Dear Fayerweather Community,
I am grateful for your continued community support this year and throughout the years. Oprah Winfrey comes to mind when I think of saying to all of you: “You get an appreciation, and you get an appreciation,” and so on—because truly, your collective and generous spirit makes our school shine!”
One of the pillars of our mission states that learning in community is complex. We live in this complexity daily, as many identities, experiences, and perspectives are represented at Fayerweather. The complexity within our community ignites curiosity and sometimes tensions yet opens our imagination and challenges us to consider who we are as individuals and what it means to be a part of a school with a larger purpose: our mission. Every student, teacher, staff, family, board member, alum, alum parent, grandparent, and special friend is called to live that mission.
Our values of equity, collaboration, belonging, and joyful learning are the foundation of a Fayerweather education. When you walk inside our building, we want you to immediately experience the beautiful light that shines within our classrooms, library, and hallways. We want you to see and experience the light in meaningful and purposeful learning inside and outside our building. Our placed-based and experiential learning approach creates excitement and joy, galvanizing and making learning stick. You can see the essence of this work when you visit Fresh Pond or Mystic River.
The mission operates in the poetry students write, the books we read, the art and music we create, and the science, math, and social studies we learn. The curriculum at Fayerweather provides windows and mirrors for not just our children, but for our adults to consider and explore. For those of you who might be unfamiliar with that expression, windows provide a view outside of one’s experience, while mirrors provide a curriculum where students and adults see their identities represented accurately and positively. Your generosity and support help us cultivate an understanding and appreciation among our students for each other, our community, their communities, and the larger world.
Our education at Fayerweather is about connecting minds and hearts. Strategic planning work began in January 2024 and will continue in to the summer. We are excited to be embarking on planning for the future of Fayerweather. We will be reaching out to alums, alum parents, and friends of our school who have a stake in our existence long into the future, but please contact me directly if you would like to be involved. Thank you for your dedication, love, and belief in our mission. You are the heart and soul of Fayerweather, and together, we are living and writing the most incredible story.
In partnership,
Kimberly Ridley, Head of School
Reviewing, Rewriting, and Revitalizing Our Mission
by Amy Abelove, P’14, P’20, Board Vice Chair
A school’s Mission Statement serves as its fundamental guiding light, offering its Board, its leadership team, and indeed, every community member a vehicle to clarify priorities and evaluate and steer decisions. It boldly states to the public and to prospective families the school’s reason to exist, and it reflects and creates a shared identity within and about the school. Reviewing and revitalizing a school's mission statement is an important and necessary process that independent schools follow regularly. Last February, after a thorough and thoughtful process, the Board of Directors voted to approve our revitalized mission statement.
The Fayerweather Board of Directors formed a Mission Committee in 2019, tasked with guiding the process and writing the new statement. The committee comprised representatives that included staff, board members, and current parents. The process envisioned required careful planning, robust research, and extensive input from important community members, including current and former families, alums, alum parents, students, teachers, and administrators.
Immediately getting to work, the Mission Committee conducted a comprehensive research and analysis of the school's Mission, Vision, and Values Statements by looking at over 70 North American progressive schools, including 30 within a 30-mile radius of Fayerweather. They reviewed FSS’s mission statement as well as the school's strategic plan, vision statement, and core values to ensure that the new mission statement would align with these documents. Approved by the full Board, the Mission Committee evolved into a Mission Working Group that developed a multi-step process that articulated the whys, whos, and hows of the work to be done. The process would be to define terms, develop criteria for what should be included in a new statement, and gather extensive feedback from various FSS stakeholders to ensure that everyone was given a voice during the process. The goal was to produce a new mission statement that would reflect the values and goals of the entire school community. Input included feedback from the recent AISNE accreditation, stories gathered from historical FSS documents, focused work with the entire Board of Directors, and surveys and focus groups with key FSS constituent groups - · parents and caregivers, community members, alums and alum parents, students, teachers, staff, administrators, the Advancement team, and the Marketing Committee.
Finally, putting pen to paper, the Mission Working Group used all of this information to draft a new mission statement, which was then road-tested with various members of the community, revised, and presented to the Board for approval. Fayerweather has a long history of being engaged and aware of what is happening in the greater world outside of its walls. This new statement aimed to be just as self-aware as it is future-oriented by reflecting the school's aspirations for the future.
