A couple of months ago, I had a phone conversation with a prospective parent. On the call, I answered many questions about our school from curriculum, to conflict resolution, to volunteering. This family would be moving from out of state and so they wanted to get as much information about us as possible before booking flights to come visit us. It was a great conversation and then she asked me one final question: “who are the families that go there?” Who are they?— I thought.

Hello Readers, Just dropping in to share a wonderful event our two of our eighth graders attended in early March. As part of the World Affairs Council of Charlotte's educational initiative, regional schools may participate in their luncheon series, and DGS had the privilege of hearing Kurk Wilks, President and Chief Executive Officer of MANN+HUMMEL. His talk left all of us with much for reflection. Here are a few take aways from Lily and Olivia, who attended the luncheon. Lil

A few years ago, I was gifted the book The Lost Art of Reading Nature's Signs . It’s a truly beautiful book, and for that reason it ended up living on my coffee table, where I could admire it often. Believe me, I had every intention of picking it up and getting lost in the stories and illustrations, but somehow I never did… until recently. Over winter break, when life slowed down just enough, I finally opened it. I’m so glad I did. It reminded me of a connection that is alway

Tristan's family came in on one of the coldest days of the year to help us all experience a Canadian tradition. They showed us how to roll maple syrup onto popsicle sticks for a delicious treat. The thick syrup cooled just enough to roll onto our sticks. We were able to lick and bite our tasty treat. The weather cooperated, and we could have rolled the syrup on our snow as well. Winter treat on a winter's day. Thank you to the Tang Family. How to roll Maple syrup onto a

Lunar New Year is coming up on February 17th and we will celebrate this spring festival with traditional lucky foods next week. While the Lunar New Year is celebrated around the world, we focused our learning on ancient China. This brought our attention to social hierarchies. As might be expected in ancient China, the emperor and royal family were the top of the heap, with wealth and power. However, just below these dynasties were the civil servants, respected because the

January did not go exactly as planned (and somehow, it may have been even better because of that). Between snow days, MLK day, and conferences, we missed nearly two full weeks of school… and yet the children accomplished a stunning amount of work. Their resilience, focus, and exuberance reminded me that learning doesn’t stop when the calendar shifts, it just adapts. One of the highlights of the month was the birth of our own spontaneously-created Lower Elementary Writers’ Wor