Dear SDS Learning Community,

This week at our full faculty meeting, we heard from eleven of our faculty and staff across all four divisions about the exciting and immersive experiences they offer to our students. These included:

• Keri Wagner and the 3K Farmers’ Market

• Hayley Pickens and the 4th Grade TED Talks

• Danielle Frias and the Middle School Nicaragua Service Learning Project, now in its fifteenth year

• Bonnie Webster & Tessie Kerslake and our Community Garden work, integrated into our Upper and Middle School Life Science programs

• Amanda McGrath and our Upper School Special Studies Program, celebrating its 30th anniversary this school year

• Jon Green and his new Health Services class

• Tim Fisher and our Youth in Government club, offered for over thirty years under the expert guidance of Margaret Sullivan

• Emmy Farrell and the local gallery shows she coordinates for AP Art students

• Jillian Sorrenti & Lenora Sansbury and the new joint student venture, Griffin's Grounds, which will raise funds for the Deborah Black Fund—a fund dedicated to supporting students on their Special Studies trips

As you can tell from this list, at Spartanburg Day School, our model is intentional and independent, designed by our expert educators to get more out of the most formative learning years of children’s lives.

As SDS learners develop, we ensure they have increasingly immersive, challenging experiences to help them grow in purpose, confidence, and discernment. We know that engaged, excited learners—who are empowered to explore their own interests and encouraged to dive deeply into new concepts and questions—learn best. We have built, and should continue to build, both our core curriculum and extracurricular programming on that bedrock truth.

We believe in our approach: it is Learning Lived.

Please have a wonderful weekend, and we will see you on Monday.

Go Griffins!