Category: school

August 12, 2016

Dear Parents,

Welcome to the 2016-2017 school year!!  We hope the summer break was refreshing and fulfilling for all of you and that your travels are bringing you safely to our midst for school opening.

As per the cover letter from, Rob Batchelder, the Chair of the Board of Trustees, it’s my pleasure to be joining the Warriors as your new Director for the exciting year ahead!!  I’m looking forward to meeting all of you and personally welcoming you to this vibrant and inviting school.  More about me and other information worth reading throughout the year will be captured on my Director’s blog – Zimplicity!  Please join the conversation here:  https://zimplicity.org/

We have a wonderful team of educators and leaders ready to greet your children on the first day, assuring consistency of practice and stability of program in the early days of the school year.  We open with an enrollment of 950 and are finishing our welcome of 39 new faculty, who will be joining returning faculty next week for important preparation activities.

As usual, all of our summer teams have worked hard to assure that the facility has been prepared for your arrival and you will see a number of changes in rooms and common spaces as you explore the building.  There are too many changes to list entirely here, but all of them constitute important updates to facilitate the continued growth and development of the programs we offer.

Please plan to join us for the various initial events on the calendar.  Be sure to become an active PTO member and look for welcome meetings to attend and committees where you can make a contribution of your time and talent toward enhancing our sense of community.  This is an important time of year to build new relationships, renew collaborations, and enhance what we do to make ASW such a special community for all of us.

Here’s a summary of some key events in the first week:

• New Family & Student Orientation, Monday, August 22, 9:00a, Cafeteria
• Director’s Coffee morning, Tuesday, August 23, 8:45a, Cafeteria
• PTO Newcomer Coffee, Thursday, August 25, 8:45a, Cafeteria

Best wishes to all for a wonderful first week and a successful new year!

Sincerely,

Jon P. Zurfluh
Director
jzurfluh@aswarsaw.org

With messages you received earlier today, I can confirm my excitement over joining you in the coming year! Taking over one of the main communication mediums associated with my role as director is a key step in my transition toward joining you in the coming days.

After 5 wonderful years in Moscow, I’m excited by both a new country and a new community, rich with culture and diversity like all of my previous assignments. I’m looking forward to the many opportunities for getting to know you during our day-to-day interactions and through the smooth transitional activities that the board, faculty, and staff will help to orchestrate.  My email address is already up and running, so you can contact me easily through jzurfluh@aswarsaw.org.  I look forward to your messages and our many opportunities to connect as we get closer and closer to the opening of school.

Look here on this blog for many updates throughout the year.  I will post messages both small and more significant as a way to keep the lines of communication open and vibrant.  Subscribing is a great idea and I also encourage dialog through commenting.

It is also a pleasure to be bringing my family into your midst.  My wife Emily will be very present at school.  She is a teacher who will often sub in elementary classrooms, but will also be a mother to our daughter, Erin, who will be entering 10th grade.  My son Jaisen starts at college this year and will be attending Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, USA.

As promised at our parent gathering, I’ll be forever letting go of my Penguin background in favor of a Warrior persona.  As your newest Warrior, I look forward to cheering on our students in all their pursuits, athletic and academic!

I’m including below the board’s message from earlier today for reference and the associated documents for easy access:

Your Board of Trustees is pleased to announce that Mr. Jon Zurfluh will be joining ASW next month as Interim Director for the 2016-2017 school year.  Jon is an experienced educator and international school administrator who for the past five years has served as Director of the Anglo-American School (AAS) of Moscow and St. Petersburg.  He will be accompanied to Warsaw by his wife Emily, an early childhood educator, and their daughter, Erin, who will be a 10th-grader at ASW.  Jon’s son, Jaisen, will be a freshman at Pacific Lutheran University (his dad’s alma mater) in Washington State in September.  Attached to this email are Jon’s resume and a philosophical summary of his leadership approach.

The selection of Mr. Zurfluh as interim director represents the culmination of a month-long recruitment process led by the Board of Trustees with the participation of members of ASW’s executive transition team.  This process was guided by criteria developed in consultation with a variety of stakeholders, including input from ASW’s Teachers Association.  We are excited to have Mr. Zurfluh join our community and are confident his collaborative leadership style and track record of strong community relations will be an excellent fit both for our School and our community.

The 2016-2017 Board of Trustees will continue to provide regular updates on significant events, activities and other developments.  In the meantime, if you have questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me or any other member of the Board.  We look forward to seeing you all again at the start of the coming school year.

With best wishes for a relaxing summer,

Rob Batchelder, Chair
ASW Board of Trustees

Zurfluh-Philosophical Summary
Zurfluh-Resume