Embedded Values Help School Navigate Loss With Love and Care

All Saints’ Episcopal School, Fort Worth, has seven values that exemplify the “Portrait of a Saint.” All Saints’ expects students to work hard developing these traits, and the church expects its community members to reflect them as well. Every November through December, focus is placed on the value of what it means to be a “Faithful Community Member:”

“Saints value placing God at the center and make time for spiritual reflection and intentional practice of wisdom, compassion and great humility. They honor the religious, spiritual and ethical traditions of each member of our diverse community.”

It’s no accident that All Saints’ focuses on this value during Thanksgiving, Advent, and Christmas; it uplifts and personifies Episcopal Identity. Through formative learning like scripture memory and traditional events and practical application like service learning, students move toward Christmas with a deep understanding of how to love and honor others.

When the school community was faced with the heartbreaking loss of a teacher in late November 2022, it learned firsthand how important these values are and how deeply they are embedded in our community.

Inculcating the values

Corresponding to each “Portrait of a Saint” value is a Bible verse, and every month, a multitude of lower school students memorize the verse. The Faithful Community Member verse is: "He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. A second is similar: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,'" Matthew 22:37-39. In chapel, students recite the verse in groups, as individuals, in German, American Sign Language, Portuguese and Spanish.

As an entire school, All Saints’ celebrates Advent lessons and carols on the first Monday in Advent. This special service brings the community together as children of God to follow the story of God’s love through a series of Bible lessons with complementary carols, anthems, or songs following each lesson. Choirs from lower school, middle school and upper school all contributed their gifts to this reflective evening. The service concludes with the lighting of a Christmas tree on the “great lawn.”

In addition to structured events, the holidays are an expected time for acts of service–supporting others through giving–and this year was no exception. These acts of service reflect a commitment to being a Faithful Community Member who practices compassion and honors a diverse community, at school and in our neighborhood.

Preschool students gathered their favorite books to give to a local, under-resourced elementary school. Our kindergarten students raised more than $5,000 this year for the Salvation Army Forgotten Angels.

The Kindergarten Angel Tree Project started in 2005 as a service learning initiative and evolved into an interdisciplinary, semester-long project where kindergarten students sell popsicles every Friday afternoon to students ages 3 through fifth graders. Kindergarten students connect this project to classroom objectives by creating charts to track their progress; reading their Angel’s wish list; learning about coins and dollars; researching average prices for each item on the wish list to determine a budget; prioritizing and creating a shopping list based on a projected budget; and spending a morning shopping for the Angel.

Lower school students created strings of lights with notes of thanksgiving to faculty and staff. They also made bookmarks for fellow students and wrote encouraging letters to upper school students who were preparing for finals.

Middle school students collected and provided more than 140 Thanksgiving meals to the Union Gospel Mission, in addition to collecting a donation of $2,800.

Upper school students provided layers of donations to international families through the International Newcomers Academy. They also served lunches to lower school students while their peers were taking the PSAT in November.

The impact of these activities are a direct result of generous families and committed faculty and administrators sharing a common mission. It’s not easy finding ways to engage students ages 3-18 in activities where they practice great humility, but the world needs more faithful community members.

Facing loss

The school community realized how important this building of community values is when the school faced the unexpected death of a teacher.

Nationally and locally, schools have seen their share of crises the last two years. All Saints’ Episcopal School has not been exempt, having experienced shutdowns, health uncertainties, mask mandates, social/political upheaval, and crazy weather patterns.

Last month, an unthinkable loss brought the school community together.

Second grade teacher Vanessa Morales went home with the flu the Monday before Thanksgiving break. Parents heard she wasn’t progressing well so the meal trains commenced while students and parents continued on with Grandparents’ Day, Thanksgiving programs and all the normal activities. Senior Chaplain Mother Jill Walters called Saturday morning: Morales had passed away. She was 41, taught at All Saints’ for 10 years, and was a lead faculty member. She left behind a husband, two young children, and a classroom of second graders who adored her.

Head of school Tad Bird, Ph.D., describes Vanessa Morales as a comet. She was bright, above reproach, a shining example, warm, and too fleeting.

Walters and our lower school administrative team made individual phone calls that Saturday to each lower school faculty member and each of Morales’ current second-grade families. On Sunday, the school held a small-group meeting to work through the broader communication plan and the plan for re-entry after Thanksgiving break. Two administrators, two counselors, and three chaplains sitting in a room sounds like the start of a joke, but there was no punchline: just Kleenex and a lot of concerns. They planned decisions that were in the best interest of both colleagues and students. The strength of the Lord was evidenced as the team simultaneously grieved and functioned as leaders.

In the subsequent weeks, individuals fought through their own deep sadness and stood tall for their colleagues and students. Counselors and chaplains provided resources, support, checkins, quiet rooms, and homilies that gave space for mourning. They coordinated therapy dogs and extra professionals to be on campus for the first few days back. Administrators provided substitutes, alternative schedules, and routine. A co-curricular teacher volunteered to be the long-term substitute for Morales’ class. Parents started a GoFundMe for the Morales’ family that is inching north of $130,000. Walters provided gentle and impactful emotional support to Morales’ family and led the liturgies at both the family and the school services. Despite a long season of disharmony, a school community united in support for each other.

(Article submitted by Meg Hasten, director of Strategic Communication, All Saints’ Episcopal School, Fort Worth. Hasten remembers her colleague through this eulogy: “I know she would be so proud of how we are loving each other well in her absence, leaning on the ‘One’ who holds every tear.”)