State of School: February Recap

Pictured above: Preschool students circling up in a snowstorm of handmade snowflakes with FSP grad Flora Bliss'20.

Over Zoom, early in February, I hosted my third State of the School. Preparing for this reflection of the school year has become a valuable practice to me that I look forward to. I want to share a snapshot of that evening.

Our financials tell a simple and affirming story, which is that we make careful decisions and we are in excellent shape. We’re in a good position because of strong enrollment and people who contribute, as well as the leadership that preceded me and the responsible work of current and past board members. The finance committee meets monthly to review, present, and make proposals to the board. Each fall, our financials are reviewed by an external accounting firm. The personnel committee meets about three or four times per year to review policies and explore how we can better compensate our faculty and staff.

One teacher who has worked at FSP since 2010 remarked that the opening “Year in Numbers” gave such a vivid snapshot of the moment of growth we are in as a school. I have divided these numbers into two categories, using the language of our Strategic Plan, as some have to do with rooting down into our campus and building, and some have to do with branching out into the wider community and world.

The Year in Numbers (February 2024)

Rooting Down:

141 students

103 households

23 zip codes

25 full-time staff

14 part-time staff (includes Summer Camp and AfterCare staff)

73 acres to explore (between FSP which sits on 21 acres and Falmouth Land Trust’s abutting property of 52 acres)

27 Middle School Ambassadors giving tours at 2 Open Houses!

430 Solar Panels which helped us to generate….

41,456 kWh more energy than we consumed. We are net positive! 

Branching Out:

108 graduates 

5 cross country meets that the girls won this year (all of them!)

21 After School Activities run so far this year

10 years of ice skating at Falmouth Family rink! 

35 Field Trips 

+ 49 Library Trips

13 Visiting Artists coming in March

1 more summer camp week added for summer 2024

0 visiting committees this year (NEASC, Strategic Plan, Friends Council)

As I said at the State of the School, it is such a thrill to be part of this community at the moment it is sending out its first wave of adult grads into the world. We are still a young school, not just in the age of our school – but in the age of our graduates. The vast majority of our graduates are still in high school and college. It’s been so informative and affirming how grads think back on their time at FSP. The core of what many alums talk to me about when talking about FSP are: Quaker values, adventurous exploratory time outdoors, their love of learning, and feeling truly respected by FSP adults.

“I didn't realize how much I miss this feeling of welcomeness that can't be found everywhere. I enjoyed helping (the youngest campers) interact with each other the same way Friends taught me to treat others.” – Tess McNally ‘20

“It is such a talent to be able to create a bond with a middle school student that is genuine, and appropriate, and treats them like a person with real thoughts and feelings. Teachers at FSP did that so well. – Annie Gott ‘12

“My relationships with teachers and mentors at FSP is something I truly cherish – both then and now! ” – Saharla Farah ‘15

Friends School's Board Is Seeking New Members

At the beginning of February, we held our third annual Board Visit Day! ✨

It was a chance for faculty, staff, students, and parents to get acquainted or reacquainted with this group of people who care so much about FSP. Classroom visits, spending time in the snow at recess, conversations with parents over coffee, and a delicious dessert potluck.

Interested in joining this hearty crew of FSP supporters? We are seeking new board members to leverage their skills and expertise to help us steward Friends School of Portland!

If you would like more information about what serving on FSP's Board or a Board Committee entails, please click on the below links or send an email to our Board Governance Committee Clerk, Jason Wentworth P'21, at boardgov@friendsschoolportland.org.

If you are interested in joining FSP's board start with this interest form:

If you would like to nominate a potential FSP board member start with this nominating form:

Launching into the Next 5 Years with a Contra Dance and Potluck: “Rooting Down, Branching Out” FSP’s Strategic Plan

A big hearty thank you to all who came out to learn about FSP's 5-year strategic plan, share food, and dance this weekend. What a glorious night of tasty dishes and do-si-does!

So many families, friends, and Friends came on Saturday evening to launch our five-year strategic plan with a potluck and contra dance! It was wonderful to have two former heads of school there too, James Grumbach and Jenny Rowe. We had musicians and a caller who’d also joined FSP in the past for Harvest Fest at Broadturn Farm and dances at Carter Hall on Mackworth Island.

Learn more about FSP’s Strategic Plan “Rooting Down, Branching Out” on our website here:

The Evolution of FSP's Outdoor Kindergarten Program

Before winter break, in our weekly Wednesday all-school community meeting, kindergarteners gave a “thought for the week” for the school community about the work, learning, and play they do in the forest each week. Using a slide show to show us their forest world, kindergarteners explained how they spend each Thursday and Friday in the forest, where they write in their forest journals, do chores to take care of the space, work on projects, cook food together, and learn how to be in community with one another and with the natural world. When asked which of the SPICES their work in the forest connects to, one kindergartener answered, “Community, because none of what’s out there is yours. It belongs to everyone.”  

Friends School of Portland’s founding location on Mackworth Island provided opportunities for students to engage with and learn from the island’s woods and waters. Place-based learning on Mackworth became a cornerstone of FSP’s early curriculum, and students who attended FSP on the island spent their early childhood years (and a good deal of time in later grades) exploring the shores, woods, and hills of the island.  

