SUPERINTENDENTS' MESSAGE

What's up, Lincoln? I hope you've had a great week. 

I'd like to celebrate and recognize that we had our two incoming principals on campus last week. Derek Dalasta is our new elementary school principal. He's arriving most recently from the Washington State area where he's had a number of years as an elementary principal. Before that, he was an international educator in Prague, Korea and Mexico. 

We are also welcoming Dave Nelson. Dave is coming from American Community School in Athens, where he has served in a number of roles as an educator, an athletic director, a director of professional development, most recently as the high school principal. 

They both had an amazing time on campus last week. They were able to meet with students, faculty, staff. They were able to meet with our parent community. They're not joining us officially for another couple of months, but they can't wait to join. They're really excited about the Lincoln community, about Buenos Aires and Argentina. We are so happy to welcome them as lifelong learners. 

Lincoln's current enrollment is about 620 students. Over the course of the 23-24 school year, we welcomed more than 200 students. That's almost one third of our student body. A school that has this much turnover, needs to pay attention to how to say hello when new students join us and how to say goodbye when students are leaving. 

This week we had a transition coffee with all of our families that are leaving Lincoln. Lots of tips and strategies about how to acknowledge their time that's ending here in Argentina and how to start new and fresh as they transition. And as we always say, once a condor, always a condor. So as Lincoln prepares over the next few weeks to say goodbye to our seniors who will be graduating, to our families who will be moving out of our school and community, we want to make sure to acknowledge and embrace those special moments and let us know how we can continue to support you. 

Graduates of Lincoln are eligible to receive three diplomas: the Argentine Diploma, the IB Diploma, and the American Diploma. Part of our process of being a school that's accredited and that is recognized throughout all those entities is going through our own self-reflection process and working with an outside agency that comes to evaluate us. Here at Lincoln, we work with the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, called NEASC. They come usually about every five years to visit the campus. They send a team of educators from around the region to come and look closely at our programs. We spend a year in preparation of self-study, and their job is to compare this against our own standards. In that regard, they evaluate how we're meeting our commitments that we make to you as our community. While here, they'll be visiting classrooms, they'll be meeting with teachers and staff, and they'll also be meeting with the parent community. Please join us on Wednesday to talk about the things that we're doing well, your hopes for our future and reflecting on your role as a family member.

Thank you so much for joining us in this reflection of kind of the goodbyes, the farewells and the new beginnings for Lincoln and for our school. I hope you have a great weekend.
 

Dr. Nada Collins

Superintendent