RELATIVES & SPECIAL FRIENDS DAY

Welcoming Gaynor Families for a Unique Relatives and Special Friends Day

This spring Gaynor opened its doors virtually to give relatives and special friends of students a peek inside their classrooms.

From the Purple to the Blue Cluster, family members and friends of students got a chance to meet their teachers and peers, as well as participate in a special activity.

Activities included student vs. adult trivia games, presentations on what students were learning in class, and drawing each other’s inside and outside characteristics.

Head of School Dr. Scott Gaynor also gave guests a virtual tour of the school, popping into different classrooms and talking with various faculty members.

“Stephen Gaynor School has a long history of having an opportunity to welcome our special friends and relatives into the school to see our children learning firsthand,” he said. “Despite the limitations of the pandemic, your children have come through our school doors and have had a growth year academically, socially, and emotionally. I’m so proud of the resilience and grit in each and every one of our students, our faculty and staff, and the incredible support of our families that have gotten us to this point.”

Thank you to all the relatives and special friends who were able to join us virtually. Please enjoy the photos from various classrooms.

Gaynor Teachers Are: Brave, Thoughtful, Dedicated, Exhausted, Fulfilled

An inside perspective on teaching during the pandemic.

This fall at Stephen Gaynor School, the doors opened once again to welcome students back into classrooms.

While that sentence is easy to write, the work of preparing to open schools during a pandemic was difficult and unprecedented. School leaders spent months determining the layers of defense necessary to keep students and staff safe, while teachers and specialists faced many challenges as they got ready for a school year like no other.

Teaching during a pandemic required educators around the globe to learn new skills and wear even more hats than they did before, all while facing health and safety concerns in an uncertain world to be there for their students. Gaynor teachers in particular needed to rededicate themselves to fulfilling the school’s mission of providing a “highly individualized educational program” for each student, and figuring out how they could do that under unique and challenging circumstances. In November 2020, we interviewed Gaynor teachers to get their perspective on what it was really like to teach onground and remotely during the height of the pandemic. These interviews were conducted before vaccines were approved for emergency use in December, when cases in New York were rising steadily before peaking in early January 2021, and before mass vaccinations began to turn the tide toward our collective recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Of course, as this issue goes to press in the summer of 2021, there are still unknowns — will cases continue to drop, will students under the age of 12 become eligible and begin receiving the vaccine — but there is a feeling of hope that the 2021-2022 school year will feel much more “normal” with regard to teaching and learning.

We thought it was important to capture the thoughts and emotions of Gaynor teachers in the moment, before time and perspective dulled their memories and perceptions of the challenges to being a teacher during the pandemic.

One of the key layers of defense to Gaynor’s onground program in the fall was the “pod model,” which created pods of approximately 12 students and 3 teachers/ specialists who would remain in a “bubble” to mitigate the risk of spreading COVID-19 in the school. While the pod model worked from a safety perspective, it did present a challenge to teachers as they learned to navigate this new situation.

“There are so many more contingency plans you have to be ready for,” said Green Cluster Head Teacher Audrey Shaefer. “Teaching just isn’t the same right now.”

Ms. Schaefer experienced the new demands from the pod model as she juggled her pod being in two separate rooms and students being in-person as well as remote. She also spoke about the challenges to balancing home and work when it seemed work was always “on” — a feeling familiar to many of us during the pandemic.

“It was always about the whole child, but that is just so much more at the front of your mind than it ever has been,” she said. “And out of the care that you have for your students, it’s really hard to ever accept anything that’s not perfect or that’s not fully fleshed out, while also making sure that somehow you’re leaving time for yourself.”

These sentiments were echoed by Purple Cluster Head Teacher Brittany Smith. She said for her the biggest struggle was maintaining the level of teaching that she normally could provide while recognizing what was logistically, and emotionally, possible this year.

“I knew the things that worked, and I know what the students think is fun, and I know what’s engaging, but how am I going to do that six feet apart, spread across the room, not using hands-on manipulatives?” Ms. Smith detailed some of the many questions she faced as she prepared for the start of the school year. “And I think overall, the biggest struggle continues to be am I doing enough, and am I doing the right things, and what more could I be doing? I think that’s always the struggle of a teacher, but it’s on steroids this year.”

