Update from Head of School Robert Woods – 8/5

Dear Parents,

It has been an extremely busy summer break here at International School of Portland, but I still managed to squeak a week to visit with family in Los Angeles. It was nice to get a change of scenery and go to the beach while seeing our children. But all good things must come to an end as they say and I am back in the office today to continue hiring and preparing for the first days with staff.

There are a few classroom positions remaining to fill, most notably grade five Spanish. Our two finalists for this position will have their third interview this week and then we will make our selection. We are also beginning the process of interviewing for a new assistant principal who will be working with the administrative team in anticipation of Maria Abad’s move over to the new satellite campus later this school year.

Apart from hiring staff, I have also been doing some professional development activities. I attended a PYP workshop session in Austin, Texas for administrators. It not only helped me review important aspects of PYP but also allowed me to begin to network with other PYP school administrators from across the country. In addition to this, I was able to attend another workshop session at the University of Minnesota with Maria Abad and Teresa Wirsching. This session was hosted by the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition. Here again, it was great to sit with other practitioners to review aspects of immersion education. We left feeling inspired and brought home lists of contacts for future connections.

Over the next weeks, we will be assigning classrooms and building class lists. We have the orientation schedule set for our new teachers and we will also be putting the final touches on Inquiry Week for staff. There are of course the usual maintenance and improvement projects taking place as well.

This gives you a glimpse of some of the activities that have been going on since June. It is difficult to imagine that there is only about a month remaining before the first day of class. With this message, I wish you well and hope that you have an opportunity for yet a few more special family experiences before September 4th.

Robert

Head of School Robert Woods, Robert@intschool.org