Dear ACS Families,
Today is a great day at ACS with Field Day for Elementary students and the Alumni Induction Ceremony for our graduating seniors. It is so nice to see our community coming together on campus for these special events, especially given the fabulous May weather in Beirut.
I am writing to give you an update on some work we are doing as part of our re-accreditation process, work that has begun this year but will culminate three years from now. We have opted to do a school-wide research project that will help us understand two important aspects of the educational experience at ACS:
1) The extent to which our school environment encourages student resiliency
2) How student resiliency helps students to flourish.
Our faculty and staff have been researching and discussing the importance of providing a learning environment that helps students become more resilient. By looking at our own practices and policies in all areas of the student experience, we hope to refine and evolve in ways that will provide a learning environment that can maximize student resilience.
As a first step in this long process, we are administering a "resilience survey" to students in grades 4 through 11. The survey measures aspects of the ACS learning environment that we know help students to be more resilient. In addition to providing crucial benchmark data at the beginning of our study, we hope the survey also reveals those areas in which we are doing well as a school and other areas that might need some attention.
We'll administer the survey in the next couple of weeks and we'll share a summary of our initial findings as soon as we've had a chance to analyze the results. We'll be providing additional updates throughout the research process.
Although the practical goal of all this work is to earn re-accreditation, the more valuable goal is to use all the information gleaned from the data we collect to improve and enhance the educational experience of our students. There is no doubt in my mind that, when all of this work is done, we will be a better school.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Sincerely,