As teachers around the world contended with changing their content and pacing, as well as taking on more roles, they also needed to incorporate new, often untested technologies — the phrase “building the plane as you fly it” was a pandemic mantra.

Red Cluster Head Teacher Jordan Thaler said the necessary technologies of the pandemic — Google Meets, Zoom, Owl cameras in the rooms — did not change the quality with which she wanted to teach, nor did it change the relationships with her students, but it made it harder to do both of those things.

“The school has done so much to make sure we have up-to-date technology, and even still, it’s not infallible,” she said.

The idea that space can have an impact on teaching and community building was ever present this year and affected teachers in challenging and in surprisingly positive ways.

Yellow Cluster Head Teacher Allison Pearlman’s class took place in a very different setting this year — a Ballet Hispanico dance studio. While it may have seemed strange at first, she said the room actually helped provide a positive base for her to build a safe and welcoming classroom environment.

“I definitely think that there’s already so much that goes into the job that we’re doing here, and it’s just been amplified with the pandemic,” Ms. Pearlman said. “But I also think that I feel so fortunate that if we do have to be here, that I’m in Ballet Hispanico. My whole class is in one big space. I have an amazing pod team. I feel very fortunate about that, because it really just lets the focus be on the kids and the relationships and the instruction. That environment makes it much more pleasant here, and we can really get what we need done.”

Keeping students safe while also making sure that they are engaged, happy, and learning was particularly tricky during the pandemic. While teachers at Gaynor have always incorporated social-emotional learning into their curriculums with the implementation of methods such as RULER, this year these concepts became even more important.

Orange Cluster Head Teacher Miriam Filer said giving her students comfort and security was a driving factor in her classroom. One way she incorporated socialemotional learning was by having students give each other shout outs every Friday. In this way, the students acknowledged one another and were praised for things they did that week.

“At the end of the day they’re going to learn to read,” she said. “They’re going to learn to do all these other things, but I wanted them to walk out of this feeling OK. Some kids don’t have siblings, some kids have lots of stuff going on, and I think it was our job here to maintain that level of security and make them feel good.”

The pandemic also impacted students’ ability to socialize with their teachers and each other — an important part of children’s lives.

This was not lost on Gaynor teachers, and despite all of the uncertainty, Pink Cluster Head Teacher Megan Scanlon said she was happy to be there for her students, both in person and through the screen.

“I think that I have learned how important it is for children to have their teachers in their lives and how important it is for children to be able to socialize with each other and their teachers,” she said. “I would say it’s comforting to be able to be in their lives during the pandemic while I’m also dealing with, just like everybody else, everything that’s going on in our world. I think that they need school and they need us, and we as teachers also really need them.”

Green Cluster Head Teacher Nicole Goldman said being in person with her students again allowed her to soak in every moment, and try to provide normalcy and a safe space for them in a year that was far from normal.

“With all this uncertainty in our world, it gives me joy to be there for my students and see their smiling faces each day,” she said. “I’m always eager to do more for my students, especially now. I just want to see them continue to grow in spite of the circumstances that we’ve all been dealing with.”

Teachers also grappled with coming to work in person, wanting to remain safe while also understanding how important in-person instruction is for Gaynor students.

Ms. Pearlman said teaching during the pandemic was, in part, about the emotional connection and genuine love teachers have for their students, and wanting to be present for them.

“Academics can be delivered over the screen,” she said. “But to come to work everyday and put on a brave face to be there for your students just shows how much teachers want to restore some sense of normalcy. With all the uncertainty, there was — and I’m only a fourth year teacher, so I can only speak to my experience — but there was no point in this entire process where I even questioned whether or not I would come back in person.” Ms. Smith said that while she was nervous to come back and teach in person, it was amazing to have students back in her classroom, and she really saw the benefits of in-person instruction.

“I think I’ve realized even more the importance of, specifically, our jobs at Stephen Gaynor School and the specific students and needs that we address,” she said. “I think also I feel like the wins almost feel more exciting than they did. If you’re doing a lesson online or even if you’re doing a lesson in person, socially distanced, if it’s a success, it almost feels like more of a success because you know how hard it was to create it or to implement it.”

