Principal’s Welcome

Dear Secondary School students and families,

Welcome to the 2026–27 school year!

Thank you for once again entrusting us with your child's education. It is a responsibility we value deeply, and one we approach with care, purpose, and optimism.

As we begin another year together, our Secondary School team looks forward to continuing to build a learning environment that is academically rigorous, inclusive, and responsive to the needs of every learner. Central to this work is the continued implementation of our Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS), strengthening our use of evidence to better understand student learning, identify needs early, and provide timely and meaningful support. Alongside this, we continue to focus on consistent classroom routines, thoughtful assessment practices, and creating classrooms in which students experience both challenge and belonging.

Learning, however, is never confined to the classroom alone. Through Service as Action, interdisciplinary learning, Group 4 collaborations, the MYP Personal Project, the DP Theory of Knowledge Exhibition, Week Without Walls, SuperNOVA, and the many experiences that emerge from daily school life, we hope students encounter opportunities not simply to acquire knowledge, but to ask better questions, work collaboratively, and engage thoughtfully with the communities of which they are a part.

This year also marks an exciting continuation of our work as a Global Impact Diploma Collaborating School. As part of this partnership, we are pleased to introduce The Imperfect Art of Living within our MYP curriculum. The course invites students to consider questions that resist easy answers: What does it mean to live well? How do we cultivate purpose? What responsibilities do we have to one another? These questions sit comfortably alongside the values of an IB education, reminding us that schooling is not only about preparing students for university, but also about preparing them for thoughtful participation in the world.

Throughout the year, I encourage you to follow our Secondary School Newsletter and ensure that your Alma and ManageBac accounts are active, as these remain our primary channels of communication and partnership with families.

Augusto Boal once observed, "We must all do theatre, to find out who we are, and to discover who we could become." Although he was writing about theatre, the sentiment speaks equally to education. School should be one of the first places where young people are given the space to question, to imagine, to test ideas, to make mistakes, and to begin discovering not only what they know, but who they might become. If, by the end of this school year, our students leave with stronger habits of inquiry, a deeper sense of purpose, and a greater understanding of their responsibilities to others, then we will have done our work well.

I look forward to all that we will accomplish together.

Warmly,

Bela Gligorova, PhD
Secondary School Principal