Questions and Discernment

Dear Atonement Families,

Greetings from the last week of Quarter I! It seems the year has hardly begun and we are already about to pass the 25% mark.

I want to talk to you today about questions. Last spring, both while I was weighing Father Lewis’ invitation to join the Academy’s staff and after I had officially accepted that invitation, I received many questions from the school community. What will you do about communication? What will you do about discipline? Will you be visible? How will you evaluate teachers? The tone of these questions was urgent.
 
It is true—in organizations, there are those things that demand immediate attention. Thus, the Atonement team has spent the past 100 days since July 1st (the educators’ “New Year’s”) methodically answering these (and other) pressing questions. By now, many of the solutions we arrived at have probably become familiar—for instance, “Coffee with Mr. Watson” or the mobile-friendly Crusader Times, our new Love & Logic philosophy of discipline or assigned classrooms for Middle and Upper School teachers. Others, like our proactive approach to teacher evaluation and feedback or our regular cycle of staff meetings, may be less visible.
 
But it is time now for us to begin to lift our gaze beyond the urgent. Healthy schools, and healthy organizations generally, do not live out their days constantly captive to the tyranny of the urgent. While we will continue to look to the power of questions to prompt action, we should ask them in such a way that prompts reflection and prayer, not freneticism.
 
With this in mind, we as a school community should prepare to move into a period of discernment in which we contemplate what role God is asking The Atonement Academy play in the San Antonio area and beyond in the coming years. As an administration, our plan is to outline our discernment of this trajectory in a “state of the school address” in January, and enter the 2020-2021 school year working from a formal strategic plan.

The final strategic plan will be the result of a conversation that involves the entire school community—parents, faculty and staff, students, alumni, clergy, and parishioners. I am looking forward to engaging in this conversation with you. Faithful to our Mission, and counting on God’s blessing of the prophetic work it calls us to, it is time to move forward together. How can you help? First, please pray for this process. Second, be active—volunteer, attend school events, come to monthly Coffees, browse The Crusader Times. Make your child’s school your school. Third, stay tuned for more formal ways you can share your hopes for our school.
 
This fall, we give thanks for 25 years of God’s faithfulness to The Atonement Academy. And so let us actively cultivate thanksgiving, for it is in this spirit that we will find both courage and clear-eyed vision to move into the future confident of His continued faithfulness.
 
Your servant,
 
Matthew David Watson
Head of School