To Blue Cluster Head Teacher Rebecca

Felt, this experience has shown how collaborative a profession teaching is.

Teaching requires a lot of emotional energy, so she said being able to rely on colleagues has helped provide her with the emotional support and energy she needs so she can give that back to the students.

She also said that this has shown just how resilient the students are, and how they are sometimes able to better navigate all of the uncertainty than the adults.

“I think the students have been so resilient in the sense that all of us like to know what’s happening next, and our kids have had to sit with this experience of not knowing what school is going to look like, not knowing when we might go virtual at any moment,” Ms. Felt said. “And I think that’s really part of the cornerstone of being at Gaynor too, is we really work with students. Our students are by nature resilient, based on their previous experiences or based on how learning is hard. I think that our kids were set up to be very resilient during this pandemic.”

For Ms. Thaler, in-person instruction brought the joy back to her classroom. A child smiling with a friend on the computer is not the same as two children playing Legos in the classroom space, laughing together, and so she was happy to be there for her students in person.

“Right now I feel both grateful and exhausted,”

Ms. Thaler said back in November. “It has reminded me of the importance of being a teacher and showing up every day, because seeing how elated my students are to be in the classroom, I know they need us here if it’s safe and we are able.”

At the time, Ms. Filer was looking forward to distance learning for the weeks after Thanksgiving to see a new side of her students.

“I think one of the things I want people to know is that this experience [of distance learning] gave us a full picture of the students,” she said. “It gave us an understanding of where they lived and what they did and what they were interested in. They were able to share in a way that they weren’t able to share before, and that added a level of personality and character to each of the kids. Kids are so much more than who they are in school, and so this really gave a more rounded picture of who they are.”

Ms. Schaefer summed up what many teachers were feeling in November of 2020: “How do I feel about teaching now?” Ms. Schaefer asked. “That changes by the minute. There are minutes where it feels incredibly overwhelming when you are wearing 50 more hats and you don’t have enough time during the day and somebody needs a bandaid. There are also the really wonderful, human moments where we are focusing on community building and just becoming better people, and being more patient with ourselves and others.”

Now that the school year is complete, and some of these feelings and experiences are already fading into memory, the efforts of Gaynor teachers, faculty, administrators, and staff, will translate into children who have fond memories of learning and growing during this unprecedented school year.

CONGRATULATIONS

TO THE CLASS OF 2021!

The Class of 2021 closed out their unprecedented career at Gaynor with an unprecedented graduation ceremony at Icahn Stadium at Randall’s Island on Friday, June 11.

Board of Trustees Co-President Grant Duers, father to graduate PJ and Yellow Cluster student Anna, welcomed the graduates, family, friends, and faculty members to the outdoor ceremony. “It is great to be with you live and in person,” Duers said. “This was clearly a year like no other, but you made it, and as a result you are incredibly well prepared for high school. After a year like this, how hard can high school be, anyway?”

Head of School Dr. Scott Gaynor introduced student speakers Ella Black and Jolie Landau, both of whom had inspiring words for their fellow students and the audience.

Photos: Brett Deutsch Photography

Parent speaker Adina Haller, parent of graduating student Max and Blue Cluster student Joey, has been a Parents’ Association volunteer since Max started at Gaynor, was a Gala Co-Chair for two years, and served as PA President for two years.

“Gaynor has grown along with our children. We saw the grand opening of the Yvette Siegel-Herzog Performing Arts Center, the building of the state-of-the-art Field House, and the building of the bridge connecting the North and South Buildings. Even though so much has changed to the physical buildings, the soul of Gaynor remains the same ... every child has their own challenges and learning differences, but these should not define them or impede upon their success,” she said. “This school is magical.”

Alumni speaker Aden Wiener, Class of 2013, graduated this year from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business with a degree in finance. This summer he starts work for a Real Estate Development Firm as an Analyst.

