of the vision to the forefront: ‘challenging minds, nurturing spirits and honoring individuality’. These provide the framework for all that the school does and, as you know, they have been chosen as the theme for the school this year.

In early September, the Friends School Community Board met for the first time this school year. I would like to thank all of our dedicated trustees for their hard work and commitment to the school. Over the summer the board read First Do No Harm, Progressive Education in a Time of Existential Risk by Steve Nelson and was inspired by his demonstration of “how education can nurture engaged and motivated children who actively discover their world and grow up to be good citizens”. Friends School has been the leader among Boulder schools in social and emotional education for over 32 years and we were proud to appreciate, while reading this book, that Friends School excels on every aspect of Nelson’s ‘Educational Bill of Rights’:

• Recognize the broad consensus that early childhood education should be primarily dedicated to free, imaginative play;
• Provide arts programming, recognizing that the arts are critical to all learning and to understanding the human experience;
• Provide ample physical movement, both in physical education classes and in other ways, recognizing that exercise enhances learning for all children;
• Exhibit awareness that children develop at different rates and different ways; that strict age or grade level standards and expectations are meaningless and damaging;
• Acknowledge the large body of evidence that long hours of homework are unnecessary and detract from children’s (and families’) quality of life;
• Exhibit genuine respect for all children;
• Honor a wide range of personalities and temperaments;
• Encourage curiosity, risk-taking and creativity;
• Cultivate and sustain intrinsic motivation rather than relying on elaborate extrinsic systems of rewards and punishments;
• Understand that brain research supports active learning, engaging all the senses;
• Understand that all children are intelligent in multiple ways and that all these intelligences should be honored and developed;
• Listen to each child’s voice, give them real experience in democratic processes, and allow them to express their individuality;
• Know each child well, appreciate the unique mix of qualities each child brings, and never demean, discourage or humiliate any child.

This year, Friends School Community Board has the important responsibility of creating the next strategic framework/plan for the school. Each of our board meetings throughout the year will include a strategic thinking work session. As we move through the process we will first examine our mission and vision, our “North Star”, guiding us through the journey of creation and implementation of the framework/plan. We will then gather input and data from the entire Friends School Community  – teachers, staff, students, parents, families, trustees, founders, alumni parents and alumni students, before synthesizing and processing the data and formulating a strategic, flexible, forward-thinking framework/plan for Friends School. 

I am looking forward to working on this process with the Friends School Community Board and our Strategic Planning Committee, led by alumni parent and trustee Anne Hunter. I am also excited to hear from all of you. Over the next few months the Strategic Planning Committee will reach out to all of you with various opportunities for you to provide your input – these could be surveys, small group vision meetings, or larger ‘dream-catcher’ meetings. We hope that you will participate in whichever ways work for you. Friends School is one of Boulder’s best independent schools because it has a strong community that cares.

Thank you all for being part of what makes Friends School such a special place for all our children.

Jenefer Donovan, Friends School Community Board Chair

If you would like more information on the role of the Friends School Community Board or are interested in being part of one of the Community Board committees, please email me at jenefer144@yahoo.com.

Challenging Minds, Nurturing Spirits, Honoring Individuality as we start a new school year at Friends School

Introduction by Jenefer Donovan, Friends School Board Chair with excerpts from our division directors (Jessie Vanden Hogen, Mandy Stepanovsky and Shelby Pawlina)

The first weeks of school are an exciting time of building the wonderful community and norms that carry us through the school year and for which Friends School is known. Across the school from Preschool, through the elementary and middle school years and into the Teacher Preparation Program, Friends School is already challenging minds, nurturing spirits and honoring individuality. We invite you to read these back-to-school updates from our program directors.

PRESCHOOL NEWS UPDATE (& Parent Reading Recommendations for all ages)

The Preschool is off to a great start in co-creating our new communities. We had a great New Parent Orientation, delightful day of Class Lemonades, and welcoming Home Visits. Included in this new batch of morning preschool families are some old friends and some new friends. We are growing connections and building trust with parents and children as we set out to create a very gentle, supportive and successful first school experience for the littlest ones. We take our jobs very seriously as we know the dynamics of the gifts and challenges in beginning the journey of separation.

With Head of School Honor Taft’s 4 trail-markers in mind – 1) Social and Emotional Literacy, 2) Creativity, Collaboration and Communication, 3) Rich Academics, and 4) Diversity, Social Justice and Service Learning – the preschool team picked up a few books for our summer reading. NOTE: Some books and authors definitely challenged our thinking and beliefs as well as gave us new perspectives! Our ongoing commitment to professional education and best practices is part of what we believe makes us the best preschool in Boulder.

