by Dennis Harter
dennish@isb.ac.th
And that’s it! What a terrific school year 2018-19 has been! I am so proud of our Middle School community – the care we show for each other and the learning progress that each and every student makes. Thank you to all our middle school family who have contributed to making it such a positive year for all. In particular, I offer our thanks to Mr. Oms, Mrs. Plantecoste, our counselors, teachers, and staff, who day in and day out dedicate their time and energy to students.
Today we closed things out with a wonderful assembly, celebrating student performances and coming together as a community dancing to YMCA and singing our song of the year, “Country Roads.” What a great feel to end the year.
Of course, with every end of year comes some bittersweet moments of goodbyes. To the students leaving ISB, we wish great adventures ahead and hope that they will stay in touch and visit when they can. We know that they have learned many skills that will suit them well in their new schools.
To our Grade 8 students, we wish them great success in the high school. They have maximized their time in the MS and are absolutely ready for this next step. They will continue to develop the person they are, while discovering new interests, new strengths, and new adventures. As always, we hope they pop into the MS office every now and then and say hi. We hope that their middle school experience has been rich and fulfilling.
And finally to our departing teachers, we wish a fond (and somewhat sad) farewell. This year, the Middle School loses teachers with a combined 85 years of contribution to ISB. And while that’s incredible, it does not begin to measure the massive impact they’ve had on students, one kid at a time. We cannot replace these great teachers, but we can make sure we continue to hire teachers of their calibre and impact. Thank you to all of these teachers as they move to new schools, take on retirement, or try on a new administrative role. We are who we are because of the impact they have had. To paraphrase the musical Wicked, because we knew you, we’ve been changed for good.
We wish everyone a wonderful summer holiday and safe travels. As always, please encourage your child to rest, relax, be a little active, and READ, READ, READ. A little reading every day of whatever they want has great benefit in ensuring learning is not “lost” over the summer.
Great year! See you in August!