In his remarks to the graduates, Wiener described his own Gaynor journey, from reluctance to join a new school to gratitude for all that Gaynor had taught him. He said, “While you may not realize it now, Gaynor is the best thing to have happened to each one of you. Make it your goal to advocate for yourself, take the time you need to learn, celebrate your differences, and appreciate your strengths. I encourage you to continue to be curious and ask questions. Don’t allow others to intimidate you. Trust that you are talented and follow your passions. I am confident that your experience at Gaynor has given you the tools to do things that you never imagined you could.”

As he invited the graduates to walk across the field to receive their diplomas, Dr. Gaynor made note of the unusual location — a venue normally used for track and field events. He recalled the time that he thought he had disappointed his fellow summer campers by failing to win the summer invitational track meet. It turned out that his friends had learned a different lesson — one of never giving up, and continuing to strive for yourself and your team no matter what. Dr. Gaynor said, “This year, you all deserve a medal for being resilient in the face of a once in a century crisis. You all faced a seemingly endless marathon that you should never have had to run. You showed up, trained hard and never gave up. Remember when times get tough and you don’t do as well as you like that your effort will be rewarded.”

The ceremony was live streamed for those who were unable to attend in person. Nearly 400 viewers tuned in to the live online ceremony, watching from throughout the United States as well as France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Puerto Rico, Hong Kong, Canada, and Denmark.

2021 Award Winners

President’s Education Award

Olivia Beal

Victoria Ross

Comptroller Community Service Award

Matthew Boova

Jolie Landau

Helen Rosenthal City Council Award

William Black

Gordon Gaynor Award

Maxwell Haller

Class Representatives

Olivia Beal

Jolie Landau

David Gray

Jonah Lichtman

Class of 2021 Matriculation List

Bay Ridge Prep

The Benjamin School

Blair Academy

Brewster Academy

The Browning School

Churchill

Copenhagen International School

Dwight School

Eagle Hill School

Forman School

Grace Church School

Greenwich High School

The Leffell School

LREI

Marvelwood School

Mary McDowell Friends School

Masters School

Millbrook School

New Exploration into Science Mathematics and Technology (NEST+M)

Proctor Academy

Ross School

The Summit School

Winston Preparatory School

Yeshiva Prep

York Preparatory School

Welcome to Syllable Town! A Multisensory Reading Activity

In a town created by Red Cluster students, all of the houses are occupied by different types of syllables.

Words such as bit, hop, and bed have taken up residence in Syllable Town, and it’s all to help students learn about the six types of syllables and their characteristics.

This multisensory activity was designed by Reading Specialist Kristi Evans as her Red Cluster reading group started to learn about syllable types.

Ms. Evans said Gaynor reading specialists explicitly teach the six syllable types as part of their OrtonGillingham instruction because the syllables represent the overarching structure of the English language.

She also said that vowels are tricky for students, so this provides them with a kinesthetic strategy to find out what the vowels say in a given word.

“We want to provide our students with the tools they need to independently attack unknown single and multisyllabic words,” she said. “So instead of relying on guessing, this strategy helps students divide a longer word into meaningful chunks, and from there, blend the syllables together to read the word.”

In order to learn two of the syllable types — open and closed — the reading group created multisensory houses and placed them in Syllable Town.

The houses demonstrate what happens to the vowel sound when the door of each house goes from being closed to open. Based on the syllable type, the vowel sound is either short or long. “For example, the word hip is a closed syllable, because there’s a consonant at the end and the vowel is short,” Ms. Evans said. “When we open the door, the syllable becomes an open syllable and the vowel sound is long (in this case, it sounds like ‘hype’), because when a word or syllable ends in a vowel, the vowel says its name.”

As the students advance in their reading, they will learn more syllable types and will eventually learn all six.

Through the activity of opening and closing doors, students understand why some words have long vowels and short vowels, which Ms. Evans said is a key principle to the Orton-Gillingham approach.

“With the Orton-Gillingham approach, we are always asking the students the question, why?” she said. “For example, ‘Why is the o in the word so a long vowel?’ or ‘Why is the e in the word bed a short vowel?’ In analyzing and knowing the syllable types, our students can confidently answer the questions.”

Answers to the questions posed by Ms. Evans:

• The o in the word so is long because the word so is an open syllable.

• The e in the word bed is short because the word bed is a closed syllable.

This Reading Challenge Reward Was Worth the Wait!