• Being at Your Best When Your Kids are at Their Worst – Practical Compassion in Parenting By Kim John Payne

• From Teaching to Thinking By Ann Pelo and Margie Carter

• Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers By Dr. Gabor Mate´
• It’s Ok Not to Share and Other Renegade rules for Raising Competent and Compassionate Kids By Heather Shumaker 
• StoryMaking – The Maker Movement Approach to Literacy for Early Learners By Michelle Kay Compton and Robin Chappele Thompson

What we came away with were some themes to work with throughout the year ahead:  Empathy – Boundaries – Community – Play

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL NEWS UPDATE

“It looks so open in here!” “The school feels wonderful” “Everything is so light and bright.” These are just a few of the accolades heard as parents entered the elementary school for the first time this school year. It was a busy summer with painting, purging and preparing for students to arrive. The energy in the building has been full of anticipation and excitement for the year ahead. We have only been in school for a short time, but there is already much to celebrate.

We are already challenging minds through:

• Assignments and projects focused on celebrating our summer vacations and setting goals for the year ahead.

• 4th and 5th grade Invention Convention projects
• Implementation of the new math curriculum
• Benchmark testing in literacy and math
• Teacher participation in a day-long Design Thinking workshop with Future Design School that prepared them to bring design thinking into their classrooms this year.

We nurture spirits through:

• Welcoming our new Kindergarten friends and their families to the community, and new friends in other grades too.

• Implementation of Responsive Classroom practices in our K/1 classrooms after teachers participated in a week-long training. With the new implementation of full-day Kindergarten throughout Colorado, we continue to be the most intentional, nurturing, and best Kindergarten in Boulder.
• Time taken in each classroom to set class norms, create class constitutions and engage students in creating the type of learning environment they would like to have.
• Start of the 8 week parent Mindfulness workshop

We are honoring individuality through:

• The creation of a “cool down” space in the old copy room.  This is a place where students can go to quietly draw, or jump on a trampoline when they need a moment to reset during the school day.

• Projects and assignments aimed at sharing individual interests/experiences as students get to know each other at the start of the school year.
• The creation of learning plans to further differentiate learning for students who need specific accommodations across subject areas.
• The exploration and celebration of Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences in 3rd Grade

MIDDLE SCHOOL NEWS UPDATE

The middle school has grown by over 50% this year, and the energy in the building is exciting and inspiring! This incredible growth is a great demonstration of the need for a new, more progressive Boulder Middle School option.

Challenging Minds

• Summer book discussions – Each grade had a book to read over the summer that Diane chose specifically for its appeal to middle schoolers. One parent of an 8th grader reported that her child LOVED the book so much…a first for him! Each class discussed their opinions of the book, character development, plot, and other aspects of the book. It was a nice way to begin an academic conversation while getting to know one another.
• Problem- solving activities – Remember the game of Mastermind with the colorful pegs? At the middle school there is a similar game that we play…Pico-Firme-Bago in which students have to guess a set of numbers in a particular order while being given feedback of the accuracy of their guesses. The cheers that come from the homeroom when the correct number is finally guessed/ revealed are always enthusiastic. On a physical level, the popular camp game Human Knot got students problem-solving in a different way. Nuno led good reflective sessions on the process, connecting this to group work and problem-solving in general. 

Nurturing Spirits 

• Camping Trip to Rocky Mountain National Park -Temple Grandin has discussed the importance of leveraging the skills of visual learners and making sure our children learn the basics of cooking, shopping, and fixing things- engaging in hands-on learning as much as possible. Our trips program is underpinned by these expectations. In the days before the trip, students developed the menu for the trip, went grocery shopping for the ingredients (comparing products, figuring out amounts, and managing a budget), and learned how to set up/ dismantle the tents independently. On the trip, every student had an opportunity to be on a cook team and clean up team. For some students, these were first time events. There is something about doing things that expand our comfort zones that builds a greater and more nuanced sense of self, increased self-awareness and self-advocacy. In middle school, this is what we are going for.

Honoring Individuality

• All About Me – One of our first central activities is the “All About Me” assignment that culminates in a Gallery Walk before the camping trip. Each student creates a poster of their design and presentation that includes information about each person’s personal heroes, favorite books, important event in their lives, etc. These are great ways to get to know one another as well as serving as jumping in points for teachers to connect curriculum with student experiences. These will decorate the homeroom and hallways.

The school year is off to an incredible start, and we can’t wait for a full year of challenging minds, nurturing spirits, and honoring individuality in this incredible school community.