Dear Gardner School Community,

While we are in the midst of yet another unpredictable season, we still are able to celebrate so much. Each class shared their Celebration of Learning with our community, and our families were able to see the impact of integrated learning–and what it inspires for students. The Gardner School’s teachers and staff continue to do a beautiful job of ensuring students are able to learn at their best. 

In this month’s Board of Trustees meeting, Head of School, Emily Davis, shared a monthly Covid update, recognizing that even with a new variant in our midst, the guidelines we have in place continue to support our community well. 

We spent the remainder of our meeting in the finance and governance realms of our Board’s work. For finance, we explored the NWAIS accreditation rubric to assess where we are as a school as we prepare for our candidacy. Emily Davis and Director of Business Operations Sheila Hughes Emily presented various tuition models for the 22-23 school year, including various levels of faculty compensation, tuition price points, and financial aid allocations. The Board discussed these different models and applied diversity, equity, and inclusion lenses as they considered the needs of students, families, and faculty/staff. We will vote on a tuition and compensation model in our January meeting.

In the realm of finance, we also celebrated the success of Giving Tuesday. Committee member (and Trustee) Brynnen Guthrie shared about the vast diversity of families who participated in Giving Tuesday, which reminded us of the power of community. Our Development Committee did incredible work supporting this most recent fundraising initiative, and their intentional efforts will continue throughout this year. 

We’re also doing deep and necessary work on our Governance Committee. Committee Chair (and Trustee) Denise Case shared our Articles of Incorporation, which allows us to be in compliance with the State of Washington. The Governance Committee is working to update policies and by-laws, and will present these updates at future Trustee meetings.

Trustee meetings continue to be a beautiful balance of joyful, celebratory, and thoughtfully challenging as we consider how to best support our school. If you are interested in learning more about our committees, or would like to attend an upcoming Board of Trustee meeting, email Head of School, Emily Davis (edavis@gardnerschool.org) and Board Chair, Lori Cohen (boardchair@gardnerschool.org). 

In the meantime, we are grateful you are part of this community.

Thank you,

Lori Cohen, Board Chair

Anamaria Bambaren Call, Vice Chair

Paula Savage, Secretary

Aaron Christian, Treasurer

Kevin Fischer, Trustee

Denise Case, Trustee

Saumya Kumar, Trustee

Brynnen Guthrie, Trustee

Juna Kim McDaid, Trustee

We are grateful for the open communication between families and our school around Covid-19, and it is because of this trust that we have been able to serve children throughout unpredictable times. Your continued adherence to safe practices makes a difference for our school. While we have seen an increase in cases affecting our community from outside sources, we continue to have no spread on campus. We hope to see everyone back, healthy and rested, on Tuesday, January 4th. Read below for more information on how to be safe over break.

A proactive approach
Safe Celebrations

The CDC has shared this advice around safe holiday practices, including the place of testing before and after gatherings.

If your family will be traveling by air, train, or other public transport over the holidays, consider scheduling a PCR test before your child returns to school. 

If you learn your child is a close contact to someone who tests positive for Covid-19, please communicate with health@gardnerschool.org right away to learn more about when your child is cleared to return to school.

The best protection
Vaccinations

Vaccines continue to be the best protection against serious illness, and fully vaccinated individuals do not need to quarantine if they are close contacts (and if they remain without symptoms). Being fully vaccinates allows your child to remain in class, even if others are quarantined. 

For our planning and contact tracing needs, please complete this short survey about the Covid-19 vaccination, even if your child is not currently vaccinated.

Facilities Updates

Campus snapshots