Letter from the Head of School

Dear Friends,
What a monumental year for MIS. This year we welcome our first ever senior class, the graduates of 2020! As we embark on this journey of sending alumni into the world, I often reflect on the power of the work we do here, and the work parents do every day, to create the future our world so desperately needs. Someone once told me that MIS is "doing something that hasn't been tried before", and that we should "plant our flag, honor it, and the rest will grow from there". We have done that a few times in our history and it seems like our values as a community only become stronger when we truly take a stand for our students and their future. This year you'll feel the resonance of our history in our theme: stand up.

Thinking of all of our students, from our kinders to our graduates, what better way to unite our efforts than with a directive you will hear echoed throughout this year at MIS—standing up for what is right; standing up for those who need us; standing up for truth and honesty and compassion and what it means to be a thoughtful and responsible citizen of our planet. 

Sometimes it backfires on us...middle grades students recently organized a peaceful protest to share their concerns about carpool, bringing umbrellas to school to protest being outside in the sun during dismissal. Afterwards, the students selected representatives to be their voice, and they were incredibly prepared, articulate, and flexible in sharing their proposed solutions. 
Ande Noktes is the Head of School for Midtown International School. She has over 23 years of experience in education and educational administration. Her many years abroad and multicultural family at home have reinforced her passion for globally minded, gifted education in the strategy and day to day practices of the school.
I’d like to give you just a snapshot of some other exciting ways students have already started to embrace this year's theme across the school:
  • In first grade, students are creating skits on common social scenarios that require a value judgement—helping someone in need, returning lost items, or standing up for a friend. Using play and impressive theatrical skills, students find a safe space to test out what they would do in real life to stand up for what’s right.
  • In fourth grade, students take on the concept of peace, and discuss how growing peace in our world takes on a lot of faces, from Gandhi to Rosa Parks to even ourselves as we choose to stand up with courage and kindness.
  • In 5th and 6th grade, students are studying protests from throughout history, how ideologies impacted the protesters and the outcomes, and why understanding and analysis in situations like the protests they are researching can help them learn to stand up for what they believe in a way that generates meaningful change.
  • In junior high, science classes are conducting town halls on nuclear and renewable energy (in 8th grade) and epidemiology (in 7th grade), with groups in each class representing different perspectives and fielding tough questions from the community about the science and social aspects behind their proposed solutions.
  • High school has collaborated to develop an honor code embracing our four core values of respect, responsibility, citizenship and justice.
  • The high school political science class is creating a policy proposal to reduce wealth inequities in America. Their understanding and research has shifted from more simple concepts like raising taxes to considering how to reallocate tax revenue in a way that creates equality of opportunity. One team has gotten so into their project addressing educational reform and public transportation improvements, which they found are the key factors to escaping poverty, according to a 2015 Harvard study, they have gone way beyond the minimum page length, and are considering expanding on this for their senior capstone projects.
  • As a school, we’ve also rewritten our diversity statement as a Proclamation on Equity and Justice.

There’s a part of me that wants to apologize to our families for what are probably already starting to be some pretty intense conversations about justice in your homes…but instead I will just ask that you join us in celebrating our graduates, our advocates, and our students as we all stand up for our future. ​

My best,
Ande
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​#standupMIS