Faculty/Staff News

EMERGING LEADERS INSTITUTE — ASSOCIATION OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS OF GREATER WASHINGTON (AISGW)

Several Flint Hill faculty members participated in group presentations on various topics — with faculty and staff from other independent schools — during AISGW’s nine-week leadership development program, which provides training for emerging leaders at independent schools.

UPPER SCHOOL ENGLISH TEACHER KHALIL ABDUL-MALIK and INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MANAGER MELISSA TURNER — April 28, Session VIII: Faculty Retention, Evaluation, and Professional Growth.

MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHER DESHAUNA CURRY — February 10, Session III: Diversity and Inclusive Leadership.

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF THE LOWER SCHOOL ROBYN NICHOLS — April 21, Session VII: The Nuts and Bolts of Hiring.

UPPER SCHOOL COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ROBOTICS TEACHER

MICHAEL SNYDER — February 24, Session IV: Doing the Hard Things: Difficult Conversations and Other Challenges.

GRADES 7-12 MATH DEPARTMENT CHAIR, UPPER SCHOOL MATH

TEACHER AND UPPER SCHOOL SERVICE COORDINATOR RIKI WEEKS — April 7, Session VI: Curriculum: Oversight, Evolution and Alignment with Mission.

Horizon Lost. 2020. Silkscreen, India Ink, Acrylic Ink, Graphite, Gel Medium on Mylar. By Nikki Brugnoli. Architecture of Play, 2020. Silkscreen, India Ink, Acrylic Ink, Graphite, Gel Medium on Mylar. By Nikki Brugnoli.

UPPER SCHOOL ART TEACHER NIKKI BRUGNOLI was invited to be a guest juror for Those Spaces Between Us, an exhibition at the Torpedo Factory Art Center’s Target Gallery in Alexandria, Virginia, April 10–May 23. She also displayed new work at Adah Rose Gallery in Kensington, Maryland, in a group exhibition titled The Branching Line, April 28–May 30. The show featured artists “who use drawing to examine different facets of the question: how is the world built and where does one belong?”

LOWER SCHOOL ART TEACHER KRISTINE DENINNO

displayed her artwork at INK IT: Contemporary Print Practices, a virtual exhibition of the BlackRock Center for the Arts, February 27–April 10, and at the On Paper: Printmaking, Book Arts & Beyond exhibition at the Annmarie Sculpture Garden & Arts Center, February 19–September 26.

By Kristine DeNinno

UPPER SCHOOL CLASSICS TEACHER

SHERRY DOERFLER and a colleague from St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Austin, Texas, presented “Zoomtamen: How to Set Up and Play Certamen in the Digital World” at the Foreign Language Association of Virginia’s (FLAVA) digital conference in March. “Certamen is a type of academic quiz bowl for students of Latin where they work in teams to answer questions about language, history, mythology, and more,” explained Doerfler. “For decades, this game has been played in person, with competitions hosted by various schools on Saturdays. In order to modify the game for pandemic restrictions and with a view of how technology can be used to increase diversity and equity within the game, this FLAVA presentation was designed to give teachers ways to connect with home-schooled learners, rural Latin programs, and schools that have previously been unable to travel to Richmond and Northern Virginia for in-person certamen events.”

DIRECTOR OF THE LOWER SCHOOL

SHEENA HALL served another year as a co-leader of the Association of Independent Schools of Greater Washington’s Emerging Leaders Institute.

UPPER SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHER ZITA

GRAY became a board member and was elected secretary of Science and Mathematics Educators for Development (SMED), a newly-formed nonprofit organization based in the Philippines. SMED was founded by graduates from the Science and Mathematics Education Institute, at the University of San Carlos, who are working to further develop science and mathematics education in the Philippines. Board members from around the world meet monthly, share resources and use their expertise to implement programs, including SMED Talk and online teacher training.

DIRECTOR OF HEALTH SERVICES MARY

HART was recognized as a Frontline Hero by Magnus Health, a student health and medical information management company used by hundreds of schools in the country, including Flint Hill. The Magnus Frontline Heroes program “recognizes and celebrates those who have gone above and beyond to help K-12 schools manage student health during the pandemic.” Headmaster John Thomas presented her with a framed certificate.

GRADES JK-6 MODERN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT CHAIR AND LOWER SCHOOL SPANISH TEACHER SONIA

JOSA-CASTRO collaborated as an author and editor with Difusión — a Spanish publisher specialized in foreign language teaching materials — on the adaptation of the European textbook “Reporteros,” for high school and middle school students in the United States. In November, she participated in a webinar pertaining to presentday challenges in education, which was organized by the Spanish Embassy in the United States, and gave a presentation titled “Techniques and Strategies for Online Teaching. How Can We Adapt our Spanish Classes to the Digital World?”

MIDDLE SCHOOL ART TEACHER LOUISA

NEILL had two works of her art displayed in the Fleeting, Fled exhibition at Glen Echo Park, March 27–May 2.

DIRECTOR OF STUDIES EMILY

SANDERSON served on a professional advisory committee for the founding of a new school, in Albemarle, Virginia, called Foster Forge School.

FOURTH GRADE TEACHER ROB TAYLOR

is part of a group that worked with the City of Alexandria, in Virginia, on chronicling two recorded lynchings there. “We researched and wrote the narratives that appear on the city website,” said Taylor. “We also used our research to write a chapter for an upcoming book, ‘Racial Terror: Lynching In Virginia,’ published by the University of Virginia.”

HEADMASTER JOHN THOMAS co-presented a session on branding and schools at the National Association of Independent Schools’ national conference, which was held in a virtual setting in February. He pre-recorded the session with Romayne Levee from Mission Minded, the company Flint Hill partnered with for its 2020 rebrand, and they both were online to answer questions after the presentation was given.

In mid-December, Thomas was interviewed for an article that appeared in InsideNova, an online newspaper, about the announcement of his retirement.