On May 13, students in the Red, Orange, Yellow, Silver, and Green Clusters received a very long-awaited treat. Head of School Dr. Scott Gaynor, Assistant Head of School Jill Thompson, and Director of Lower Division Donna Logue handdelivered individually-wrapped ice cream for meeting their 2020 reading challenge goal! (Yes, you read that correctly — 2020.) In what became an exercise in delayed gratification and promises kept, as well as a celebration of reading, the students finally received their reward!

In the first week of March 2020, just before the global pandemic caused the school to move to distance learning, Gaynor’s reading specialists kicked off the Lower School Reading Challenge and inspired the students to become Super Readers! Students were encouraged to read or listen to books during the challenge, and to celebrate their love of reading by filling a Bat Signal display in the North Building lobby with stickers showing the books they read. In a Gaynor tradition, students who complete the reading challenge are traditionally rewarded with a visit from an ice cream truck to celebrate their accomplishment. And while it may have taken some time, Gaynor administrators (and those successful students) wanted to be sure to celebrate the occasion when it became safe to do so.

Once the spring weather arrived, the planning for this year’s reward began. Instead of welcoming an ice cream truck to campus, Dr. Gaynor, Ms. Thompson, and Ms. Logue personally delivered individually-wrapped ice cream to the eagerly awaiting students.

Ms. Logue said, “For me, it was about keeping a promise. The annual Lower School reading challenge is a two-week event that promotes independent reading. Last year, the students embraced the challenge and had surpassed the goal early in the second week. As a reward for their good reading habits, we arranged

for an ice cream truck to come to the school. Unfortunately, the school was forced to move to distance learning before we could bring in the ice cream truck. Throughout spring 2020, many students asked me if they would receive the ice cream that they earned, and I promised that they would.”

And Ms. Logue kept her promise. “Due to the creativity of the administrative assistant team of Olivia Robinson, Ana Lovegrin and Mirissa Tarver, I was able to fulfill my promise in a slightly different way,” said Ms. Logue. “It was thrilling to see the

Gaynor’s Middle School students worked on honing their writing and presentation skills this year, practicing different writing styles and techniques.

In one of Middle School Literary Chair Jacquelyn Glazer’s classes, students researched about and watched clips from the movie “Hidden Figures” in honor of Women’s History Month.

“Students worked through the research process to highlight the themes of discrimination and perseverance, with examples from the movie and different articles,” she said. “They worked to embed specific quotations and used evidence to support their claims.”

In Ms. Glazer’s other class, students worked on writing a series of vignettes to supplement the reading of the novel, The House on Mango Street. “In their vignettes, they incorporated imagery, similes, and metaphors that give their readers a rich experience of the time, place, and mood of their stories,” she said. “Once complete, their collection of vignettes includes stories about their homes, names, first experiences with something, and so on.”

In Blue Cluster Head Teacher Rebecca Felt’s class, students chose Progressive Era Reformers to research and responded to the question, “What is the greatest issue of our time?” It was a cross-curricular project, as students were studying industrialization and the growth of America at the start of the 20th century in their history classes.

“Students conducted research and wrote persuasive speeches from the perspective of their reformer,” Ms. Felt said. “Persuasive techniques such as repetition, rhetorical questions, ethos, logos, and pathos were directly taught using modeled examples and were a requirement of the project.”

Among the reformers students chose were Zitkala-Sa, an advocate for the rights of indigenous people; Nellie Bly, a journalist focused on mental health reform; Ida B. Wells, a journalist and anti-lynching activist; Booker T. Washington, a civil rights activist; and Mary Church Terrell, a civil rights and women’s rights activist.

At the end of the project, the students presented their speeches to a panel of administrators.

Throughout the year, students learned various writing techniques and styles, helping to prepare them for their next academic chapter.

excitement on the students’ faces as I drove my truck into their classrooms while playing the Mister Softee jingle (courtesy of Dr. Gaynor’s web searching skills). Several students mentioned that it was the best day of the school year. It certainly was moving to me to see how happy a little ice cream and fruit bars made the children. More significantly, I take my promises to children very seriously, and it was important for them to know that I am a person of my word.”

The wait made the reward all the sweeter!