In preparation for the move to our current location in 2015, teachers brainstormed ways we could use the new land intentionally to strengthen students’ learning experiences outside. Inspired by existing forest kindergarten models both in the United States and abroad, FSP’s kindergarten took the opportunity that our new space in Cumberland provided to launch a “forest morning” program one morning each week. The woods around our new home gave us the opportunity to establish a more permanent homebase for the forest program that was not possible on the island. 

As Aja Stephan, former kindergarten teacher put it in 2016, “We decided having an ‘educational forest’ would be the best way to give young kids the chance to have wild play in the woods and still conserve the majority of our forest. Along with that, we thought the best way to get us outdoors, really and truly, was to build it into the curriculum for a large portion of one day a week, all day long.” Soon after, with the help of volunteers, many of them parents, we built a fire pit and a platform canvas tent, and the kindergarteners worked with their teachers to define boundaries between the forest classroom and the wild forest.

FSP’s forest kindergarten program has continued to evolve with intention each year. Carie Garrett and Robin Booty, the current kindergarten team, have grown the program to two full days each week, and they have worked to codify and articulate the competencies students are working toward in the forest: stewardship, independence, community, responsibility, self-regulation, and curiosity. As Carie and Robin have written in a recent guide to the Forest program:

“... The kindergarten class at FSP understands what it means to have water to wash hands in the outdoor classroom because they lug jugs of water all the way up the hill to our forest, so when it is their turn to wash their hands they conserve what we have. The very real applications of developing skills help children know themselves, push themselves to try new things, and use these skills in new ways when they are learning and growing across environments.     

"Children form and deepen relationships with themselves, each other, and the world around them through their work in the outdoor classroom. They learn to regulate themselves, to ask questions and seek answers, to look out for their classmates, and to take care of our natural world. Then they take this learning with them beyond their kindergarten experience.”

Forest kindergarten is now a cornerstone of our early childhood program that students recall and build on as they grow through the grades at FSP. As we move forward, we will continue to explore ways to deepen and strengthen the program, including our forest classroom infrastructure, so it lives on as a foundation and rite of passage for all future FSP kindergarteners.

Love of Learning: Middle School Electives

Pictured above: Students designed and built their own trebuchet to launch objects in the woods and the courtyard.

Middle School school students have just wrapped up a season of electives. The choices are a combination of student interests and teacher passions. It is an exciting process to see what teachers want to offer and what students are interested in delving into more.

The recent offerings ranged:

  • Theatre Games and Improv

  • Narrative Poetry

  • Making a Trebuchet

  • Nature Art

  • Moving Mindfully

  • Creating Leather Wallets

  • Learning to Draw Like Picasso

  • Helping in the Preschool Helpers

Here's a glimpse into electives this Fall...

Each student in the Narrative Poetry elective spent time working on a poem, learned the process of submitting work to a publication, and then on the last day of their elective each student submitted their work. Below is one student’s poem that he submitted to The New Yorker.

Students followed the curriculum that Picasso used to learn how to draw to develop their own artistic skills.

Students tending to a fire while building a bench and a bookshelf outdoors.

Students cut leather, used special tools to create patterns, and sewed their own leather wallets.

Seventh-grade students spent time in the preschool assisting with projects and learning from FSP's preschool team about child development.

Students learned to propagate plant clippings and created small potted plants to distribute to homebound elders through Meals on Wheels.

Black Ash Tree Research and Seed Collection: Seventh and Eighth-Grade Science

A seventh-grade student described how “it feels good to know that what you are learning about is something that you can help with.” He was speaking about his science class research project through the University of Maine’s Ash Protection Collaboration Across Wabanakik (APCAW). This Fall, students mapped trees on our property, learned how to identify the presence of the Emerald Ash Borer, and ventured to the neighboring Royal River watershed to collect Black Ash Tree seed.  

Seventh and eighth-grade students began their study of the Emerald Ash Borer with a visit from Nell at the Wild Seed Project. Students generated questions initial questions. 

Where are EAB native to? 

How do we identify ash trees?

Are they hard to grow? 

Why is it an ash tree in the Wabanaki creation story?

Why do 1% of ash trees survive EAB?

What makes an ash tree better for making baskets?

How many ash trees are there?

Then students went to work discovering answers to their questions and asking new questions. The seventh and eighth-grade science classes worked with The Wild Seed Project, Falmouth Land Trust, and the University of Maine. Students watched They Carry Us With Them: Richard Silliboy – Jeremy Seifert to gain insight into the importance that black and brown ash plays in Wabanaki identity. 

The Falmouth Land Trust and Wild Seed Project worked with students on identification and mapping. Students learned to identify the three main species of Ash in Maine, and in particular, identify the trees that we have on our school campus and the neighboring land trust property. Students then participated in the APCAW research project implementing protocols to identify the presence of EAB. And then, students had the opportunity to learn to harvest seeds from green ash and black trees near the Royal River.  

In early November, seventh and eighth-grade students shared their field experiences and research on the Black Ash Tree and Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) over a state-wide Zoom with the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. Students also had the opportunity to ask questions with scientists working on this project. Later in November, students from King Middle School in Portland visited. Students shared their research and findings with peers just beginning a study of Ash trees.   

"When I thought about what kind of science teacher I wanted to be, this is the work that I hoped I would be doing" shared 7-8 Science Teacher, Nicole.

