AES Stakeholder Event February 15, 2018

Good evening and welcome to our event tonight. You are our major clients and stakeholders, and we value your perspectives and your words. Tonight is our night to ask some important questions and gather your suggestions and your feedback. I want to thank you in advance for your time and your thoughtfulness.

Most of you know that I recently came to AES. Tonight is also my opportunity to share my own perspective on the American Embassy School—based on my first six months as a community member— and some of my own thoughts regarding where AES is headed.

First I want to speak briefly about two defining values that I have observed and experienced at AES in my first six months. One I would describe as a core value is the value of involvement and collaboration. Teachers, students, parents expect to be included in planning, in decision making, in implementation, in reflection and in learning and making improvements. You are here tonight because of that expectation. In my observation and brief experience, all sectors of the AES community are ready to make a commitment of time and energy to make their contribution to this institution.

The second value I would say is more aspirational. That is a commitment to making excellence a top priority at AES. I’ve called this an aspirational value because there are some areas where an unwavering commitment to excellence is already apparent, but there are other areas where we’ve settled for something less. We offer the IB Diploma, and we do it well, and our students have some of the best results in the world for a school that is not highly selective. We have some of the best air quality in the world in our classrooms. We monitor the air in 100 classrooms and spaces on campus on a continuous basis for CO2, PM 2.5 and other factors that we believe can have an impact on health and on learning. On the teaching side, we are committed to using effective teaching practices and world-class resources in our curriculum. Those practices and our curriculum are based on classic principles of American curriculum and teaching, such teaching to the whole child, critical thinking, project based learning, workshop methods of instruction and so on.

There are other areas of our facilities, programs and ways of working where improvements are clearly needed though. As we aspire to make excellence a reality throughout AES we know there are things we can do better. We have settled for less than excellence in some areas of our curriculum and teaching, perhaps to save money. We can do better. We have settled for less than excellence in some aspects of our buildings and grounds. I hope that in the coming months and years I can focus on some of these areas as the school’s Director, and help us reach that level of excellence that we aspire to.

One of those areas that I think we need to aspire to a higher level of excellence is what we are calling inclusion. Inclusion means embracing a broader diversity of learners and ensuring that everyone is challenged, everyone is learning. AES is already an inclusive school in many ways. Our students come from 50 nationalities. You are included tonight so that we can hear from you. The PSA is leading celebrations this week for our 65th anniversary that include everyone, even retired staff members and alumni.

We can do better at being inclusive, if we want to be excellent in this area. We have students with intense learning support needs in our classrooms already. We have good learning support systems and teachers. But, we can do better.

I am committed to helping AES improve in this area in the coming months and years. We will become an excellent, inclusive school. The Board is committed to supporting us in doing that. 20 AES teachers recently signed up for an intensive five-course program to help lead us in becoming an inclusive international school.

I only wanted to speak for two minutes tonight and I’m afraid I’ve gone past that. I love what we are doing here already, and I love my role in helping us move forward. I look forward to our discussions tonight, and hearing from all of you. We appreciate your commitment to our school, and we value what you have to tell us.