School News

Peace Week

Peace Week is a special time in our school year—a moment to pause, reconnect with our Quaker testimony of Peace, and consider how each of us can help create a more compassionate and just world. This year’s theme, Grounded in Spirit, Growing in PEACE, encourages us to draw strength from our inner Light as we nurture peace within ourselves and extend it to those around us.

In a time when division and dehumanization can feel overwhelming, Peace Week invites us to slow down and truly see one another. This year, storytelling will be at the heart of our reflections. Sharing our stories—and listening deeply to the stories of others—helps us recognize the Light in each person, build understanding, and strengthen the bonds that make our community whole.

We are delighted to welcome Willie Perdomo '85 as our Peace Week speaker.

Willie Perdomo is an award-winning poet, educator, and former New York State Poet Laureate (2021–2023). His acclaimed books, including Where a Nickel Costs a Dime, Smoking Lovely, The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon, and The Crazy Bunch, and children’s books Clemente! and Visiting Langston explore themes of identity, community, and belonging. Perdomo’s work shines a light on the lived experiences of Puerto Rican and Afro-Latiné communities in New York City, lifting up voices and stories that are often overlooked.

Beyond his literary achievements, Perdomo is a gifted teacher and storyteller who believes deeply in the power of narrative to heal, empower, and bring people together. His visit will help us reflect on how our own stories—and the stories we choose to honor—can be acts of peace.

We look forward to sharing this week of learning, listening, and growing in peace with all of you.

Willie's talk will take place at 6 PM in the Meetinghouse on Thursday, January 22. Click here to RSVP.

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Lower School Math Program Exploration

Our Lower School Math Committee continues its review of three potential math programs for Grades K–4: Illustrative Math, Bridges, and Amplify Desmos. Each month, homeroom teachers complete a deep dive into a representative unit at their grade level, while math specialists and non-homeroom faculty and staff examine the program across units. This dual view allows us to understand both the day-to-day classroom experience and the broader program design.

This month, we focused on Bridges. What sets Bridges apart from the other two programs is currently the 3rd and 4th grade teams are using it this year. Our meeting was not about surfacing major strengths, concerns and questions, and not about making a decision. We will finish this process with Amplify Desmos before moving into our comparative phase later this winter.

Below are images of the notes generated by the committee during our Bridges debrief:

We look forward to continuing this thoughtful, teacher-driven exploration and will share updates as we move into the next stage of the process.

Charge: Evaluate math curriculum options for Grades K–4 and recommend a program for adoption that supports strong teaching and learning in the Lower School.

Membership:

Dot Cates - Grade 4

Erin Gordon - Head of Lower School

Hassan Wilson - Dean of Studies, Science (Clerk)

Hilary Berliner - Math Support

Jennifer Wittmer - Grade 1

Jessica Contreras - Grade 3

Kim Tran - Grade 2

Lauren Graham - Kindergarten

Melanie Smith - Math Department Chair (5-12)

Monica Witt - Math Support

Valerie García - LS Visual Arts, former homeroom teacher

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Focus on Friends - January 2026

A few summers ago, while exploring professional development opportunities, Lower School teacher Olivia Elliott came across a workshop on Imaginative Inquiry. The approach immediately resonated, echoing the kind of inquiry-driven work she had experienced in graduate school. After attending a week-long training, Olivia returned to Friends Seminary eager to explore what this kind of work could look like in her classroom. That enthusiasm soon connected with the work of colleagues, including Jaja Engel-Snow and Jessica Contreras, and what began as one teacher’s professional learning took root across second and third grade social studies classrooms.

Imaginative Inquiry asks students to step into purposeful roles and engage with real world questions through sustained investigation. In the third grade Monarch study, students are commissioned as a team of citizen scientists working on behalf of the NYC Parks Department to investigate monarch migration and understand why milkweed has become increasingly scarce. Rather than being given information upfront, students uncover knowledge gradually through observation, research, discussion, and reflection. Monarch migration is introduced through a series of postcards sent by citizen scientists along the route, allowing the study to unfold as a story.

For Jessica Contreras, this shift was intentional. “By viewing the study through an imaginative inquiry lens, students are invited to engage in critical thinking, problem solving, and hands-on exploration in new and exciting ways,” she reflects. In the Monarch study, this means students are not simply learning about migration, but actively investigating causes, consequences, and possible responses to environmental change.

A similar structure anchors Imaginative Inquiry work in second grade, where Jaja Engel-Snow and her colleagues have developed social studies units focused on city systems, including the Department of Transportation and the Brooklyn Bridge. In these units, students investigate how New York City stays connected, whom its systems serve, and how choices about transportation affect the environment and daily life in the city. Positioned as part of an expert team, students conduct fieldwork across the city, speaking directly with commuters and MTA workers to better understand how decisions made in the past continue to shape life in the city today. “I knew imaginative inquiry was working when I saw kids considering the needs of New Yorkers across the boroughs and problem solving with empathy,” Jaja shares.

The work continues to grow. This year, the fourth grade team is partnering with the Imaginative Inquiry organization to explore how an inquiry-driven approach might reframe parts of the fourth grade social studies curriculum. While this work is still developing, the essential questions at the heart of fourth grade studies about identity, governance, expansion, and immigration naturally lend themselves to the kind of inquiry already taking root in earlier grades. As Olivia Elliott notes, “At its heart, Imaginative Inquiry allows children to grapple with complex problems and find meaningful solutions.”

What unites this work across grades is a shared belief in what children are capable of when learning invites imagination, inquiry, and responsibility. Students are asked to wrestle with complex ideas, listen closely to others, and see themselves as contributors to the world around them. Imaginative Inquiry has become a powerful way of honoring children’s curiosity while helping them build the skills and dispositions they will carry with them as learners and collaborators at Friends and beyond.