Seventh-grade parent, Sarah Griffiths P’25, shared “ It is clear that my daughter and her classmates feel like true scientists as the data they are collecting is valued and will have a lasting impact in Maine’s forests.” 

Supporting Friends School of Portland's Annual Fund

All gifts, large and small, make a difference in sustaining the education and community at Friends School of Portland. There are many different ways to make a gift. One way that friends make gifts is through appreciated securities.

At Friends School, we have maintained an account through TDAmeritrade to accept gift of stocks. This account has recently changed hands to Charles Schwab. If you typically prefer to make gifts to FSP using this method, please note that this change went into effect on December 1, 2023. We have posted our new transaction information on our website giving page found below.

If you are curious about learning more about donating through appreciated securities, please reach out to Development Director, Brooke Burkett (207) 558-6214 or (brooke@friendsschoolportland.org).

Heart Work: Committee Work

Pictured above: Storytelling with retired FSP teacher, Linda Ashe-Ford during a recent Friday all-school assembly.

Committee work is the engine of how our school runs. Students, parents, faculty and staff, board members, grandfriends, and Friends engage in different ways to move projects they are passionate about to fruition. Recently, the Outdoor Spaces faculty committee came together to have a new swingset installed. The committee worked together to choose the equipment and organize the installation.  

Committee work is critical at the board level as well. FSP’s board has a handful of committees that each meet once per month: Finance, Governance, Development, and School Safety. There are also board committees that meet a few times per year: the Personnel and Executive Committees. Each board member is a member of at least one committee and board committees often include community members who are not board members.  

There are a handful of faculty and staff committees: Assembly Committee, Hiring Committees, Faculty Clerks, Outdoor Spaces, Student Integrity, Multilingual Learners, and a Love Week Committee. Every faculty and staff member belongs to at least one committee. Committees such as Quaker Life, Parenting for Peace, Visiting Artists’ Week, and Point Parents tend to have more varied representation including faculty, staff, parents, and students.     

Committee work at a Quaker school can also be characterized as “Meeting for Business,” which is a way of saying there can be something spiritual about working collectively, listening deeply, and letting a group goal evolve. This article from Friends Journal describes what it can be like to clerk a committee.

Love Week happens every February, based on “Spring Fever” week, a model from the Netherlands where schools spend an intensive week each year with students from ages four through adolescence focusing on relationship and sexual health education. 

The Love Week committee, which has representation of each grade level, meets three or four times a year. Each academic year, the committee sets a new goal based on where they are with their ongoing work. In 2023, the Love Week Committee considered the National Sex Education Standards through an organization called FoSE (Future of Sex Education) and made a new Scope and Sequence for FSP. This February, each grade level band will have the chance to review and assess the new Scope and Sequence.

Just like with math and literacy, we aim for students to have a developmental progression from preschool through eighth grade on this subject. Aliza Gordon, 5-6 teacher and clerk of the committee, said: “I do really think of this committee as one about student rights. We really want students to have this knowledge.” She pointed to a description from the national standards: We “recognize young people’s rights to honest sexual health education.” Aliza also added: “A Scope and Sequence doesn’t tell a teacher how to teach; teachers use their own best practices and knowledge of their students to apply the standards.” 

Carie Garrett, Kindergarten teacher and a member of Love Week Committee, shared: “I see this as identity work. From the lower school perspective, a big part of our Love Week work is helping students to know themselves and their boundaries – and what kinds of friends they want to be. That moves up the age progression little by little until people can really speak up for themselves and their identity at every age level.”                             

A big thank you to the Love Week Committee as we approach Love Week 2024, as well as to everyone serving on a committee that supports Friends School.

Other glimpses into faculty committee work in the past months:

  • In early 2024, the Quaker Life committee will be compiling and crafting an FSP Faith and Practice booklet which will be used to share our common understandings of Quaker practice and ideology. We received a grant from the Sue Thomas Turner Fund to create and publish this booklet for our community.

  • Visiting Artists’ Week committee wrote this guiding mission statement in June of 2023, which just recently anchored its past few committee meetings when searching and hiring artists for the upcoming Spring 2024 event: The Visiting Artists program gives students new, creative experiences both in its variety of art forms and artists, holding central the school’s values of community, truth, and joy. 

  • The Assembly Committee organizes a weekly gathering for students on Fridays. In December, the Assembly Committee was particularly excited to bring retired teacher, Linda Ashe-Ford, in for a special storytelling assembly.

Cross Country Spotlights

Friends School of Portland has two teams this year: Grades 3-5 and Grades 6-8. Each week students practice rain or shine and run in meets across Southern Maine. There have been some epic sunny meets and others in downpours this season. A big shout out to the girl's Grade 6-8 team who have been on fire...and won all their meets to date!

Here are a few shout-outs from students and parents about what they have loved about this year's cross-country season:

"The best part of the race is the end of the race! People cheer!" - Fourth-grade student

"I think that my favorite part is going to be the pizza party that we have at the end of the season." - Fourth-grade student

"I really love having a supportive team. And just all the good people around. I love it!" - Third-grade student

"Everything is my favorite part of the season so far. Mostly the running... it's my third year." - Eighth-grade student

"This is the after-school activity for me!" - Eighth-grade student

"It's the bright spot of my day hanging out with these kids." Parent

"I love it too much. Happy tears at each race." - Parent

"I really enjoy watching children show and share their love of the sport!" - Parent

Rocky Shore Ecosystems with Third and Fourth-Grade Students

Both Lindsay and Rachel's 3-4 classes headed out this Fall to Kettle Cove Beach to explore the rocky shores as they prepare to launch into their Casco Bay Ecosystems studies.

