Greetings on this Juneteenth holiday. We trust that you are settling into a nice summer rhythm and enjoying the long June days. We hope that you have had some time yesterday and today to commemorate Juneteenth in a way that honors this significant day in our country’s history and is meaningful for your family.
This communication is designed to provide you with a brief staffing update. We are happy to report that the vast majority of our teachers and staff plan to return for the 2022-23 school year! However, we want to acknowledge some departing staff members, extend a warm welcome to some new staff members, and congratulate a current staff member on a new role.
At the end of our school year we had a chance to say goodbye and to express our gratitude to 8th grade teacher Angela Voves, Toddler Assistant Teacher and Middle Grades Language Arts Teacher, Parvati Scatena and Substitute Teacher, Megan Carchedi. We are grateful for your service to our school. Congratulations to Parvati Scatena who has accepted a position as the Lead Preschool Teacher at Minnesota Waldorf School. Thank you and best wishes to Angela, Parvati and Megan. We will miss you!
We are also sad to inform you that we’ve recently learned that we must say a fond farewell to Soni Albright who has accepted the role of Admissions Director at the Shining Mountain Waldorf School in Boulder, Colorado. I regret that we did not have an opportunity to say a public thank you to Soni at the Summer Festival and would like to share a few words below.
Soni is a rare individual whose countless gifts and talents have strengthened our school and greatly enriched our school community. Her tremendous kindness, intelligence, generosity, positivity, artistry, humor and good will have served as beacons in both the external and internal community. Soni played a significant role in upgrading our tech capacities, supporting teachers and families through distance learning and ensuring greater cyber security for our school. Soni also pioneered the Cyber Civics program at CLWS and has carried and supported this important work within the Waldorf movement.
Soni has continued to build on the strong enrollment work of her predecessors and improved and streamlined many enrollment processes over the past 5 years. She leaves CLWS enrollment in a strong place; current projections are that we will begin the school year with even higher enrollment than at the close of this school year.
Soni’s last day at CLWS will be July 15. Please join me in expressing deep appreciation to Soni for all of her wonderful work on behalf of City of Lakes Waldorf School. We wish you and your family the very best in your new home and school!
We are happy to welcome several new Early Childhood Assistants to our Loring Campus this summer including Sophie Gettings, Emma Blume and Sarah Rose Knight.
Lastly, we are delighted to announce that we have hired Melissa McPartland in a new position as the Early Childhood Faculty Chair. For those of you who don’t know Melissa, she first joined our faculty in 2004 and served as an early childhood teacher since 2007. She taught as both a Lead Preschool and Kindergarten Teacher and pioneered our Loring Park Campus in 2016. Melissa has served in a variety of leadership roles at CLWS including as a member of the College of Teachers. We are excited that Melissa is willing to step into this new position and bring her extensive experience and knowledge of our school to this critical work in support of our early childhood programs and teachers. Welcome, Melissa!
We wish you and your families the continuation of a lovely summer!
In service,
Marti Stewart, Administrative Director