Welcome to a New Year at Acera

by Dr. Heather J. Pinedo-Burns, Head of School 

As I sit down to write this, I am feeling that familiar mix of anticipation and gratitude that arrives at the beginning of a school year. Our buildings are quiet now, filled mostly with the hum of teachers preparing to welcome everyone back. Soon, though, Acera will sound like itself again: questions spilling into hallways, laughter from the playground, students gathered around a fascinating idea, a teacher leaning in to listen to a student who has just discovered something unexpected. There is something wonderfully hopeful about the beginning of a school year. We get to begin again. We get to wonder about what our students will discover, who they will become, and what we will learn alongside them.

Last summer, I wrote to you about belonging. This summer, I have been thinking about something I believe is deeply connected to belonging: partnership. And I have been thinking about words. Ada Limón writes, “Some days my life is held together by definitions, some days I read the word swallow and all my feathers show.” I love the way a single word can suddenly open into something unexpected. To swallow is one thing. A swallow is another. Same word, wholly different meaning. Andyet, for a moment, they live together on the page.

I think something similar happens in schools, and in our relationships with one another. We can hear the same words and understand them differently. A question can be curiosity, concern, or frustration. A child’s behavior can be communication, even when we don’t yet understand what it is telling us. A decision that feels surprising from one vantage point can look very different when we understand what came before it. Meaning is often more complicated than it first appears.

This is one of the things I love most about learning: the invitation to pause before deciding that we know. To wonder what else a word might mean. To listen again. To look from another angle. To allow ourselves to be surprised. I think we should practice this as adults, too.

Partnership asks us to pause to reflect and reconsider. Our promise is not perfection. It is presence. It is curiosity. It is honesty. It is a willingness to listen, to learn, and to begin again.  There will be moments this year when something doesn’t make sense. A child may come home frustrated. A decision may feel surprising. Something may not go the way a family hoped it would. In those moments, our first responsibility as a school is to listen and help make sense of what happened. We will explain our thinking, ask questions, and make space for what you and your child are experiencing. When we could have communicated something more clearly, we will acknowledge that and work on repair.

We also know what happens at school and what makes its way home can sometimes be only part of a larger story. Our hope is that, together, we can approach those moments with curiosity and give one another the gift of pause: the space  to ask a question, seek context, and understand one another. Sometimes, if we pause long enough, the feathers show. And when we reach out to one another, I hope we can do so with the shared understanding that we are on the same team: the team of adults who love children, who are responsible for them, and who are trying, together, to help them grow.

That is the partnership we want to build: one grounded in the shared understanding that we are adults who care deeply about children, who are responsible for them, and who are trying, together, to help them grow.

A few changes for this year: We made some intentional shifts in our staffing and classroom structure this year. These decisions were made thoughtfully, with a great deal of conversation about the individual students we serve, class size, and the composition of each Core Class community. One of those changes was moving to one fewer Core classroom. As we looked closely at this particular cohort of students and considered different ways of grouping them, we came to believe that this structure would create stronger classroom communities and a better overall experience for students. I know this was a surprise to some families, and I want to acknowledge that we could have communicated that change more transparently and earlier. I am sorry for the uncertainty that created. At the heart of these decisions was a desire to create the strongest possible learning environments for the students who are here this year. We spent considerable time thinking about each child, each classroom, and the ways students might challenge, support, and grow alongside one another.

We have also made a more intentional commitment to several areas of learning, including Health, Wellness, and Physical Education across the school, as well as dedicated time in Upper School to explore the role of technology in education through Digital Citizenship with Alison. These additions sit alongside what remains steadfast at Acera: hands-on learning, inquiry, creativity, and project-based exploration. We continue to believe deeply in giving students opportunities to follow questions into the world and discover where their thinking takes them. And then there are the spaces themselves.

Our new Arts and Sciences Building will bring students a MakerSpace, Art Studio, Physics Lab, Flex Space, and an expanded Woodshop. I cannot wait to watch our students inhabit these spaces. I suspect they will make them even more interesting than anything we could have designed ourselves. We are ecstatic to open the Acera Arts and Sciences Building with the start of this new school year, and we will celebrate this milestone together on Friday, October 16, with an evening ribbon-cutting ceremony. We hope you will join us. There is something especially meaningful about this building. It exists because of the extraordinary generosity of our Acera families. Through the success of our Major Gifts campaign, we have been able to create and fully outfit this building without taking on debt. At a time when many schools are navigating significant financial uncertainty, I do not take this for granted. Our ability to do this is the result of generosity, yes, but also years of careful financial stewardship, planning, and leadership. I feel enormous gratitude for the trust our community has placed in Acera and for the remarkable way our families have helped us build toward the future.

In the Main Building, the Inno Lab will remain our gathering space this year. And here, too, we are choosing to pause. Rather than immediately making the next set of changes, we are giving ourselves time to think carefully about how we want that space to evolve. Our longer-term vision includes a Fiber Arts Studio, Tech Hub, a Stage/Theater and Gathering Space that can offer flexible workspaces where students can extend their curiosity into inquiry and project-based learning. Many of these spaces and possibilities are already ready for students and teachers to use right now. Sometimes the most thoughtful thing we can do is not rush toward the next idea. Sometimes it is to pause, notice what is already working, and allow the next idea to emerge.

And so we begin. At Acera, we ask our students to be curious. We ask them to take intellectual risks, to make mistakes, to wonder, to revise their thinking, and to try again. I think we should ask the same of ourselves as adults. We are all learning how to do this together: how to raise and teach extraordinary children, how to create a school community where each student can belong, and how to navigate the inevitable moments when things feel complicated or uncertain. That work is not always easy. It is not supposed to be. But it is meaningful work. And I believe deeply that we are better at it when we do it together.

Thank you for trusting us with your children. Thank you for bringing your questions, your ideas, your celebrations, and yes, even your concerns. Your partnership makes us a better school. Soon, this quiet school will be noisy again. The classrooms will fill. The questions will begin. Someone will discover something unexpected. Someone will make a mess. Someone will change their mind. Someone will ask a question that sends an entire group of people down a completely new path. And I cannot wait.

Here’s to another year of curiosity, belonging, discovery, resilience, and the beautiful, complicated work of growing together.