The journey of rewriting and revitalizing Fayerweather’s mission statement was a collaborative, data-driven process made possible by the passionate Fayerweather community. And on Wednesday, February 15, 2023, the Fayerweather Board of Directors unanimously voted to approve the new Mission Statement.
Fayerweather Street School, the Board of Directors, Faculty and Staff, and the Missions Committee are proud to present the revitalized Mission Statement.
Shaping Tomorrow: Fayerweather School Embarks on a Five-Year Strategic Planning Journey
by Kimberly Ridley, Head of School, and Courtney Quinn, Board Chair
The energy that flows through Fayerweather in the fall is truly a thing of beauty. The return to the classroom is a time of integrating, storming, and norming; teachers and students work together to set the terms of their journey for the next year, and build the relationships that will guide them through the months ahead.
Those of us who are stewards of Fayerweather’s mission are engaged in a similar process. When the board met in person in September, we were excited to have an opportunity to connect, brainstorm decision-making approaches that will support our work, and set some goals for what we’ll focus on this year.
As a board, we were most eager to start work on our most important goal for this year: the creation of a strategic plan that will ensure we continue to deliver on that mission well into the future. We (Kim and Courtney) wanted to give our broader community visibility into that initiative.
Folks who’ve been here for more than a few years will remember that in 2017, the school developed a five-year Strategic Plan, drawing perspective and input from all the possible categories of Fayerweather stakeholders. The consensus the strategic planning effort generated on our school’s most important priorities was a key factor driving decision-making over the years. Even amid the COVID-19 pandemic, our priorities and trade-offs as a school have been intimately connected to the goals we set at that time.
Now, 2017 is more than five years ago and it feels like a million in COVID years. We’re moving into an education landscape irrevocably altered by the pandemic and its attendant economic stresses, and we have big questions for Fayerweather's future: questions about demographics and demand and how they impact enrollment; questions about the affordability of an independent school education; questions about deepening our relationships with the Cambridge community even as our specific North Cambridge neighborhood changes around us.
In response to these questions, challenges, and opportunities, we will develop a five-year strategic plan that will build on the school’s new mission statement, outline key strategic goals for the school and the actions required to achieve them and serve as a guide for decision-making and resource allocation moving forward.
We’ll run this process with a partnership between a steering committee drawn from the Fayerweather community - chaired by Lauren Stewart, a longstanding board member and Fayerweather parent - and an external consultant, who will not only support the overall management of the project but also provide detailed and actionable market analysis.
There will be many opportunities to participate for parents, faculty, and staff. The entire community should be involved throughout the process, either by working on a subcommittee, which will begin to meet in March 2024, or by providing perspective in a survey or a focus group, which will take place over the early spring months. We’ll take time throughout the project to share our progress with you, and our goal and intention is to finalize our priorities over the summer and share both those priorities and action plans to achieve them at the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year.
Strategic planning can trigger some difficult conversations. When you set priorities, you also determine paths not to pursue, and courses of action you will deprioritize.
That said, we’ll be doing the work in a deeply inclusive and collaborative process that engages our entire community - much as we did for another recent and important piece of work: re-writing our mission and values statement.
A school’s mission statement is its fundamental guiding light, offering its Board, its leadership team, and every community member a vehicle to clarify priorities and evaluate and steer decisions. Reviewing and revitalizing a school's mission statement is an important and necessary process that independent school boards follow regularly; it’s a key part of stewardship of the school’s mission to make sure that the language we use accurately and fully reflects us as a school. We accordingly set out to create something that would state, in the boldest terms, both to the public and to prospective families, the school’s reason to exist, and articulate a shared identity within and for the school. Following the board’s approval in February 2023, we’ve taken every opportunity to share this mission with our community and the world:
Fayerweather’s mission is to cultivate a joyful and collaborative learning community that honors every student’s unique story, promoting growth through intellectual exploration, creative thinking, and meaningful engagement with our world and each other.
We believe:
- Fully knowing each child is the heart of a great education
- There is potential for joy in all learning
- Learning in community is complex and powerful
- Education must address the themes and issues of our time
We, as a school, know who we are. Now, we need to look externally to figure out what our future should hold based on what’s in the environment around us. That’s what strategic planning is: the intersection of market and mission.
