MID-ATLANTIC EPISCOPAL SCHOOL ASSOCIATION
MAESA Matters August 2021
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Greetings!

Greetings from MAESA!


MAESA is busy working on our fall programs for school leaders, teachers and students. We know you are busy too preparing to welcome students back to school! We hope that you and your school leaders will join MAESA at the Annual Membership Meeting on Friday, Oct. 1, 2021 at 10:00 a.m. to engage in conversation with Kaliq Hunter Simms as she tackles “Now What? Sustaining the Momentum of Equity Initiatives After the Dust Settles”. More details on our meeting are below and you can register using this link to let us know you're coming. At this time, we are planning to hold our meeting and luncheon in person with our host, Holy Trinity: An Episcopal School, in Glenn Dale, Maryland, and hope that you will join us there!

October also marks our MAESA Episcopal Schools Celebrations at Washington National Cathedral on Oct. 6th and in Richmond at St. Paul's Church on Oct. 20th. We are collaborating with the chaplains at our host schools, Beauvoir, the National Cathedral Elementary School, St. Catherine's School and St. Christopher's School to plan the worship and service elements of the day. We will share these details with participating school leaders in the coming weeks. Should you have any questions in the meantime, please email maesaschools@gmail.com.

November 5, 2021 is the MAESA Early Childhood Educators Conference at Washington Episcopal School in Bethesda, Maryland. MAESA is excited to welcome teachers from our schools teaching in preschool through third grade for a day of professional development and networking. A sampling of the types of workshops we have lined up is below, and conference registration forms will be shared with our schools later this month. We are looking forward so seeing you!

It's time to renew your annual membership in MAESA for the 2021-2022 program year. Membership renewal letters were mailed to our heads of school in June, and we thank you if you've taken the time to complete your renewal already. Details and a payment link are at this link on the MAESA website. If you have any questions please contact Katherine Murphy, MAESA Executive Director maesaschools@gmail.com and thank you for your continued support of our association!
MAESA Annual Membership Meeting
October 1, 2021
at Holy Trinity: An Episcopal School

MAESA and Holy Trinity Head of School and MAESA Board Member Michael S. Mullin, invite you to join us for our Annual Membership Meeting on October 1, 2021. We are delighted to welcome Kaliq Hunter Simms to the MAESA Annual Members’ Meeting as our keynote speaker. Kaliq is an educator, a diversity consultant and founder of Higher Learning Group. She has done some amazing work with our host school, Holy Trinity: An Episcopal School, and will engage us in an important discussion about the path forward related to diversity and equity initiatives in our schools. Her address tackles “Now What? Sustaining the Momentum of Equity Initiatives After the Dust Settles”.
Kaliq relates, "We have experienced a whirlwind year of racial reckoning and pandemic hurdles. Now, when we would like to rest and reflect, we are being urged to get back to work on the 'new normal.' What does this mean? What have we learned and how will we ensure that we do not go in reverse but instead forge a new and sustainable path forward? Let’s rewrite the narrative of our schools’ so-called progress in the areas of diversity and equity. Let’s do so in a way that seizes this rare opportunity to reinvent ourselves, making us more true to who we claim to be as faith-based institutions of learning."
MAESA invites heads of school, chaplains, division directors, DEI leaders, and all interested members of your school community to come together for a morning of conversation and networking with your Episcopal school peers. Please let us know you’re coming by registering using this link. Thank you to our annual meeting sponsor Southern Teachers Agency. We look forward to seeing you on October 1, 2021, at 10:00 a.m. at Holy Trinity: An Episcopal School in Glenn Dale, MD for our annual meeting and luncheon to follow.
MAESA Early Childhood Educators Conference
On Friday, November 5, 2021 MAESA will hold our annual Early Childhood Educators Conference at Washington Episcopal School. Registration forms will be sent later this month, and please share with your faculty and staff as they plan for their professional development this coming year. Below is a sampling of the types of workshops we will offer.
The keynote address will be given by Erica Thompson, Assistant Head of School for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, St. Patrick's Episcopal Day School. Erica's address is inspired by these quotations:

“We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that she is someone today.” (Stacia Tauscher)
“Children want the truth. Children deserve the truth. And children can handle the truth.” (Carole Boston Weatherford)

Erica relates that our youngest students are developing their individual identities. Each day they are learning something new, developing habits, and picking up cues and clues. As educators we are instrumental in that development. Each child should be celebrated for who they are, but they are also beginning to recognize who they are relative to others. Growing bodies of research have shown us that students notice differences at very young ages. How can we work to celebrate those differences and learn about each other? How can we give young students the facts and information that will help them understand themselves and those differences? Sharing stories from her personal as well as professional life, Erica will engage our members about how starting these conversations at the youngest ages is essential to our work as we develop students to be confident, empathetic, and successful in our schools and beyond.

Here is a sampling of some our 2021 conference workshops:
  • Teaching Page-By-Page: How Children's Literature Can Be Used To Teach Children Valuable Lessons.
  • Building Foundations for Positive Identity Development during the Foundational Years 
  • Using Art to Strengthen Your Classroom Community of Young Learners
  • You Can’t Add When You’re Sad or Mad: Supporting the Mental Health of Students and Teachers
  • Exercising our Attitudes of Gratitude: A Firm Foundation for Service Learning
  • “Tech Time”: Balancing Technology in the Early Childhood Classroom and Beyond
  • Minding Social and Emotional Well-being of Students
  • Chapel Every Day: Integrating children's spirituality into the classroom
Mark Your Calendar
2021-2022 MAESA Event Dates
2021 MAESA Fall Members' Meeting & Luncheon Friday, October 1, 2021, 10:00 a.m. hosted by Holy Trinity: An Episcopal School in Glenn Dale, Maryland. This event is for school heads, leaders, administrators, and chaplains in our MAESA schools.

MAESA Episcopal Schools Celebration and Service in Washington, D.C.: Wednesday, October 6, 2021, 10:00 a.m. at Washington National Cathedral and hosted by Beauvoir, the National Cathedral Elementary School. We are working to plan and stream the worship service with a smaller representative group of students from our Washington/Baltimore area MAESA schools. We hope to announce a date in late winter 2022 for a full-scale Episcopal Schools Worship service and are in touch with our school chaplains about these developments.

MAESA Episcopal Schools Celebration and Service in Richmond, Va.: Wednesday, October 20, 2021 10:00 a.m. at St. Paul's Church, Richmond. This worship service is for MAESA schools' students, and we are inviting middle school aged students this year. This year we are planning student engagement time following the worship service to extend our time together.

MAESA Early Childhood Educators Conference, Friday, November 5, 2021 at Washington Episcopal School in the Mid-Atlantic region and offers a preferred registration rate to MAESA Members.

MAESA Choral Evensong Sunday, February 6, 2022 at Washington National Cathedral at 4:00 p.m. MAESA chorister rehearsals will begin at 1:00 p.m. The opportunity to sing with the MAESA combined choir is open to all upper school choirs who are members of MAESA.

2022 MAESA Scholars Fair Friday, April 29th at St. Patrick's Episcopal Day School. This event is open to students in 4th-8th grade in MAESA member schools. Please mark your calendar and contact maeasschools@gmail.com with any questions. Scholars Fair event guidelines and registration information will be shared in fall 2021.
Let us hear from you!
Katherine F. Murphy 
MAESA Executive Director