1/18/22
Resolutions for the New Year
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Resolutions, intentions, commitments… at this time of year, many of us set them as a way to make headway on our goals for the future. At HATCH, we’re no different; we have plans for how we want the year to unfold, and luckily for us, we also have each other as accountability buddies and sounding boards. So without fanfare or a longer preamble, we are sharing with you our 2022 resolutions for The Hatch School.
From Jessica: I commit to…
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Continuing to step out of my comfort zone in the pursuit of ensuring a HATCH education is accessible for all of our students. This means leaning in to fundraising, regardless of my experience or expertise in this area, because I believe we learn best in diverse communities with a broad array of perspectives and experiences.
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Persevering when curveballs are thrown at us. As the adage goes, you cannot always control what happens, but you can control your response to what happens. Since our launch last February, we’ve pushed through any number of setbacks, and while the experiences haven’t always been pleasant, they have been helpful and have taught us A LOT!
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Finding joy in the work. Especially in these pandemic times, it can be difficult to identify and celebrate the small wins, particularly when there’s so much work still to be done. Then I have a committee meeting and get to talk about teaching and learning with dedicated colleagues from around the country, or hear from former students how much they believe in our vision, or meet prospective students who are energized by the idea of a girl-centered school that responds to their needs… These moments of intellectual and emotional happiness sustain me through the aforementioned rough patches, and I am deeply grateful for them.
From Sarah: I commit to…
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Working to center, and re-center, relationships in our work. The Hatch School was founded on a premise that students do their best work in strong communities in which they feel fully seen and cared for. Over the coming months, we will welcome many new students, faculty and staff, and parents to our community while being completely up to our eyeballs with Things To Do. Making time to develop and nurture authentic, meaningful relationships with each community member is already a challenge - and as we grow will be even more so. I will hold myself accountable to make this investment in our community.
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Embracing challenges as the best vehicles for growth. While serving as Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld said, “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.” In our work to open The Hatch School, this quote has regularly come to mind as a steady stream of things I didn’t know we didn’t know have come to light, and we’ve had to adjust our plans to accommodate. In 2022, I want to keep reframing these experiences not as frustrations, but as opportunities to build The Hatch School on a foundation that is strong and sustainable.
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Modeling the HATCH value of Excellence and Balance. As you might imagine, it’s a bit of work to open a new school, and it’s hard to find enough hours in the day to do everything with such a big job and a small team. And yet, it serves no purpose to feel guilty about spending time meeting other needs. Caring for my family and my home is a need; nurturing my relationships is a need; caring for my own health is a need; rest is a need. I can and will do excellent work on HATCH’s behalf (at least I hope I will!), but I will remind myself that excellence need not come at the expense of balance.
Happy 2022 from The Hatch School! We’re looking forward to sharing our journey (and an update on our commitments) with you in the upcoming installments of our monthly newsletter, The Hatch Herald, which you can subscribe to here. In the meantime, we wish you peace, joy, and learning.