Here's a recent snapshot from Lindsay's class outing:

On our trip to Kettle Cove, we explored the different intertidal zones we had learned about in class. We were lucky to be there at low tide, and we walked all the way out into the lower intertidal zone. We played in the tidepools, made hypotheses about what we were seeing, and identified species. As we walked back, we noticed how things were changing as we went from zone to zone. We were surprised by how obvious it was to see the differences. We got back to our picnic spot and looked back to find that the different tidal zones were literally color-coded. The kids guessed that it was because of the amount of sunlight that hit different zones when they were out of water. It was a pretty cool moment!

As we gathered for snack, we read a chapter of Braiding Sweetgrass For Young Adults by Robin Wall Kimmerer. We read about indigenous wisdom and different ways of being in relation with the land.

"The land is the real teacher. All we need as students of the land is mindfulness. Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world and receiving the teachings with open eyes, open mind, and open heart."

We took some time to pay attention and kids got out art supplies and had some time to capture what they were seeing and feeling. We practiced this again back at school while looking at goldenrods and asters. Although they don't have much to do with rocky shore ecosystems, they are having their moment, and we had to stop and watch! Have your child show you the "yellow paper trick", and see what they can tell you about the relationship between goldenrods and asters!

A highlight of the week was when one of the students used one of the vocabulary words, and said, "The bees were so tenacious!", another quickly quoted a Kahlil Gibran poem from last week and shouted, "We are the seeds of a tenacious plant!" 
















Quaker Life Committee: Lifting Up the Testimonies of Integrity and Community

The Quaker Life Committee (QLC) is a small group of board members, faculty and staff, and students that meet monthly to support Quakerism at Friends School. Among many aspects of Quakerism at FSP, the committee discusses ways to support and scaffold weekly all-school Meeting for Worship.

It is a common practice at Friends Schools across the world to choose a testimony a year to lift up. This year, the QLC recommended that we trial choosing a Quaker testimony pairing to delve into, school-wide. As a faculty and staff, we set aside time during a recent Friday staff meeting to discuss which pairing we might begin with. From that discussion, the testimonies that rose were Integrity and Community.

This focus on two testimonies does not mean that we won’t incorporate Peace, Stewardship, Simplicity, Equality, Truth, and Continuing Revelation into the classroom and school year. Rather, it allows us to lift up and more deeply concentrate on Integrity and Community. We look forward to what this experiment might bring to our school year!

Additionally, the work of the Quaker Life Committee this year will include the creation of a Faith + Practice book. Many Quaker Schools have a compilation of their Quaker practices, queries, and history. As a young school, we just received a grant from the Sue Thomas Turner Fund to create and compile our own. We took time to reflect on the question: How do we see Quaker testimonies in action at FSP?

Here are a few thoughts:

"I appreciate how the testimonies keep me grounded in both the "what" (the meaning of the testimony) and the "how" (the process or manifestation of the term). Discussing integrity WITH integrity; discussing simplicity in ways that dispense with complicated rumination."

"I think the Quaker testimonies tend to emerge when we aren't actively thinking about them -- especially in the numerous interactions each day when the bigger kids are taking time to really see the younger ones and vice versa."

"I see the testimonies as an important framing for the work that we do each day. And the ways that we show up as teachers, staff, students, and families."

"This morning, after the kids shared their identity project gallery, we gathered for our morning silence to start the day. Out of the silence, kids were asked to think about the experience of being seen and seeing others. It’s moments like these that I really feel like the Quaker testimonies are in action. Last year, it comes to mind, our essential question was around truth we really thought hard about how me maintain integrity within the science community linking that work to internal and external validity of data."

"I like looking at a single span of a week to see how the testimonies are alive at FSP. I picture them as a braided thread that tracks through the entire building. Similar to the string and nails in the identity sculptures on display this week, I see so many interconnections between and stories told in the overlaps and links."

New Faces at FSP

Art Teacher, Yasamin: “What I am enjoying about this school year is getting to know the students, and with each day feeling more in tune with the rhythms of the school, and feeling inspired by the creativity and bravery of these young artists.”

5-6 Humanities Teacher, Colin: “It’s been wonderful to get to know the students and school better. We had a morning meeting in Bird Land and I loved seeing a place that was special to them.”

1-2 Class Assistant, MC: “I’ve enjoyed rekindling my professional partnership with Xanthe. I love our open dialogue and communication, and together working on making things better for the students.”

What is Identity?: Identity Work in Seventh and Eighth-Grade Classes

What is identity?

“Education (as contrasted with training) comes from community and creates community. When a meeting [for learning] breaks, the community goes out to embrace people and events in new and more powerful ways. When the community meets again, they bring all of that back with them, to hold in the light.”

– Parker Palmer, Meeting for Learning: Education in a Quaker Context

At Friends School of Portland, teachers use essential questions (one might think of them as the education version of a query) to invite reflection, help students build connections across disciplines, encourage inquiry, and shape the work of the year together. This year, the seventh and eighth graders are exploring the question, “What is identity?”. In addition to voicing a critical developmental question for early adolescents the world over, this question will shape FSP seventh and eighth-grade students’ curriculum this year.