We are confident we’ll come out of this process with a lot of clarity and energy for the road ahead, and we hope you’ll join us in this exciting work.
2022 - 2023 Annual Fund Donors by Class
Thank you to our current families who supported the school through their gifts, allowing each student to #BeTheSunshine!
Pre-K | Melissa & Ashley | 100%
- Edo Berger and Kate Haviland
- Asya and Ron Calixto
- Adria Karlsson
- Rackham Karlsson
- George Locke and Elizabeth Stark
- Janna and Jason Moreau
- Paul and Marlena Penta
- Joseph and Chelsey Wold
- Marin and Masanao Yajima
- Natalie and James Zahniser-Word
Kindergarten | Tara & Brett | 81%
- Blair Baldwin and Lindsay Hyde
- Elizabeth and Matthew Bean
- Joshua Buresh-Oppenheim and Rachel Hirsch
- Asya and Ron Calixto
- Jessie and Rachel Ewing
- Erin Fera and Andy Stein
- Sara and Victor Gehling
- David and Elizabeth Goodchild
- Henrik and Lydia Hagtvedt
- Andrea Ierace and Betel Girmay
- Rahul Khara and Lulu Liu
- Sandra Law and Ben Ho
- David Manegold and Julie Skinner Manegold
- Daniel and Michelle McHale
- Abby and Matthew Murphy
- Paul and Marlena Penta
1-2 | Ami & Sabrina | 100%
- Elizabeth and Matthew Bean
- Edo Berger and Kate Haviland
- Sara Cable and Elizabeth Pinsky
- Rob Hesketh and Anne Sarkalahti-Hesketh
- Adria Karlsson
- Rackham Karlsson
- David Klotz and Elnaz Menhaji-Klotz
- Mike and Sarah MacGillivray
- Rob Mark and Becky Evans
- Paul McDonald and Marcia Velencia
- Amy McGuire and Mel Forest
- Matthew Naunheim and Aya Michaels
- Katherine Reid and Joseph Sokol-Margolis
- Benjamin Schneer and Elizabeth Segran
- Jeannie Seidler
- Nate Silver and Kristina Fenn Silver
- Stacey Versavel
1-2 | Tracey & Lucy | 98%
- Dacia and Shanel Antunes
- Kenroy Cayetano and Karina Davis
- Jeff Cleary and Alissa Cardone
- Nicole Clouse and David Danese
- Bobby Cohanim and Laura Major
- Nicholas Conway and Jessica Liao
- Sara and Victor Gehling
- Jenny and Peter Kuliesis
- Sayra Lucero
- Paul McDonald and Marcia Velencia
- Sandra Rojas and Carrie Dirmeikis
- Jeannie Seidler
- Stacey Versavel
3-4 | Aaron & Diana | 99%
- Dacia and Shanel Antunes
- Suzanne Baumann and Christine Gorman
- Cicely Carew
- Jonathan Dutch and Emily Greenstein
- Julie Ebin
- John Frank and Elsie Sunderland
- Rhea M. Gibson
- Cynthia Gilbert
- Ashley and Laroy Harding
- Shawn Hockert and Miranda Elmorsi
- Maria A. Aliberti Lubertazzi and David Lubertazzi
- Tina and Christopher Mack
- Manuel Molina and Glorimar Ruiz-Mercado
- Miguel Montero and Margo Guernsey
- Janna and Jason Moreau
- Abby and Matthew Murphy
- Rebecca and Ramsay Ravenel
- Ciaran Smyth and Mirian Arias
- Arielle Stanford
- Robert Zeiller and Melissa Renn
3-4 | Nabia & Katie | 99%
- Karl Bandtel and Farley Urmston
- Sara Cable and Elizabeth Pinsky
- Kenroy Cayetano and Karina Davis
- Jennifer and David Falk
- Erin Fera and Andy Stein
- Mahmood Firouzbakht and Deidre Deegan
- Rhea Gibson
- Grant Godfrey and Keri Hughes
- Abhijit Gurjal
- Tamara Joy Harper
- Carie and Matt Hersh
- Rob Hesketh and Anne Sarkalahti-Hesketh
- Adria Karlsson
- Rackham Karlsson
- Rob Koelzer and Deb Gettelman
