HAVE A HAPPY HOLIDAY AND A GREAT VACATION!
* 9
Week of December 17, 2001
REMINDERS
* Week of December 17:
Collection of donations for Rosie's
Place, in after-school program
office, Room 101.
* Wednesday, Dec. 19:
Staff curriculum meeting, 3-5
p.m. Topic to be announced.
* Friday, December 21:
Holiday season instrumental
concert, conducted by Minna Choi,
at assembly, 8:45 a.m.
Reports mailed home.
* Sat. Dec. 22-Wed. Jan. 2:
SCHOOL VACATION
* Wednesday, January 2:
Professional day at school. (No
students.)
* Thursday, January 3:
First day of school for students
after vacation.
* Tuesday, January 15:
Parent Council meeting to elect
representatives to the board and
discuss co-principal process.
* Wednesday, February 6:
Governance Board meeting on co-
principal process.
Give to Rosie's Place
Donations to Rosie's Place, the local
homeless shelter, will be accepted all week
by the YMCA staff who run the Mission Hill
after-school program. Women's and
children's clothing and nonperishable food
items are especially welcome. Bring dona-
tions to the after-school office in Room 101.
Front Desk Position Open
New Mission High needs a front desk
person to work 12:30 to 4 p.m. The pay is
$9 per hour. See Heydi Foster for details.
The Mission Hill School is a pilot school of the Boston Public Schools
Deborah Meier, Principal
Brian Straughter, Assistant Principal
Maria Gaines-Harris, Office Manager
9O
LETTER FROM MISSION HILL
'A World Not Neatly Divided'
Dear Families, Students, Staff, and Friends,
As we put together our midyear student report cards we al-
ways face dilemmas. Report cards require us to make too many not-
quite-right choices, and to assign too many quick labels.
A recent column in the New York
Times, with the title "A World Not
Neatly Divided," caught my eye for just
this reason. It was written by the Nobel
Laureate economist Amartya Sen, who
says that we are each of us a mixture of
"identities." It's misleading, he argues,
to talk about "the Islamic world" or "the
Western world," for example. In fact,
there are wide diversities and clashes
of views in each of these categories.
No nation, religion, culture, or civi-
lization is all of one kind. Each has a
long and complicated history. When we
fail to remember this, says Sen, we give
unwarranted power to some "spokes-
men for their 'world,' " thus muffling
and silencing others.
Sen concludes that "the robbing of
our plural identities not only reduces us;
it impoverishes the world." So it is
worldwide, and so it is in our little world
of Mission Hill, and for each of us as
individuals. People don't come neatly
packaged or easily summarized.
Our families and staff come from
many different racial, ethnic, and lan-
guage backgrounds. Moreover, we
never speak as just parents, just staff,
or just a student. We wear different hats,
sometimes several at once. And we are
often surprised at who takes which po-
sition on a particular issue. In short, we
are hard to classify.
So, too, with kids, which is why
we are so nervous when asked to label
them, even as we sometimes must for
Thomas Payzant, Superintendent
Vol. 5, No. 16
one reason or another. We try to respect-
fully describe, leaving room for doubt
and uncertainty, knowing that under all
labels are individual realities that defy
anyone's efforts to sort us neatly.
Demystifying labels of all sorts is one
of the central tenets of our mission.
So before we say something even
as benign as "She's smart," we pause.
Then there's "special ed," which can
easily become a category of people in-
stead of a label to provide extra sup-
port. Even the racial identities we must
use to report to funders and other auth-
Read the report cards we
are sending home soon
with a grainn of salt.
orities distort the complexity of our staff
and student population. So do those
check marks on your child's report card.
That's one reason we prefer the nar-
rative reports we do in mid-winter; our
spring family survey showed parents
liked them best, too.
Read the report cards we are send-
ing home soon with a grain of salt, then.
They are short and to the point, but they
can't quite describe your child as a
learner. We hope they stimulate our
thinking and help us focus our atten-
tion. But they are open for discussion.
If something in the report seems wrong
or misleading when you read it, let us
know! -Deborah Meier
67 Alleghany Street
Roxbury, MA 02120
Main Office: 617-635-6384
 December 17, 2001
HOT TOPICS
Governance Board Mulls Hours
Last week's well-attended meeting
of the Mission Hill School Governance
Board-with four new community mem-
bers (James Fraser, the Rev. Greg
Groover, Marta Rivera, and Rosann
Tung) and two new parent members
(Valerie Johnson and Carol Lee)-dis-
cussed a number of important questions
about our future, including our new hours
for next year. Two different kinds of ac-
tion were proposed: planning ways to ad-
dress our own families' concerns, and
protesting the district policies that leave
us in this bind. If you are interested in
working on this issue, call Public Affairs
Coordinator Helen Fouhey at 617-541-
3899.
