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Members of the Middle School Jazz Band and Pop Band recently joined the High School Jazz Combo, Jazz Ensemble, and GraceNotes to perform at the Cutting Room, one of New York City’s premier music venues. Budding and more seasoned student-musicians alike learned from their peers as they experienced the intricacies of putting on a professional concert, from rehearsals and sound checks to playing two sets of music with full lighting and sound.
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In 1993, Grace’s Middle School held an assembly to honor the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. During the three plus decades since, the Martin Luther King Jr. Peace Program, as it has come to be known, has evolved into an interdisciplinary school-wide event featuring performances, assemblies, guest speakers, workshops, artmaking, and service learning opportunities.
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“Stand here if you’d like someone to play with you!” A sign with these ten seemingly simple words has hung on the wall of the roof deck for years, reminding Grace students that opportunities to find—and be—a friend are never far away.
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Leah Silver, Advisor to the Associate Teachers, sat down with us recently to discuss the associate teaching program and its integral role at Grace.
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The following is a letter from Head of School Robbie Pennoyer
My favorite educational conference is also the cheapest. A hazard of being a head of school is an expectation that, every year, you’ll attend an alphabet soup’s worth of conferences. There is value to attending these acronymed affairs, but there is also a hefty cost—particularly in terms of the time they require you to spend away from school.
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For JK–8 Performing Arts Chair Mike Raposo, his role as teacher and performer aren’t separate from one another. “It's never been an option for me to not teach, just like it's never been an option for me to not perform. I think, in many ways, as a musician, the skills you develop teaching make you a better performer, and the skills you develop performing make you a better teacher. What and how I teach my students is heavily influenced by my experiences as a performer.”
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Propelled by the energy and excitement of September’s Spirit Day and Homecoming Weekend, Grace’s athletes ran, kicked, blocked, volleyed, and lobbed their way through October’s challenges and triumphs to cap off an incredible fall season.
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On the morning of September 6, new junior kindergarten through eighth grade parents and parental figures gathered in Tuttle Hall for a welcome and orientation to kick off their first school year at Grace. As part of the formal program, Head of School Robbie Pennoyer greeted families and described his hopes for the partnership that will develop between them and the school in the years to come, a message he also shared with new high school families earlier that week.
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The morning of the science fair, seventh and eighth grade students arrived early. The gym, usually occupied by children deftly weaving through obstacle courses and dodging balls, was filled with the sights and sounds of middle schoolers excitedly putting finishing touches on their project displays–the culmination of months of asking questions, conducting research, forming hypotheses, observing results, and drawing conclusions–before their families and classmates arrived.
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Last week, the Grace community gathered for this year’s Senior Research Colloquium, an annual event which celebrates the great scholarship of the graduating class in literature, history, neuroscience, and data science.
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Rev. Sarah Wood, who served as Grace's chaplain from 2011–2014, will return to Grace to resume the role in July 2024. Since 2019, Sarah has been the Head Chaplain at Trinity School. Throughout the search process, it was clear what her former (and now future) Grace colleagues had so appreciated about Sarah: her unflappable commitment to the values that anchor Grace’s mission.
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In 1992, Grace Church School had its first cultural exchange with a cohort of middle schools in Yukuhashi, Japan. Over two decades later, Grace continues the tradition, exercising its mission through collaborations with schools across the globe.
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As Grace’s newly-minted sophomores sat in their first grade-level meeting of the school year, Dean Hickerson and Mr. Todd officially introduced them to the Independent Project curriculum, beginning with a single question: “If you could choose any subject to explore, what would you choose?” The vastness of the question, reflected in the wide-eyed expressions of the students, is one of the reasons that IP10 (or March Madness as it’s known colloquially) has become an academic right of passage at Grace.
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Grace is many things to many people, and our new mission statement seeks to capture both what Grace is and what we hope it will be, paying homage to the school’s rich history and defining the timeless values that will continue to guide us.
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Lele LeVay will join Grace in October as the next Director of Advancement. She comes to Grace with three decades of advancement experience in secondary and higher education and looks forward to stewarding the school's advancement efforts.
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Christina Hultholm has been appointed Grace’s Director of Strategic Communications. Christina comes to Grace with over a decade of experience in independent school communications and currently serves as Director of Communications at City and Country School (C&C).
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Susan, who is the JK-12 drama curriculum coordinator, has taught at Grace for 24 years, teaching drama and health and wellness in the Middle School. She has been deeply involved in the life of the school, putting on two incredible shows per year (a play in the fall and a musical in the spring), she has been an advisor, led a CGC group, co-founded the middle school student GSA, and co-directs the JK-8 Christmas Pageant. She has served on the faculty committee for three terms and led domestic and international trips, including ones to Japan and France.
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Tim Quinn, who is serving as the Interim Athletics Director this school year, was previously the Associate Athletics Director. He is in his tenth year at Grace having taught Physical Education here in every division, as well as coached middle school girls basketball and baseball, and varsity boys basketball winning Coach of the Year in 2016. Tim was also the founding coach of the varsity golf team and coached for five years.
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Did you know that Grace is the highest ranked school in New York City in the EPA's
recently released list of the largest green power users among all K-12 school partners? Further, Grace currently ranks #5 nationally!
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The December 7 High School Community Meeting was a truly unique event. On the 81st anniversary of the attacks on Pearl Harbor, officers from the United States Navy presented a relic of the USS Arizona Battleship, sunken during the attack, to the Grace Church School community.