During advisory time, students have been exploring their own identities and the ways in which identity shapes them, their views, and their communities. This is both academic work and social-emotional work. When we make space for children to explore and share their identities with one another, we build classroom communities that welcome each student fully into the community. This work is necessary for supporting all children to be able to take the risks they need to learn and grow, and it’s equally necessary to our work toward equity more generally.

Pictured above: Students are creating artistic representations of their identities– thinking about how to represent aspects of their identities that are visible or invisible, central or peripheral. A gallery walk was open to students and families to view.

In the seventh and eighth-grade classes, this work will not only lay the groundwork for a strong and inclusive classroom community, but it will also prepare seventh and eighth-grade students to examine their essential question through various academic inquiries this year as they engage with and build new understanding of communities beyond the classroom walls. At the end of last month, representatives from Toward Right Relationship with Native Peoples led FSP seventh and eighth-grade students in a workshop about Native sovereignty. Students are just beginning a science unit working with the University of Maine project Ash Protection Collaboration Across Wabanakik, through which students will learn about citizen science, ecology, conservation, and Wabanaki identity and sovereignty. In humanities, students will engage with colonialism and its connections with identity and to current world events. Ultimately, through this work, we hope to create a space for students to understand and engage more deeply with themselves, their communities, and their world, to (in Parker Palmer's words) “embrace people and events in new and more powerful ways,” and to “bring all of that back with them, to hold in the light.”

Pictured above: Seventh and eighth-grade students learning about colonialism, imperialism, and the “scramble for Africa”




Perspectives On Our Strategic Planning Process: Rachel Fischhoff

Rachel Fischhoff joined Friends School of Portland as a Lead 3-4 Classroom Teacher in the Fall of 2022. She jumped right into the strategic planning process as a Strategic Plan Design Committee member.

How would you characterize the FSP strategic planning process?

I would characterize the FSP strategic planning process as collaborative. I was impressed by how consistently and effectively stakeholders with diverse perspectives were brought into the process. And the process was iterative--as a teacher, there were multiple moments where I had the opportunity to share my ideas and feedback.

What was it like being on the Strategic Plan Design Committee?

I loved getting to know FSP through my participation in the SPDC. As a newcomer to the community, it was a great way to fast track my understanding of the school's history, to meet parents and board members I might not have otherwise, and to step back and see how my classroom community fits into a much larger ecosystem.

What did you learn from the 10-month process?

This summer I've been reading Priya Parker's book The Art of Gathering. I'm thinking a lot about what it means to bring people together for a common purpose, in and out of the classroom. As I'm reflecting on the strategic planning process, I've noticed how different people were "hosting" different parts of the journey--our facilitator Courtney, administrators like Sara and Nell, parents, and members of the design committee--and I was able to learn from all of them. It was a unique opportunity to see people in our community leading, caring, guiding, and listening.

What advice would you offer FSP as we live the plan?

I'm hoping that we can hold onto the memory of the process that led us to the final plan. I want to remember how many community members brought their wisdom to bear in the crafting of this ambitious plan. I want to remember that this plan wasn't designed to be easy or frictionless; it was designed to push us in the direction of our shared values. I'm hoping we will be kind to ourselves when we stumble while remaining steadfast in our resolve. 

Learn more about our Strategic Plan and planning process…

Rooting Down, Branching Out: Strategic Plan 2023-2028

Perspectives on Our Strategic Planning Process: Courtney Bourns

Pictured above: Courtney Bourns facilitating the first meeting of the Strategic Planning Design Committee in October 2022.

Courtney Bourns joined us early in our strategic planning process as consultant and facilitator. She ran multiple sessions with board members, faculty & staff, all community events. She facilitated both the Strategic Planning Design Committee and the Strategy Teams that shaped our final plan.


What are your guiding principles when it comes to strategic planning?

I have an organic approach to strategic planning. I do a lot of careful listening on the front end of the process to get a sense of the organization I'm working with, what is their culture, what are their core values, what is their style? And then I design a strategic planning process to meet them where they are and fit their style and values.

In general, I would say my guiding principles are: be grounded in the guiding values of the organization, design for maximum collaboration and trust emergence. These principles felt like a good fit for Friends school of Portland. You are such a values-driven school, and because I was also raised in a Quaker school community, it felt easy to connect to your style and approach. I really enjoyed the challenge of creating a process that would support you to achieve the results of a clear strategic plan and be consistent with Quaker values.

How did you develop the timeline and phases for the strategic planning process?

I start with a basic template for strategic planning that I learned early in my career from the Interaction Institute for Social Change. The basic questions of most strategic planning frameworks start with: Where are we now? Where do we want to be? and How will we get there? Once we have a really strong sense of the current context and starting place for the strategic plan, I next focus on understanding the stakeholders who need to be involved. Once we knew those pieces, we mapped out the key decisions that needed to be made and put them into sequenced phases with a timeline that fit with your school calendar. In my view, it doesn’t make sense for organizations to go through a strategic planning process in exactly the same way, because organizations go through life cycles, and at different life cycles, you have different kinds of strategic questions to answer. So we began by reflecting on what you already knew and what you needed to wrestle with next. This is why I say that one of the values that I'm guided by is emergence, because it's only through situating ourselves in your current moment and then co-creating a process with you that I can design something that will work.