Parents who can work on local com-
munity student recruitment for next fall
should call Mitch Hilton, who is heading
this effort, at 617-738-0452.
The board heard encouraging news
from the Parent Council, which, after a
shaky start, had its first official meeting
of the school year last Monday. Parents
reported a very positive climate of sup-
port and cooperation at that meeting. See
below for details on parents' role in the
choice of a new co-principal.
Progress on Opening the Gym
The oil storage tank has been re-
moved from the old gym in the basement,
and we have a promise that we can begin
to use the gym on a limited basis by Janu-
ary. Thanks to the Weezie Foundation for
providing funds to help make this hap-
pen, and thanks to the Boston Public
Schools for moving quickly on its part of
the plan. More work needs to be done,
but this is a BIG step forward.
Cataloguing the Books
The Weezie Foundation (see above)
is also supporting our efforts to get all
our books-both in the library and in
classrooms-catalogued in a computer
database. When this work is finished it
will be possible for any student to find
out fast what books are in the building
and where, on any topic.
We can use some help with the labor
of copying down book titles, authors, and
so on. We'll be organizing teams to get
this done. Any volunteers? We can offer
good company and food.
Mission Hill School News
Update on Co-Principalship
The Governance Board discussed the
proposed role of co-principal at Mission
Hill and unanimously adopted its
subcommittee's description of the job.
Copies are available in the main office.
The process and timeline for selecting a
co-principal led to a longer and unre-
solved discussion.
The staff had presented the idea of
having two co-principals to the board last
March, proposing that Brian Straughter
share this title with Deborah. After a se-
ries of Parent Council and board meet-
ings on the subject, the co-principal model
was adopted in June. At the time, every-
one assumed this would require opening
the position to other candidates as well.
It has since turned out that that is not a
requirement.
The pros and cons of a public post-
ing and search for candidates were
weighed by the board. Choosing either
path-looking only at internal candidates,
or a full external search-would require,
under the board's bylaws, a majority vote
of each of the board's three major con-
stituencies (parents, faculty, and commu-
nity members).
The January 15 Parent Council meet-
ing will discuss the co-principal selection
process, and also elect parent representa-
tives to the board. A special February 6
board meeting will decide which path to
follow.
LOOK AT THAT KID
Look at that kid, he has a new bike.
Look at that kid, he's out of sight.
Look at that kid, he's really cool.
Look at that kid, he has a new pool.
Look at that kid, she's eating a pie.
Look at that kid, she's about to cry.
Look at that kid, she's coming this way.
Bye bye.
We'll look at some kids another day.
-Tori Furtado
ADIVINANZA
No es cama, ni es le6n
Y desaparece en cualquier rinc6n.
(Ver la solucidn in laprdxima edicidn)
Page 2
Habits of Mind
In the Classroom
Reflections from the Dolphin
classroom teachers
Evidence: How do you know some-
thing is true? One way this habit showed
up in our class this fall is that students
came up with questions they wondered
about, then looked in books and made
observations to try to answer their ques-
tions. "Can spiders climb?" Dolphins
wanted to know. We read that they can
walk up walls and we confirmed this fact
when we observed our tarantula climb
the sides of his tank.
Teachers also need evidence. We
asked the question: how do we know
what our students have learned? We con-
ducted individual interviews with each
student, which are typed up and hang-
ing in the room, and we looked closely
at the books and projects our students
made.
Connections: One kind of connec-
tion the children made was to compare
and contrast the different animals they
were learning about. Mealworms and
spiders both shed their skin as they grow,
but mealworms undergo a complete
metamorphosis, turning into darkling
beetles, while spiderlings (baby spiders)
are born looking like gfown-up spiders,
except they are tiny.
Conjecture: What if...? Part ofwhat
we did throughout this study was to set
up experiments with the live animals we
had in our room. "What if we fed our
crickets hot dogs?" the cricket group
asked. It turn out that the crickets will
eat them -Alicia Carroll,Ilene Carve,
CarlaJohnson, and Donna Johnson
MisinHil So e -
I
Published every Monday during the school
year for the parents, students, staff, and
friends of the Mission Hill School, 67
Alleghany St., Roxbury, Mass. 02120.
Principal: Deborah Meier
Coordinator: Helen Fouhey
Editor: Ed Miller
Copy Deadline: All submissions should
be typed or neatly printed, signed, and put
in Ed Miller's box in the main office by
12 noon Tuesday. Phone: 617-541-3899.