Principal's Message
FROM THE PRINCIPALS
May 2023 Message
Recently, our inquiry school partner, New School San Francisco’s Joe Shook, conducted some demos with some of our teachers for all of our teachers to observe and debrief upon. This is one of many connecting events we have had with him over the course of this last school year, which is year 2 of our partnership. As we approach the end of this school year, and as he reflected on his April visit to our site, he provided the following feedback, which was very validating and indicative of our evolution and journey of becoming a more inquiry-based school (which melds very well with our Whole Child and STEAM hybrid, “Mosaic” model). Enjoy his feedback below:
“I want to start with a huge thank you to all of the educators who have opened up their spaces, both this week and back in in February, as mini lab schools for developing our inquiry practices. What you all have built, both in your individual classrooms and as a collective staff across the school, is inspiring. Monte Vista is an inquiry-based school. I saw evidence of it in the documentation you all had up on your walls of the multimodal learning activities your students were engaging in, in the materials-rich learning spaces you had built, in the quality and enthusiasm of the questions that your students are asking, and in the openness of talls and smalls to asking tough questions and grappling with them even when there isn't a clear answer.
The past 3+ years have been a really challenging time to be a student and be an educator, and we are definitely still feeling the effects of that. However, as someone who sees plenty of different schools, I can say confidently that Monte Vista feels different than many other schools do right now. I see it in the love you all show for your students and one another, the prioritization of continuous learning by your staff and instructional leadership team, and the eagerness to develop and make sure that our learning activities are relevant for all students. You all rock, and I am so impressed by the work you have done this year!” - Joe Shook, NSSF
With utmost gratitude,
Joe Ashby, Principal and Lindsay Larson, Assistant Principal