Why is right now an important moment for FSP?

Right now is an important moment for Friends School of Portland because you are evolving to a new stage of organizational maturity. In some ways this is a challenging period for an organization. You have moved past that sparky kind of startup energy that is often present in the early years of an organization and you're moving into a stage that calls for solidifying processes and cultural norms, but of course you want to keep alive the spirit that animates the school. So that presents some interesting challenges. One way to keep it exciting is to recognize this as its own kind of ‘new chapter.’

What were some takeaways from the process?

That's an interesting question. I think we managed to strike the right balance between keeping the process moving forward while also taking enough time to hear from many of the people who care deeply about the school. That is always a tricky balance to strike. I care a lot about hearing from more people and it's very important to me that everybody feels honored and included in the process. I could tell that was very important to you as well. And yet, in organizational life, you have to keep moving forward and so sometimes that feels a little unsatisfying in terms of taking all the time you'd want to take to listen to people. In this case, I felt like we managed that balance pretty well.

What about FSP's Strategic Plan do you find exciting?

I found it exciting to see the final strategic areas of focus come into view. It's always a bit of a leap of faith that the plan will come together, and yet I've done it enough now to know that some clarity of focus and direction always emerges as you get toward the end of the process. I feel like where you landed is very authentic to who you are and to what your school needs right now. I also felt that the board and the leadership of the school took very seriously the commitment to listening to parents and students and faculty--especially faculty and staff. Your commitment to having their voices be central to the shaping of this close future was evident.

I was also struck by how much the people in your community care about one another. You model a way of being that I know many other organizations are trying to achieve, namely, a deep commitment to building the kind of relational trust that is necessary for an organization to function in a collaborative and strategic way. It was a pleasure to get to be a part of that for a year.

Learn more about our Strategic Plan and planning process…

Rooting Down, Branching Out: Strategic Plan 2023-2028

Perspectives On Our Strategic Planning Process: James Grumbach

James Grumbach is a familiar face at Friends School of Portland. He was the first head of Friends School of Portland from 2007-2012. He is currently on the Board of Directors and a grandfather to 4 FSP students. Here are a few thoughts from James on his involvement in his second strategic planning process at Friends School.

How did you feel going into this strategic planning process and how did you feel afterwards?

To begin with, I’m not a fan of strategic planning, but it serves an important purpose. I’m skeptical of the strategic plan part of the function; from my perspective, its best use is as a community-building exercise and a consensus-building exercise.

One of the things I liked about this strategic planning process was, as I recall, it started with the question of “What are we doing well right now?” I think that’s a great place to start because it recognizes that we are in fact doing a lot of things well. We want to focus the strategic planning on those things that we either are not doing and we think we should, or the things we think we could be doing better.

One of the reasons I remain a little bit skeptical is that external pressures are so hard to predict.

You respond to them as best you can and they can change your direction. I think by beginning with “What are we doing well?”, that affirms our fundamental values. What we are trying to accomplish comes from our values.

What is FSP doing well?

I have really wanted the school to have good Quaker process, and the values that drive that process. I have a sense that we’ve accomplished that, and I feel as though we are a Quaker School, whatever that slightly different flavor from other independent schools is. How that fundamentally impacts students is: allowing students to be and to discover, and to become, who they authentically are – and to build confidence around that. We have anecdotal information that many of our students come out of FSP with that good sense of themselves, their ability to engage with adults. That’s the root of what we do well. In addition to that, our students are academically well-prepared, which many families are looking for. That culture of joy we’ve built around learning – I think students really get excited about school, and they authentically want to come to school each day.

How would you characterize the moment FSP is in right now?

Part of the answer is that we’re certainly past our startup years, maybe what you’d call our adolescent years. To use that as an analogy, we are heading into early adulthood.

There was a lot of excitement around the school starting. We did bring something new to the area. There was not just trepidation but excitement when we created the new campus. That move succeeded beyond what we’d imagined. Here we are, well established on this campus.

From the board perspective, we are not going to keep growing in numbers so the increasing challenges will be financial. Therefore, there are some opportunities. For example, it seems to me that the opportunity to continue to grow the summer program helps bring in more income, and maybe opens us up to other revenue streams that we haven’t identified yet. Challenge will bring opportunities.

What were your main impressions of the process?

It seemed to me that a lot of people did a lot of work, and justifiably so. It did not feel like a burden to the board. It seems to me that the strategic planning committee, which certainly had board representation, was well-organized and made sure to reach out. There was a lot of inclusion. The committee came back several times to touch base with the board: this is how it’s shaping, and what do you see? We were asked for our affirmation or some massaging – we had ample opportunity to do that.

What about the content of FSP's Strategic Plan do you find exciting?

We had good conversations about how the financial goals enable the other goals.

Frankly, the part I’m most excited about is the community engagement piece. That’s the piece that has not had as much attention because of how much else has had to happen in the startup of a school. I would like to see more outreach and connection, and that’s part of the avenue to becoming a more diverse community.

On the program piece, I know that can always be fine-tuned – being more integrated. I think the scaffolding in that part is exciting and important.

Any parting words or blessings for our next five years?

