August 31st, 2011

Dear St. Luke’s Families,

So the endless days of summer are behind us, August’s heat is but a memory, pools are getting chilly, and little shivering hands reach for the fleece at night upon the porch…

Oh sorry – that is Canada. Well, we might still be baking, the Life Science garden is looking mighty dusty, but school in South Texas has begun again! Thank you Mr. Carrier.

There is much to talk about over the next few months, for we live in a time of extraordinary educational opportunity and change. But at the opening of the year, it seems most appropriate for us to remind ourselves why we deliver our children to St. Luke’s Episcopal School each day.

We are a learning community founded in faith. The explicit ministry of Daily Chapel, and the quiet ministry of the St. Luke’s Way, direct the children’s lives as they go about their business in the math class, the art studio or the gym. The National Association of Episcopal Schools distills our mission to this: “Episcopal schools exist not merely to educate, but to demonstrate and proclaim the unique worth and beauty of all human beings as creations of a loving, empowering God.”

In terms of the academic portion of our mission, St. Luke’s is able to hold in creative tension a series of qualities that are often mutually exclusive at many private schools: great joy in the classrooms is combined with serious rigor, pedagogy that is gentle and nurturing nevertheless manages to stretch and challenge even the most gifted of children.

Above all we have a faculty that cares. These three strengths outshine even that fearsome South Texas sun.

Dr. Q. Mark Reford Head of School