The Admissions Team will be hosting another interactive Open House at The New School on Saturday, April 2 from 10-1. Like our event in October, we will be running an abbreviated school day complete with lunch and sample classes. Current students are strongly encouraged to attend. We will be advertising this event across multiple channels, but we need your help to attract the largest audience possible! Please remember to "like" comment, and social media posts about TNS to help boost our message, and don't forget to talk us up with people you meet who have school age children. Let's stop being the best kept secret in education in Southern Maine.

Thank you again to those who signed up for volunteer assignments at our May 21 Spring Festival! If you haven't already added your name to a role, please go here and pick what you'd like to help out with. Thanks!

Everybody knows that students have a great deal of ownership and agency at The New School, but what does that look like in day-to day practice?

Students can have a direct impact on the physical environment at TNS. Bear Landenberger is painting a squirrel-themed mural in the big bathroom, and Cohen Arpino takes pride in his ability to fix things that break around the school. Last week, the door to the science room came off one of its hinges, so Cohen demonstrated his creative and practical problem solving skills to fix the door. Alex Morin and Bear Landenberger maintain our fish tanks and Courtlynn Goettler has assumed responsibility for the sadly neglected house plants throughout the school.

Students can also have a direct impact on the academic environment on the school. Engaged, enthusiastic learners have the ability to inspire others and raise the bar for one another. We have several exciting independent studies underway this semester including Ryan Howell's Physics investigations, Morgan Hinckley's bone art installation, and, of course, our Senior Projects.

Students also have direct ownership of the social and emotional environment at TNS. Working with teachers and advisors, students meet several times a week in small groups and as a whole community to work through problems and find resolutions to conflicts.

Empowering teens to recognize their ability to create change in the world, begins with trusting them with real responsibilities and allowing them to learn from mistakes.

Last Tuesday, staff and students participated in a Restorative Circle to promote increased understanding of people's current feelings and experiences related to the pandemic. We did not gather to talk about mask-wearing or the politicization of public health. We gathered to share our personal experiences and to learn more about one other.

During the circle, students and staff spoke from the heart and listened with care to one another. After the Circle, there was a noticeable change in the school. One Circle won't fix everything, but it certainly effected us last week.

We are so appreciative and impressed with our students and their participation in hard conversations. They are inspiring.

The New School works to promote compassion, empathy, and understanding. Our shared experiences help us to build bridges with one another. In an increasingly divisive world, finding commonality with others, especially with those we see as different or "other," is vital.

Empathy is one of the values students identified at the beginning of the year during our initial community building work. It remains a commonly held value for all of us, and some of our staff have been learning more about it behind the scenes. Christine just started reading The Empathy Effect by Helen Riess. Riess examines the neuroscience of empathy and its importance to society. For a review of the book, click here. If you like podcasts, check out this Hidden Brain episode: You 2.0: The Empathy Gym.

• March 21: Board of Trustees meeting 6pm
• March 22: Rotary Interact gathering at Duffy's, free pizza, learn about community service, 6pm.
• March 25: Game Night at TNS (bring your friends!) 6pm
• Wednesday, March 30: Teacher Day (students work from home)
• March 30: Events Team meeting Zoom 7pm
• April 2: 10:00-1:00 Open House with abbreviated school day and sample classes
• April 4: All School Meeting (in person) 6:00 @ TNS
• April 18-25: April Vacation
• April 25: Teacher Day
• April 25: Board of Trustees meeting 6pm

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• COVID-19 Policy
• The New School News archive