My well wishes are for continued staffing stability starting with the administration. I would love to see our current administrative team around when we’re ready for the next strategic planning session. There is an intentionality among the administrative team that I am proud of.

Learn more about our Strategic Plan and planning process…

Rooting Down, Branching Out: Strategic Plan 2023-2028

Reading with Instead of Reading to: Picture Book Possibilities with Middle School Assistant Nadja

photo credit: Kelsey Kobik

Once our middle school hit its full capacity for the 2022-23 school year, Nadja Tiktinksy joined us in our newly created position of middle school assistant teacher. As middle school assistant teacher, Nadja spends one full day with each classroom teacher per week, helps students one-on-one with their work, teaches a range of creative electives, and steps in as primary coverage whenever a middle school teacher is out. As often happens at Friends School, there was some cross-pollination which led to her sharing her expertise and passion beyond the middle school hallway. Sara Primo sat down with Nadja Tiktinsky to talk about a topic they both share a love for: taking picture books and young people as readers seriously!


Tell me about your passion for picture books. When did it start? What about picture books excites you?


When I did my MFA in children’s literature, I had the opportunity to deep-dive into the mechanics of picture books. Picture books, in my opinion, are the most elevated art form. There is just so much opportunity to create meaning - using page breaks, blank space, end papers, gutter, text size, spot art, etc. In the best picture books, words and illustrations each do half the storytelling, sometimes complementing and sometimes countering each other. Preschoolers talk a lot about not bumping each other’s words (interrupting), and that’s important in a picture book, too - the words and illustrations can’t bump into each other’s storytelling work, creating redundancies. They have to leave room for each other.


Q. What have you been doing with preschoolers specifically?


Ashley and I had a conversation earlier this year about a theory book I’d recently read, Reading Picture Books With Children by Megan Dowd Lambert. That’s opposed to “to” children. Lambert’s research on her “Whole Book Approach” shows that children understand, retain, and analyze on a higher level when they interact with books instead of just listening to them. She advocates giving children the technical language necessary to describe what’s happening in a book, and encouraging them to interrupt and comment during reading. Ashley invited me to come to preschool once a week to introduce the Whole Book Approach to her class.


When I read with the preschool, I say, “We’re going to read this book together. I’ll read the words to you, and you’ll read the pictures to me.” Then I’ll explain a technical term that I think will be helpful. For example, before we read Hot Dog by Doug Salati, I introduced the term “gutter”. The gutter is the centerline of a book, where two open pages meet. It’s often used to separate and group images. Hot Dog is about a dog overheating on a summer day, and the kids noticed that when the dog was upset, the gutter separated it from its owner. When the owner takes her dog to the beach, they’re shown on the same side of the gutter. The kids’ technical knowledge enhanced their ability to track the emotional story through the images. As I read, I stop on every page and give time for responses. Sometimes I ask, “what do you notice about this page?” or remind the kids of a technical term, i.e. “what do you notice about blank space here?” but I try not to prompt more than that. 


How have you analyzed picture books with middle schoolers?... and how has it gone?


What’s interesting is that what I’ve done with middle schoolers and preschoolers is exactly the same. However, preschoolers, who look at picture books all the time, are primed to do visual analytical work. Just being invited gets them there. Middle schoolers have to be prompted more. With older kids, I’ve also picked books that are more emotionally or topically challenging, on par with what they’re learning in Humanities. 


Q. What are you hoping this leaves students with? How do you see this connecting with other work that goes on at FSP?


What the preschoolers are doing is high-level art and story analysis. They are noticing and discussing symbolism, foreshadowing, theme, foils, and character development in the books we read. This is foundational work that they will build upon for the rest of their academic lives. At FSP, we think a lot about capability, and I see the preschoolers feeling and acting capable as they read pictures. The beginning stages of reading and writing letters and words are really, really hard - it is a lot of work. I hope that as these kids begin that difficult work, they are buoyed by the capability with pictures they have built this year.

Traditions of Giving with Good Heart Friends School of Portland's Annual Fund

Each year, Director of Enrollment, Megan Campbell makes a contribution to Friends School of Portland in honor of her grandparents. When she was growing up, her grandparents would make a donation in her honor to the school she attended in order to provide scholarships and tuition assistance for families. She continues that tradition now by donating in honor of her grandparents, Phyllis and Ted Campbell.   

During Megan’s first year at FSP as a teacher, she was surprised to learn that her grandmother also taught at a Friends School. This spring, Megan and her grandmother talked about their first years teaching at a Friends School. Megan at Friends School of Portland and Phyllis at Friends School of Baltimore.  

Megan shared that, “we both went into our first years teaching at a Friends School with little to no knowledge of what that meant. As my grandmother was remembering her experience, it struck me how much she felt supported coming into an unknown situation and space. Although I did go to school for teaching, my path at FSP has been anything but linear, and I too have felt so loved and held by this community.” 

Here is a bit more of what Megan and her Ama, Phyllis, shared about their conversation.  

Megan: What did you teach at Friends School of Baltimore? 

Phyllis: I taught in the early childhood ed classrooms. The 4s classroom, and I remember that there was a 3s classroom and a 5s classroom in our building, and that we were in our own building in the corner of campus. Our building had at one point been a house, so my classroom felt like one big living room – and it probably had been! 

Megan: Can you remember what a normal day consisted of?

