Events/Calendars
	The LREI Community’s Response to Hurricane Katrina

The LREI community responded with its customary energy and compassion to the emergency in the Gulf Coast region of the country caused by Hurricane Katrina.

 

Thank You for your contributions! The Benefit Concert to Aid the Victims of Hurricane Katrina was held on Monday evening, October 17, 2005, at 6:15 PM in the High School Performing Arts Center on Charlton Street. Broadway performers and LREI students performed for this worthy cause. Click here to view a photo gallery.

Here are the details:

Two in-kind donation drives took place during the week of September 19th.

The media surround in which our children grow up guarantees that they will react both emotionally and intellectually to an event of this magnitude; and, of course, they will bring those reactions to school. Knowing this, the administration and the school psychologists, met before the start of the year to prepare for reactions and discussions that we knew would undoubtedly occur. During the first few days of school, our teachers, with their usual wisdom, helped students work through their responses to this disaster in thoughtful and age-appropriate ways. In turn, our students’ responses have been very mature and inspiring. Each morning they bring in donations of school supplies they know will help ease conditions and put a smile on the faces of children their age who have been displaced by the hurricane. Many have raised money in their own ingenious ways for our Red Cross fundraising drive.

Teachers have also been seeking curricular connections. The music teachers in the Lower and Middle schools, for example, have been exploring the musical heritage of New Orleans. My own high school urban studies classes focus on New York City, but this year began with a consideration of New Orleans – its ecology, history, culture, government - something I certainly didn’t plan for until a few days before school began. But that’s what progressive schools do. I know that in various science, language, math, arts and English classes in all three divisions of LREI, teachers have tapped into student interest and concern, and used the skills and concepts of their respective disciplines to demonstrate how what students learn in school connects to the real world they live in and empowers them to make an impact on it.

As a progressive school community, our mission is to nurture an abiding sense of responsibility for the well being of others and to model effective and caring civic consciousness. During the current crisis, parents, teachers and students are joining together to help. The Parents Association Community Service Committee, the High School Community Service Roundtable, teachers and administrators, and individuals and classes in all three divisions are working together to develop plans to raise money and gather in-kind donations that can make a difference in people’s lives. Donation Jars are located in both school lobbies to collect money for the Red Cross. High School students are making arrangements to place donation jars in local businesses patronized by the LREI Community.

I will keep you updated on the web site in the weeks ahead on the progress of these various efforts. For now, thanks go to everyone who is working to mobilize our community’s resources and compassion in this time of need for people in our own country – as we have in the past for people around the world and as others have reached out to help us.