- Allison Li and Michael Brown
- Eric Masunaga and Erin McLaughlin
- Meredith Moore
- Jean Numa and Ingleed Auguste
- Adam and Kerrie Owens
- Niall Stephens and Talaya Delaney
5-6 | Abby & Chrissi | 97%
- Carolyn Bloomberg-O'Brien and Timothy O'Brien
- Emily Bowler and Jen Brennan
- Michael Bowler and Annie Peterman
- Joshua Buresh-Oppenheim and Rachel Hirsch
- Martin and Sabrina Cafasso
- Jeff Cleary and Alissa Cardone
- Nicholas Conway and Jessica Liao
- Ben Dunlap and Melissa Feuerstein
- Janelle and Mark Fisher
- Shawn Hockert and Miranda Elmorsi
- Andrew and Danielle Jankowich
- Khary Jones and Kendra Field
- Adria Karlsson
- Rackham Karlsson
- Adam Limb and Amy Armstrong
- Courtney and Donovan Quinn
- Joseph Raffone
- Joseph Ronayne and Mireya Nadal
- Patrick Sylvain and Jalene Tamerat
- Ben Vigoda and Lauren Stewart
- Levina Wong
5-6 | Cindy & Sarah | 98%
- Vivek Bald and Kym Ragusa
- Caroline Berz
- Felipe Bohorquez and Patricia Cortes
- Mark Breedlove and Diana Marsh
- Jeff Cleary and Alissa Cardone
- Iain Cockburn and Johanna Richwagen Cockburn
- Bobby Cohanim and Laura Major
- Jennifer and David Falk
- Abhijit Gurjal
- Chris Jeris and Te-Yi Lee
- Adria Karlsson
- Rackham Karlsson
- David Klotz and Elnaz Menhaji-Klotz
- David Lewis and Christine Hayes
- Laurie and Ken Marden
- Steven McCarroll and Annika Malmberg
- Karen and Justin Miel
- Meredith Moore
- Janna and Jason Moreau
- Cecilia and Daniella Pizzurro
- Rebecca and Ramsay Ravenel
- Carolina and Bryan Sadowski
Unit | 76%
- Michelle Apigian and John DiModica
- Erik Barnes and Debra Candreva
- Sigall and Pete Bell
- Lucy Bunning
- Amy and Ethan D'Ablemont Burnes
- Martin and Sabrina Cafasso
- Jennifer Clay and Philip Tan
- Jeff Cleary and Alissa Cardone
- Ben Dunlap and Melissa Feuerstein
- John Frank and Elsie Sunderland
- Linda Garmon
- Rhea Gibson
- Bill Hanage and Helen Jenkins
- Carie and Matt Hersh
- Peter Kochansky and Lauren Dias
- Rob Koelzer and Deb Gettelman
- Andrew Krivak and Amelia Dunlop
- EJ and Tom Long
- Rebecca Lowenhaupt and David Meshoulam
- Lauren and Steve Magoun
- Lori Michau and Dipak Naker
- Emie and Daniel Michaud Weinstock
- Andrew Ott and Charan Devereaux
- Michael Patti and Nicole Lamy
- Nicholas Putnam and Sara Tolley
- Courtney and Donovan Quinn
- Megan and Robert Ringrose
- Stephanie Rudloe and Antonio Regalado
- Christopher Sokolowski and Angela Chang
- Andrew Ott and Charan Devereaux
- Anuj Shah and Heather MacDonald
- Greg Shaw and Parra Tomkins
- John Stauffer and Deborah Cunningham
- Beth Stokes
- Andres Tellez and Katherine Armstrong
- Ben Vigoda and Lauren Stewart
- Jason Wadsworth and Sonya Green
- Mary Weitzel and David Halfpenny
- Julie Winslow and Ned Regina
Record-Breaking Year: Fayerweather's After-School Programs Thriving in 2023-24
by Emily Grove, Director of Extended Day Programs
Did you know that at the start of the 2023-24 school year, almost 50% of Fayerweather students were also enrolled in Extended Day? Factoring in extracurricular classes and programs, we found that over 70% of enrolled students were participating in at least one of our afterschool offerings this fall.
