LREI | Our Principals' Blog

Admissions

Applications for Fall 2023 entry are closed for 5th through 12th grades. If you would like to inquire about post-deadline applications for Pre-K through 4th grade, please email ls-admissions@lrei.org.

LREI will present at the Parents League Virtual Kindergarten Fair on April 19th, 2023 at 2:50pm. To register, please visit the Parents League website.

We Are LREI

Welcome to LREI. We are now, as we have always been, guided by our school's mission. As a truly progressive school community, we never shy away from the challenges and the possibilities of change and growth. It is this bold, experimental, progressive vision of education that continues to inspire and guide the LREI community today. What we did yesterday, what we are doing today, and what we will do tomorrow are all a part of a coherent 14-year experience inspired by our mission.

Academics

Since its founding, the LREI experience has been grounded in progressive principles that shape the design of program in each of our divisions. These principles place students at the center of their learning experiences, call on us to narrow the distance between the world around students and their school experiences, and engage learners in authentic problem solving on a daily basis. Our mission driven approach informs all aspects of our 14-year experience.

Life @ LREI

Our founding ideals of learning that is grounded in experience, inquiry, collaboration, growth and active democratic citizenship inform every aspect of daily life at LREI. LREI truly is a community of learners; it is a place where students, faculty and families come together each day in the spirit of creativity, collaboration and consequence.

Our Most Recent Posts

List of 3 news stories.

Sleep!
1/19/2023
Margaret Paul & Allison Isbell
Dear Families,
Sleep. It is a critical ingredient for health and wellbeing, and yet it is one that teenagers often go without. Most teeenagers are inherently nocturnal. Their nature is to stay up late and sleep in. In addition, teenagers are prone to delaying things that aren’t enjoyable, namely homework. These 2 qualities often converge in a way that creates an unhealthy cycle . . . students stay up late to complete work, don’t get enough sleep before they have to go to school, drag through their day, nap after school, and then wake up to start the cycle again.

Research tells us that sleep, mental health, and academic success are inextricably linked, and that sleep and sleeplessness directly correlate with school performance, and students’ views of themselves as capable of tackling challenges, learning novel material, academic risk-taking, complex problem solving, and more.

In short, our kids need sleep–much more sleep then they are often getting! So, what can we do as parents to build healthy sleep habits with our teenagers? A few thoughts . . .
- Talk with your student about their sleep habits in a moment when you aren’t suggesting that they go to bed. At dinner, on a walk, or driving in the car are all times to bring up the research about sleep, and its impact on the daily life of your student.
- Regular, healthy meals contribute to healthy sleep cycles. You can support your student’s sleep by ensuing they eat a healthy dinner, and are not intaking high sugar or caffeinated snacks in the later evening hours.
- Help them manage access to technology at night. Though they will resist, students benefit from limits on their devices. Turning off the wifi, or setting controls on phones to turn off at certain times can help students be able to make the choice to go to sleep.
- Help them think about their sleep environment. Research confirms that we typically sleep best in dark, cooler spaces that do not have any ambient light coming from electronic devices. Talking about how to set up conditions for healthy sleep can be a nice way to motivate your teenager and partner with them in making some healthier choices.
- For students who struggle to go to sleep before midnight, you can help them make an evening plan that builds in time to wind down and signal to their brains that it is time for sleep.
And finally, we’re following up this note with the research we have referenced above.

Research on sleep and mental health:

https://www.prb.org/resources/more-sleep-could-improve-many-u-s-teenagers-mental-health/

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210305-why-teenage-sleep-is-so-important-for-mental-health

Research on sleep and academic success:

https://www.sleepfoundation.org/teens-and-sleep

https://developingadolescent.semel.ucla.edu/topics/item/science-of-adolescent-sleep

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/from/sleep.html
Upperclass Program
1/5/2023
Margaret Paul & Allison Isbell

Dear Families,

Happy new year from the high school! We were excited to welcome our students back this week and are looking forward to a great winter term together.

We want to take this opportunity to share about two programs in the high school that are defining experiences for upperclassmen.

This fall, our Class of 2024 has been working, as the junior classes before them, in the Junior Trip Lab–a design space where students articulate issues in the U.S. they feel are pressing, and then find their way to “place” where they will study these issues within communities who are working to address them.

We are so proud of the serious, intellectual work our Class of 2024 has engaged in this fall–they have approached this project with passion, curiosity, and heart. We are so pleased to share with you (below) the topics and locations for the Class of 2024 Junior Trip:

Homelessness in San Francisco, CA
Gun Violence in Colorado Springs, CO
Mental Health and Drug Abuse TBD
Mass Incarceration and the Death Penalty in New Orleans, LA
Abortion Access in Austin, TX
Climate Change in Miami, FL
Missing & Murdered Indigenous Peoples in Montana

And, this week we kicked off the Senior Project lab for our Class of 2023, where they have begun to design the self-guided, capstone projects they will engage in during trimester 3. Past Senior projects span fields of art, fashion, music, business, entrepreneurship, non-profit work, advocacy, research, writing, and so many more. We are excited to see what our Class of 2023 chooses to pursue as the culminating academic project of their high school experience at LREI.

If you are interested in supporting one of our seniors pursuing mentorship or an internship in your area of expertise, please reach out to Karyn Silverman, HS Senior Project Coordinator, to discuss. We have always been so fortunate to have the support of the LREI community during Senior Project, and the opportunities provided have deepened and added so much to our students’ experience.
Engage for Change
12/2/2022
Margaret Paul & Allison Isbell

Dear families,

Engage for Change is a student-led organization that was designed by student leaders in 2018. It asks each LREI high school student to learn about people and organizations working within communities by spending time volunteering with them. Each high school student is asked to complete 2 community service events each trimester, for a total of 6 events each school year.

This year, the Engage for Change team has set up Google Classrooms for each grade where students can upload their forms and photos after they complete their events. An important change this year is that students no longer need to get a signature from the organization they are working with, but instead should take a photo at some point during their time of service. In addition, students complete a series of questions on the form about the organization and about the time they spent volunteering.

The Engage for Change team, led by seniors Jade W and Ronan S, and faculty sponsor Sandra Ramirez, sends weekly emails with event suggestions for students, as well as links to organizations with ongoing volunteer opportunities. In addition, they forward the information that the PA Community Service committee circulates as yet another option for students.

There are still some high school students who have not completed their Engage for Change events this trimester. For the next 2 weeks, Allison and Margaret will be sitting in the lobby during lunch to check in with each student who has not yet completed their service. We will work together with students to help them make a plan to get engaged with an organization they are interested in learning more about, and we will help them find a day and time that they can commit to.

Families, we welcome your help and partnership with this as well–please talk with your students about their Engage for Change work this fall . . . remind them to upload their forms on Google Classroom if they haven’t already, and help them schedule events if they still need to.

We are grateful for the opportunities our LREI high school students have had to learn from the incredible people who serve our communities in NYC everyday. And we are so proud of the time and energy our kids have given to these essential programs . . . by the end of the school year, at the pace we are going, we will have completed more than 1,500 events of service. We think this student-designed, student-led program would make Elisabeth Irwin pretty proud!