Throughout the summer I have enjoyed hearing from you about all kinds of great activity: family trips and reunions; BCWS Cove camp and Burgundy Summer Day Camp; Adult Weekend at the Cove; space or sports camps; the Hopkins Center for Talented Youth learning camps; and of course teacher education conferences and professional learning adventures -- all great stuff! In addition, many teachers and staff have been hard at work designing or updating academic and social-emotional curriculum.

Alas. It is now that time when we say, "Holy Cow! Can it be that summer is almost over?"  I hope you've had a very nice summer, but if you are feeling, as I am, that seasonal sense of impending loss, please repeat after me... "Summer is a state of mind, and that state of mind can be sustained beyond Labor Day and through any time of year!" With apologies to the poet Wallace Stevens, one must (always) have a mind of summer!

The assumption in this bittersweet reflection is that summer is a time of joy and regeneration, when we can think more seriously about wellness and family time, and try to resist the compulsive over-scheduled tempo of the regular school year months. (More on that in a minute.) Whether summer means more flexible routines, a little more sleep, time at the pool, tennis, evening walks, a vacation or stay-cation, in summer we aspire to more of what we know is good for us, or at least fun, pleasurable.

This summer I pledged that I was not going to make the traditional, exhaustive and dooming list of more than I ever could hope to accomplish, because in doing so, 'summer' never materializes. The killer list can be a summer killer indeed. Therefore, I, and we as an administrative team, tried to prioritize, and we shared those priorities with one another. Some were personal as well as professional. Curriculum development, strategic planning, campus work, and ensuring we have the best possible staff (see feature in this issue on new hires, as well as on campus maintenance) are critically important. So is catching up on professional reading, meeting with parents and colleagues, and planning for the coming year. But so is, especially in what is supposed to be an 'off-season,' being intentional about spending time with family and making time for healthy meals and exercise.

The point is, we all can lop a lot of expectations onto summer, but if we can prioritize a few we come out stronger, healthier, happier and better prepared.

Thus, regardless of the status of your summer lists, I hope you've each captured some purposeful wellness- and family-oriented time this summer! For me, bringing Tatum to the Burgundy Summer Day Camp each day was a great reminder that summer is special. She loved it, and we had quality time driving back and forth, in her interesting observations, and in her unannounced visits, as she came screaming into my office soaking wet in a bathing suit as I tried to focus on something I thought very important!

I am cognizant that I did not accomplish everything on my to-do list this summer, but I addressed priorities, and I am making a renewed commitment to keeping a 'mind of summer' and taking better care of myself. I am inviting our entire staff and parent body to think of ourselves with the same care and concern we have for our students: just as we want to do what is healthiest and best for them, we need to consider what we do in our own lives that helps us be healthy and successful as good parents, educators and people and what works against that. To nurture and educate the whole child, as parents and as teachers, we must also take care of ourselves and provide children with a healthy parent and educator models. It's 'practicing what we preach' and 'being good role models,' but more than that, too: it's foundational and necessary that we must be healthy -- intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, physically -- in order to be able to take care of our children and our students!

That is why, in addition to sticking to our belief that active, reflective learning is best, we are going to increase our emphasis on overall wellness, as a precondition for academic and social-emotional success. We invite teachers and staff and parents to examine the balance in our own lives and the tempo we set and the models that we are. Our beginning relationship with the research-based Samueli Institute of Alexandria is a good catalyst to our taking a more scientific approach to the question of what is best and healthiest for children, and what is best also for educators and parents and caregivers. 

None of this represents a radical shift in what we are doing. We continue to strive to prepare a whole person for success in the world, beginning with excellent high schools. We know that building up healthy young people who know and like themselves, who are self-aware and self-motivated and have a real interest and confidence in their place in the world is what we are about.

Welcome back, and here's to a great school year - a healthy, happy year of learning and growth!