Steevie's Notes

It has been a busy fall. My trip to visit students’ families in China, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, and Vietnam was delightful. It was far too rushed (8 cities in two weeks) yet revelatory of the needs of parents and their desire to know more about our school and how their children are doing.

Of course, all parents of seniors are very concerned about college and university choices and appropriate fit for each child. The faculty members talk about the choices and the realities, difficult realities at times, of this college enterprise. We write letters about the students and hope that those we value so highly will be seen for the individuals they are. Wherever our students go, we know that they have 'what it takes' and will do well. College or university acceptance is one in a series of doors that will open for our students as a result of their Storm King experiences and connections.

In the afternoons, our students are all involved in the winter sports of basketball and wrestling or activities such as outdoor adventure (taking forays into the woods and skiing and snowboarding later in the season), fitness club, and expanded community service offerings. Recently, we had our first Storm King Invitational wrestling tournament; we hosted New York Military Academy and Kiski School. Kiski has long been a nationally ranked team. With a gym full of students and faculty cheering wildly, we won both matches. This was a tremendous event. I was so proud, and the Kiski overturn was a tribute to Mr. Graziosi and Mr. O'Connor as well as each wrestler. We are a small school with a big heart and tremendous support among our students for each student's efforts.

Our students are good to each other. We have been listening to speeches as students campaign for positions in our Community Government. The same wonderful cheering for each candidate after his and her speech is again the greatest of pleasures for me. Before Winter Break we enjoyed our first dramatic offerings, three abbreviated Shakespeare plays, and some music and dancing, as well.

Please email us and your child’s advisor with questions as we go forward. If we have a concern we will share it; please do the same.

Well, we are all here and what a calm and friendly beginning. Right now students are at the Renaissance Fair in Tuxedo, NY, others are rock climbing in New Paltz, and Billy Shovan, the weekend’s Administrator on Duty, just told me our rowing teams came in second and third. Amazing and wonderful fun for the rest of us.

The soccer teams and our cross country runners are evident every day, rain or shine, and our strong volleyball team has had one win and will have many more. Do these things matter during the academic day?  Indeed, they infuse each day with pleasure as students tromp around campus to their courses and, most important, every player is better known for her and his involvement, known by a wider range of people than just good friends.  The French word engagement describes full and good involvement in life.  This is why the students who helped with a Special Olympics game, those cleaning the Hudson River (much to do after Hurricane Irene and following storms), those about to work for Habitat are more aware of what their impact can be this early before they have advanced degrees and professional responsibilities.  Having an impact, in the arts, in athletic contests, in community service outreach, in “Green” agendas entitles each student to feel part of the larger world, certainly larger than a small, relatively safe group each day.  Each stretch of limbs, of imagination, of effort, of involvement entitles one to stand taller and be ready for more challenges.

I am proud of our students and also proud of the involvement of our faculty who enable all this with generosity, good humor, and some wisdom.  With them we learn well, do well, and have more fun.

A Blog upon the return of our good students, the returning students and the new, starting Monday, August 29, after the hurricane excitements that thankfully did no damage to our campus and gave us only a brief loss of electricity.

The summer went too quickly for the administrative team, here throughout the summer and working on preparing for the fall’s return of students and new activities for each of them.  Jon Lamb has been working on a schedule that will do well for all, and Al Lewis and his team are ready for the first group, our new international students, and the fun for them their first week with us. Andre Green has his Mountain Center well organized to fit each student appropriately and well, and our new faculty, quite a young group, have settled in and are eager for it all to begin.  Jim Leppla has been in touch with almost all our seniors and will in a week start working with our juniors as well in the quest for appropriate and challenging next steps in colleges and universities or wherever the next steps should be for each of our students.

We are starting the year with a reinvigorated outdoor program, one we used to have a few years ago but are eager to invest in for each student this year.  There are five faculty members, and four administrators eager to help in all of this. Jon Lamb, Al Lewis, Joanna Evans, and I, and then Taras Ferencevych, Scott Simontacchi, Jeremy Freeman, Cory Bova, and Kristen Casey.  We will be offering an outdoor program and a cultural program every weekend and expect boarders and day students to participate each trimester.

For health, optimism and a stronger sense of self and independence these programs will be vital to each student even within the academic demands that surround each day.  There is the opportunity of a new perspective when the reality of a river trip, a hike, another biodiversity problem in science is before you for you to comment upon and looking right at you on a weekend in the woods. There are real challenges to body, soul and intellect for each of our young women and men.

We think we have a rare group of returning and new faculty, all of whom are beginning to know each other these first few weeks. And we are, each of us, most eager to learn who each student is who will be joining us, knowing that the summer has transformed the returning students in ways we must discover and respect, and that our new students must be welcomed by all, so as to learn soon that they can trust us and their peers for unlimited respect and caring.

To our parents and guardians we wish a good and wise year, one in which they must ask us questions whenever these arise, and learn who we are and how we will be able to help them with sons, daughters, and the young women and men in their charge.  The idea here is that we want each student to gain the confidence and the skills to ask questions of us and of each other so that they grow into greater wisdom and more measured ways to make choices for themselves. Ambition, creativity, curiosity, debate and discussion will find a place here and be respected.