What’s remarkable about these numbers is that they take into account roughly one third of the offerings available to students over the course of the school year. At the conclusion of the 2022-23 school year, we found that 83% of Fayerweather students took advantage of our Extended Day and Extracurricular Programs. If these stats are any indication, we’re in the middle of another record-breaking year of after-school programming.
As I reflect on the continued growth of this program since the COVID shutdown, I ask myself: How are we able to engage so many students across the PreK through 8th grade spectrum?
This year, we have every single member of our PreK class participating in Extended Day. They leave smiling and laughing, excited to show their families the craft they worked on with Katie or Amelia. I hear anecdotes from families in grades 1-4 about kids asking to be picked up later in the afternoon because they want to stay in Extended Day.
One time, I was even sent a video of some kindergarten kids “playing Extended Day” with walkie-talkies because they missed the program so much during their break from school! These young ones, some of whom stay onsite as late as 6pm, thrive because of the relationships we’ve fostered with them.
To keep families coming back, we are also constantly adding new extracurricular offerings to the mix to keep kids engaged. We listen to what they are interested in and consider what continued learning can occur during after-school.
Finding Nemo KIDS debuted this November as the first ever Fayerweather musical! Kids from grades 3-6 were both onstage and backstage, while Unit mentors supported them in the tech deck or backstage. These students had the time of their lives – some of them participating in their first piece of theater ever! This program was such a success that I received a student note with a list of 10+ titles that I should consider the next time “we hit the spotlight.”
Make no mistake, Extended Day is a lot of fun, but it is also crucial to the dynamics of life at Fayerweather. We provide child care during early release days, parent events, conferences, and vacations. We make it possible for families to make it through their day with a little more ease. When their child is with us they can be assured that their day at Fayerweather is ending with plenty of love, learning, and laughter.
2022-2023 Donors to the Solid & Strong CommUNITY FUnd
2022-2023 Board of Directors | 100% Participation
- Amy Abelove, Vice Chair
- Michelle Apigian
- Carolyn Bloomberg-O’Brien *
- Max Cohen ‘00, Secretary
- Ben Dunlap, Treasurer
- Anne Ellsworth
- Mark Fisher
- Rebecca Lowenhaupt
- Eric Lowenstein *
- Lauren Magoun
- Steve McCarroll
- Lauren Mueller *
- Daniella Pizzuro
- Courtney Quinn, Chair
- Glory Ruiz-Mercado
- Carolina Sadowski
- Lauren Stewart
- Lia Taniguchi, Member At-Large
- Clair Ward
- Dorla White-Simpson *
- Lisette Zinner
Other
Thank you to our alums, alum families, grandparents, past staff, and other friends of the school for their generous support!
- Amy Abelove and Ric Bowen
- Amazon Smile Foundation
- Anonymous (2)
- Megina Baker
- Campbell F. Baldwin
- Connie Biewald and Jeff Thomas
- Boeing Company
- William Braunlin and Cathy Siebold
- Jill Breitbarth
- Judi and Mark Canter
- Colin Carew and Juliet Stone
- Sarah P. Carr
- Maxie Chambliss and Davis Sweet
- Candace Clampitt and Shea Ennen
- Cynthia and H. Theodore Cohen
- Max Cohen '00
- Marianne and Michael Collins
- Kathy Crowley and Chris Abouzeid
- Sadie Darrah '22
- Lauren Dias and Peter Kochansky
- Jasmine DiModica '22
- Amelia Dunlop and Andrew Krivak
- Anne Eisner and James Taff
- Anne Ellsworth
- Margaret Ewing
- Luba Feigenberg
- Erin Fera '94
- Andrew Feuerstein
- Sylvia Fine and Dexter Eames
- Camron Firouzbakht '22
- Patricia Flaherty and Charlie McDermott
- Four-Four Foundation, Inc.
