The other day I was scrolling through photos of our campus from around this time one year ago. As I look back now on where the campus project stood just two-and-a-half months before the start of school, I have no idea how Steve Bajc and I remained relatively calm and upbeat. John Lennon is credited with the saying “everything will be okay in the end, if it’s not okay, it’s not the end,” and I remember repeating this often, to Steve and anyone else (perhaps you?) who asked me, “so, will school really open on September 3?”
We opened on time. We didn’t have playgrounds, the campus was still crawling with contractors, subcontractors, and inspectors, and of course there was the kerfuffle over lower school students having to eat lunch on the theater steps—with bird poop! We had a temporary playground hastily thrown together for the ribbon cutting which was promptly torn up the following Monday in order to install the real playground. When the playgrounds were finally complete (after Thanksgiving), the slurry coating on the back playground basketball court rubbed off onto basketballs, hands, and eventually kids’ clothes (I heard it did not wash out). The roof over the Middle School Hong Yen Chang Learning Center leaked every time it rained. And on and on and on…. But we did open on time.
Here we are, just one year later. What a freakin’ journey it has been. I’m trying to think of an analogy. My colleague and friend Joe Williamson is good at analogies. I’m thinking about a jeep trip I took once probably 20 years ago in the far west of Sichuan Province, a wild and mountainous region that used to be part of Tibet. The mountains there are wild, and the roads are crazy dangerous—narrow, steep dirt roads with no guardrails and sheer drop offs. In early times it was called The Shu Road (Shu is an old term for the area that is now mostly Sichuan).. There is a well-known Tang Dynasty poem written by the most famous Chinese Poet of all time, Li Bai 李白 called “The Difficulties of the Shu Road” (《蜀道难》). It has lines like “Whoa, So dangerously high and steep! The Shu Road is more difficult than ascending the blue sky!” (噫吁嚱，危乎高哉！蜀道之难，难于上青天!) or “Landslides crush and mountains crumble, heroes die; only then are sky-ladders and plank roads ever connected” (地崩山摧壮士死，然后天梯石栈相钩连), or “Even yellow cranes cannot pass, and monkeys dread climbing across” (黄鹤之飞尚不得过，猿猱欲度愁攀援). The journey at 19th Avenue from June 2024 to June 2025 has felt a little like the Shu Road.
And yet, here we are. The Class of 2025 just graduated. The Talent Show and year end picnic last weekend were a big success. We held Field Day last Friday. Most parents have attended learning celebrations over the past two or three weeks. We held our new parent welcome event on the roof deck in May (another record admissions year, by the way). June 2024 seems light years ago. And now, we have the Best. Campus. Ever.
Thanks everyone for your patience, faith, encouragement, and support. Looking forward to seeing you in 76 days to do it again (thankfully without the moving and construction next time)!
Best,
Jeff
Jeff Bissell | 毕杰夫
Head of School ｜ 校长
P.S. Take a scroll through the photos below for some quick reminders of just how far we’ve come together.
Then…
And Now!
