Reflecting on an Unforgettable Year
One of the truly distinctive aspects of the Ellis community is that it is filled with faculty and staff who think really carefully about what we hope our students are learning, ways in which we hope they are growing, and messages we want them to hear and see from us.
In any typical school year, our teachers think about this as they plan their lessons and mold their classroom cultures, our coaches think about this as they develop their practice routines, game strategies, and team spirit, and our faculty club sponsors think about it as they support our students’ emerging leadership skills. This year, of course, was anything but typical. But the remarkable news is that the Ellis community navigated this challenging and unusual year with that same commitment and thoughtfulness, focusing on what was most important for our students to experience and learn, and adjusting with incredible creativity and flexibility to the constraints and demands of conducting school during a pandemic. I could not be prouder of this work. I have so many wonderful stories tucked away about people at Ellis, among them:
- All of our classroom teachers who figured out how to teach students in two places simultaneously
- The performing arts teachers who figured out how to stage and film six theatrical productions so no Ellis students missed their usual opportunities to perform
- The division heads who greeted every student with a smile each morning as part of our daily screening protocol
- The grade-level deans who reimagined every field trip in the Middle School to still provide exceptional bonding experiences for their students
- The math teachers who taught their classes in the dining hall with jury-rigged whiteboards in support of social distancing
- The teachers who ate endless lunches outside with their students in all sorts of weather
- The student leaders who found creative ways to build school spirit even when we couldn’t gather in large groups
- The athletes who played every competition fully masked
- The Ellis Parent Association that reimagined parent community events to keep us all connected in fun and imaginative ways
- The Marketing Team that launched a fabulous new campaign to give prospective families a keener sense of what Ellis students are really like
- The facilities team that kept our spaces clean and well-ventilated
There is so much good news as we look together toward 2021–2022. Our enrollment looks to be the highest it's been in the past three years and our annual fund achieved the highest level of parent participation on record. All of our faculty and staff are now fully vaccinated, as are the majority of our eligible students. We look forward to having all students back to learning fully on campus next fall, and to creating more amazing Ellis stories together.