- Friends of Matenwa
- Tia Gary
- Peter and Gita Givertzman
- Judy and Ed Godfrey
- Joshua Goldman and Marcia Landa
- Barbara Gray
- Margaret Ann Gray
- Paige Gulley
- Maeve Hegarty
- Aaron Helsinger and Erika Malchiodi
- Courtney Hite and Marc Leuchner
- Linda Hoey
- Martha Irwin
- Margo and David Jay
- Joelson Foundation
- Kristen and Chris Juliani
- Kathryn and Bengt Karlsson
- Shira Karman
- Rachel Kelsey
- Josh and Melody Komyerov
- Louise Lecomte
- David Locke and Cathe Read
- Rosemary Lopez
- Christine Low
- Mike MacGillivray '92
- Anne Magoun
- Peter Magoun
- Dorothy and Roger Mark
- Andrew McCarroll '20
- John McClain '83
- Paul and Patricia McGuire
- Tim McLaughlin and Janet Sortor
- Monique McNally and Murray Barg
- Uriel and Rahel Meshoulam
- Greg Michalko
- Elizabeth Miel
- Karen Miel '84
- Montauk Foundation
- Barbara and Richard Moore
- Sarah Napier and Rob Baum
- Nevine Nassif and Robert Kotiuga
- Diane and Charley Norris
- Natalie Olsen and Andrew Hall
- John Papp and Sandra Oliveira
- Alexa Pennisi
- Debra Poaster Whelan and Brent Whelan
- Cindy Probst and Sue Pearce
- Elma Quinn
- Jeannie Ramey and Bruce Biewald
- Nancy Renn
- Dr. Kathryn Ringrose
- Oliver Rosand '15
- Rowan T. O'Riley Foundation
- Stephanie Rudloe '82
- Gail Sallop
- Brittany Savage
- Maureen Scully and Gerald Denis
- Rosalind Segal and Michael Greenberg
- Sarah Shamel
- Starr Snead
- Seph Sokol-Margolis '92
- Gretchen and Richard Stark
- Cahal and Sarah Stephens
- Lia Taniguchi
- Owen Thomas
- Barbara Timken
- Anna Timken-Ingendahl '08 and Eli Ingendahl
- Nancy and Mike Tooke
- Doug and Judy Weinstock
- Julia and Philip Wheaton
- Jesse Williams
- Julie Winslow'87
- Kathy Wolff and Steve D'Amato
- Kate Yohay
- Elizabeth and John Zinner
Staff
Thanks to the following teachers, staff, and administrators for making a gift in addition to all you do for our students every day!
- Ingleed August
- Chela Badell-Watson
- Chrissi Betz
- Carolyn Bloomberg-O'Brien
- Michael Bowler
- Andrew Campion
- Karina Davis
- Cindy Dill
- Ann Eggleston
- Jenn Falk
- Bill Fischelis
- Jennifer Kay.Goodman
- Sharon Levad Bedig
- Eric Lowenstein
- Tracey Lowenstein
- Mike MacGillivray
- Charlie McDermott
- Teresa Miller
- Lauren Mueller
- Jean Numa
- Iku Oseki
- Scot Oxholm
- Kim Ridley
- Stacey Smiar
- Zoan Stokes
- Sarah Tahang-Bianco
- Diana Tatz
- Bran Trice
- Dorla White-Simpson
- Elisabeth Williams
- Julie Winslow
- Jarvis Wyche
Special Funds
Thank you to these donors of restricted and special funds which keep our community #Solid&Strong!
Endowment
Our Endowment will provide stability for Fayerweather in perpetuity. Thank you to the following donors for their long-term investment in our students of today and the future.
- Anonymous (2)
- Anne Ellsworth
- Montauk Foundation
- Barbara Timken
- Anna Timken-Ingendahl ‘08 and Eli Ingendahl
- Levina Wong
Horizon Fund
The Horizon Fund supports a range of professional learning opportunities for FSS faculty and staff by supplementing FSS’s current professional development program and funding projects that allow our educators to pursue interests that foster growth, learning, and renewal.
- Clair Ward
Library
Contributions to the FSS Library help enhance the learning experience by improving resources and ensuring we have an up-to-date and relevant book collection available to our students and staff.
- Judy and Ed Godfrey
- Elizabeth Miel
- Elma Quinn
- Benjamin Schneer and Elizabeth Segan
- Natalie and James Zahniser-Word
Special Funds and Projects
Contributions to special funds and projects support our Extended Day Program, Summer Arts Camp, Academic Program including our outdoor education and place-based learning.
- Campbell Baldwin