Phyllis: Oh yes! I had 22 students I believe, and I had another teacher in the room with me. We always started our morning with free play, and then we would move to circle time. I would teach them a song, or we would play a game, or I would read a book. I remember that they had rest time after lunch, and they would bring their blankets and stuffed animals and find a spot on the floor. That was when I would do my planning for the next day. I remember that we would walk over to the playground and we wouldn’t have a set time we would go inside. Every day we would gauge how long the children felt like they needed to be outside. Many of the students would go home at lunch, so we would have a smaller group in the afternoon. And twice a year I would do parent-teacher conferences.

Megan: What was special about that year of teaching? 

Phyllis: I really enjoyed being around the kids, and getting a chance to work with the other women in the building. I remained friends with some of them for many years after. It was my first year out of college, and my first full time job, so it will always be special. One of the things I really loved was that I was asked to be the Director of the Summer Programs that summer, and I had a lot of fun with that! I will always remember that time fondly. 

Every gift helps make a powerful and important impact in our annual budget. Each gift that is made comes with care and thought from each member of our community.

We are thrilled to share that we have met and exceeded this year’s Annual Fund goal of $113,500. 237 friends and families have contributed so far! 

Make a gift by June 30, 2023, to support this school year's Annual Fund.

Magic in Music: Reflections on the School Year with Bethany

photo credit: Kelsey Kobik

“Bethany taught me all my songs! I didn’t sing at the last concert but I did at this one. I knew all the words to Sally Go Round the Sun.” - Preschool student


“I didn’t know how much I would like singing this song until Bethany taught it.” Sixth-grade student


From middle school students singing rounds of "Follow me" on the FSP Bus, Puddle Jumper, to a "Peace Never ending" sing-a-long around a campfire on the 3-4 class overnight...songs that Bethany has taught students pop up consistently. 


Bethany joined FSP this Fall and here are a few of her reflections from her first year: 


"I remember my first community meeting, during which everyone was sitting in a circle in the courtyard. It was so heartwarming to see so many age groups together, such a clear visual for the huge span of learning and growth that happens at FSP. By the end of the year, rather than being struck by the overall scope of a full school gathering, my focus shifted into seeing all of the individual, known, loved faces of these wonderful young people." 


"The beginning of the year was quiet in the music room! Younger students entered the room politely and stared at me with saucer eyes or sang in tiny little voices, while the older students ranged from open and conversational to fully skeptical, skittish at the idea that I might make them sing by themselves. (I didn't.) The younger students quickly got comfortable with musical play, lured by colorful scarves and animal-faced shakers, getting increasingly generous with their singing voices, energy and hugs. As the year went on, I felt The Great Thaw from the middle school students, where week by week, risk by risk, they relaxed and started being much more actively engaged. One of my favorite mental snapshots is a day when a sixth grade student started adding yoga poses to the round we were working on. Within minutes, that whole group was moving and singing together, and then they shared it with the other half of the class, working up to the moment when they successfully sang (and moved) in a round. They got a huge kick out of it, and my heart was soaring." 


Back to teaching this year...


"I felt an overall sense of wholeness in coming back to the classroom for the first time in five years. I had a wonderful, fulfilling, tiring, joyful time being home full time, and yet I was so happy to be out in the world more, meeting new colleagues and students. Actually meeting and getting to know students at FSP, getting a sense for what moves them, helped my transition a lot. This is such a warm, welcoming place where immediately felt inspired to join in the fun and learning!"


Reflections on a Year of AfterCare from Eliza

“Would you rather swim in a pool of jello or chocolate pudding?”

“Would you rather live in space or under the sea?”

“Would you rather from a safe distance see a fox or a bear?”

This year, preschool and kindergarten students looked forward to beginning AfterCare with a “Question of the Day” from AfterCare Coordinator, Eliza. She joined FSP last August bringing with her a wealth of experience working at summer camps in Mid-Coast and Central Maine. 

After a school year working at FSP, here are a few reflections on Aftercare and FSP from Eliza: 

“AfterCare is similar to summer camp in so many ways: there is a lot of choice, outdoor energy, fun games with kids of different ages playing together. You have to strike the right balance of fun things for kids to do in conditions that might not be perfect… it’s the end of a long, hot/cold, wet/sunny, day.”

“Working at Friends School this year, I’ve noticed the really careful consideration and intentionality in the choices that are made. I’ve really felt seen and heard in the decision-making process.”  

“I’ve gleaned so much institutional knowledge in FSP’s kitchen.” Kitchens are hubs for conversation, and at FSP that is no different. “Putting together snacks, I am often in conversations with families who are dropping off meal trains or a special snack. Families and staff members share their institutional knowledge with no expectation that I should do things the way it always has been done. But I get to soak up the best stuff and run with it.”  

You might find Eliza joining in a game of frisbee, kicking a ball back and forth, navigating the ethereal rules of AfterCare four square, or sitting down to a round of LIFE. Although this summer, you will find Eliza most weeks at FSP hanging out with our oldest campers - Crow Camp!      

This year, FSP’s AfterCare program grew from 49 students to 72 students! A big hearty thank you to Eliza and the AfterCare team who worked hard to navigate this growth. If your family is interested in signing up for aftercare for the 2023-2024 school year, more information will be provided via email over the summer. Registration is tentatively set for Tuesday, August 1.