Director’s Review

Peter Welch

Director

One of the social effects of the pandemic is that time seems to telescope. PreCovid days and the events of much of last year can seem a long time away. So, it is heartening to write this review and recall the future planning that we did as a community during the last academic year, 2019-20.

These great discussions involved all the distinct voices in our community. Through focus groups, presentations, surveys, and inspirational talks, we challenged our community to go back to the most essential questions for education:

How do you believe that the world we are preparing our students for is changing?

What skills, knowledge, and mindsets will our students need to be successful in this changing world? At AISB, what should we do more of, or less of, or start doing for the first time?

The thoughts and ideas in response to these questions gave rise to our new vision for AISB:

We aspire to be a creative, courageous, & compassionate learning community.

It is remarkable to reflect that these core values arose from our conversation before the pandemic overtook us. These values could not have been more relevant and important during these past few months. Since last March, our educators have had to reinvent their craft for both online and adapted learning. I am extremely appreciative of their creativity on a daily basis. Our students, too, have had to reinvent themselves as learners in these times. Their courage and the resilience of our families has been extraordinary. Above all else, these anxious times have affirmed our basic belief that taking care of one another, dealing with each other with compassion and kindness, is central to the human heart of education.

Since the spring we have been preoccupied with keeping the community safe and adapting our programmes. Even so, behind the scenes, the professional team kept the faith in this vision and worked to put our new strategy in place. We need to move beyond words to concrete actions that enhance and update the student experience at AISB.

We have the right team in place. This is the most talented and creative team that I have had the privilege to work with.

Having the right people on the bus is vital and then, to borrow Jim Collins’ metaphor, we need to tune up the vehicle, agree on the destination and organize ourselves in the right seats. Last year, we began the important process of improving different systems across the school. We brought clarity to the organizational structure, began the process of linking the sections of the school together more meaningfully. We have put in place more effective budget management and monitoring systems and instituted new procurement processes.

We have changed our accounting and legal representation. We have also brought in a new facilities management company to professionalize the short to long-term care of our wonderful campus. These continue to be challenging financial times for our school, but I am confident that we are planning effectively for different eventualities.

In this work, I am grateful for the support of the AISB School Board of Trustees. In this not-for-profit school, we rely on their volunteerism to steward the school’s strategy, particularly in these uncertain days. Our Chairperson, Ms. Abigail Rupp, led this group most ably for three years. Among other very important projects, Ms. Rupp worked with me and a small group of Board members to overhaul and rationalize the policy framework of the school, a process that offers clear guidance going forward. At the end of the 2019 - 2020 school year, Ms. Rupp departed for Moscow with her family having served the AISB Board of Trustees with good sense, an eye for detail, and admirable commitment to the role.

The 2019 - 2020 school year also marked the retirement of our Board Secretary, Ms. Doina Andrian, after 26 years of extraordinary service to our school.

In the fall of the 20192020 academic year, we completed our tenyear accreditation visit from our three awarding bodies - The Council of International Schools (CIS), the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), and the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO). After this week-long assessment, we received three detailed

evaluation reports. These very positive evaluations praised the schools for how far it has come over these last few years and set targets to complete the future planning process and further systematize academic and organizational structures across the school.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to all parents in our community for their ongoing support of the school. I am especially grateful to the leadership of our Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) for all their efforts to bring us together through different social events. Last year, the new team put a lot of effort into new initiatives, such as the Thanksgiving celebrations, building a new ‘little’ library on campus and continuing to support the scholarship program through the first ever online Auction Gala. There was fantastic participation and more support than ever before for service projects such as ‘Stuff the Bus’ and the Terry Fox Run .

In closing, I want to say thank you to my colleagues on the Leadership Team. You can see the real qualities of people in a crisis. We really pulled together as a team to keep the school going, to work hard on opening the campus safely again, and manage all the complexities of communicating at this time. Thank you to our three Principals, Rosella Diliberto, Elyane Ruel, and Jon Cain.

Thank you to Catalina Gardescu, our Manager of Admissions and External Relations, to Roxana Lungu, our Human Resources Manager, and to Liliana Stefenel, our Business Manager. Thank you, too, to my Executive Assistant, Cristina Marinescu. I am blessed to work with such talented, kind, and dedicated people.

I trust that when we overcome this pandemic our school will emerge stronger and more clarified in our hopes and ambitions for the future.

Peter Welch Director