May 19: Updates from Mike and the Admin Team

May 21: Parent/Guardian Education Event: Jonathan Warren

May 25: No School (Memorial Day)

May 26: All School Parenting Coffee with School Counselors

May 27: Evening Parent/Guardian Zoom Calls

May 28: Mock Trial

May 28: Upper School One Act Plays

May 29: The Last Bratty Comedy Hour

May 30: Ally Skills Workshop

Please join Head of School Mike McGill and members of the administrative team for a Zoom meeting next week, May 19, 7:00-8:00 pm, to discuss our thinking about how we might respond to the myriad House-based/in-person and remote learning scenarios that we’re anticipating encountering next fall and beyond.

Click here to register for the meeting. If you have any questions that you would like Mike and the Admin Team to answer, please send them in advance to Tiffany Lobner. We look forward to seeing you there!

Save the date! On June 12, at 12:30 pm, we will host our 8th grade Fly-up Ceremony via Zoom. A Zoom reception for 8th grade students and families will follow. More details about both events will be shared soon with the 8th grade.

On May 21, 4:00-6:00 pm, via Zoom, we are excited to join Jonathan Warren for a discussion about racial literacy and what is at stake. This event is open to parents, guardians, faculty, and students. 

Drawing on several decades of research on social inequalities in Brazil, Vietnam, and the U.S., Jonathan will describe racial literacy, explain why there are varying degrees of it within and between societies, discuss why it is important to nurture this capacity, and identify some of the barriers that exist to building it. Following his brief talk, participants will have the opportunity to ask questions and then deliberate on the ways in which The Northwest School and its broader community could foster higher levels of racial literacy. Click here to read Jonathan's bio.

Click here for the Zoom link.

To help celebrate the Class of 2020's upcoming graduation, a group of faculty members delivered care packages to our students on Monday, May 11. Click here to see some smiling faces!

Faculty members have also been recording tributes and shout-outs for our senior class. Click here to access them.

The show must go on! The Upper School Play Production class is proud to present the student-directed One Acts "live," online, for The Northwest School community to celebrate and enjoy!

May 28 will be an evening of theatre, featuring all of the student-directed performances. May 29 will include the annual senior send-off and an original play written by Northwest alumni Frank Garland '16.

More information on how to view these plays to come in E-News.

The senior Humanities Law and Society class will be holding their annual mock trial on May 28, 4:00-6:30 pm. Contact Scott Davis for the Zoom meeting invite.

Looking for practical, actionable diversity and inclusion training that people love? On May 30, 9:00 am-12:00 pm, and June 4, 3:00-6:00 pm, we are hosting an ally skills workshop that teaches simple everyday techniques you can use to make your workplace more inclusive. This workshop will teach people how to recognize when they have power and influence, when they can best act as an ally, and how to take effective action to make their workplace better.

After a 30-minute introduction, most of the workshop will be spent in small groups discussing real-world scenarios in which an ally could take action. Each group will share their solutions in a group report-out led by the facilitator. Participants will learn ally skills by practicing them in discussion groups: listening, amplifying voices, apologizing and correcting themselves, and more. The workshop will conclude with each participant setting a specific goal for their future ally work.

Board President Cynthia Tee will facilitate both workshops, with Math teacher Frances Tee joining as a co-facilitator on May 30 and board member Felecia Job co-facilitating on June 4. Cynthia was formerly the Executive Director of Ada Developers Academy, a non-profit, tuition-free training program for software development targeted at women and non-binary people, based in Seattle. She also actively speaks at events about diversity and inclusion and has facilitated the Allyship Workshop, originated by the Ada Initiative and Frameshift Consulting, LLC, for teams across several companies in Seattle.

Each event is limited to 30 participants. RSVP here.

On May 27, at 7:00 pm, we are offering our final evening Zoom call to discuss parenting in these challenging times. We will be joined by parent educator Sarina Natkin and former Northwest School counselor and Little School Head of School Peter Berner-Hays. Please email thoughts or questions to JoAnna Hanks.

Click here for the Zoom link.

Please join us as we all work to make sense of the hows and whats of our parenting roles in the time of COVID-19. Resources are shared, parent-to-parent advice is given/received, and we celebrate the successes (and challenges) that transform our homes.

We will be joined by Sarina Behar Natkin as our co-facilitator. Sarina is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker, Certified Parent Coach, Speaker, Author, and parent of two Northwest School students.

Coffees will be held on Zoom. The coffees will be held on this date:

Tuesday, May 26, 9:15-10:15 am - All School Parenting Coffee with Megan, Erin, and Sarina

• Zoom link
• Meeting ID: 794 640 255
• Password: 010479

For notes from the last meeting, click here.

Please click here to view additional college admissions updates and College Counseling programming.

About E-News: The weekly E-News covers a two-week period of upcoming events, parent reminders, and campus news.