Dear MFS Parent,

I hope your children have had an enjoyable first month of the school year. October is one of my favorite times of the year as school activities really get rolling. The array of activities and events held in and outside of the school day are particularly exciting.

Tonight we welcome acclaimed author, speaker and Harvard scholar Tony Wagner. Tony will speak to the faculty for an hour this afternoon, and I hope many of you are able to attend tonight’s “Evening with Tony Wagner,” hosted by Parent Council. The 21st century skills he will speak about are central to the core of our 2011 Strategic Plan.

Saturday, our Science Department is partnering with the University of Pennsylvania to host an all-day High School Bioethics Bowl. This is an exciting opportunity for our students and for the school to work with a preeminent institution to host this cutting-edge event intended to build students' skills in critical thinking and analysis of complex biomedical ethics cases and issues.

Saturday morning you will not only see our varsity sports teams practicing on our field, but you’ll also see the TOPS soccer organization in full swing. This program for children with disabilities is offered by Mount Laurel United soccer under the leadership of the Van Cleve family, an MFS family with three alumni children and one child currently at MFS. Many MFS students volunteer their time to this program.

Sunday, we will welcome prospective students and parents to our campus for an Admissions Open House. Our Admissions staff and Student and Parent Ambassadors will join faculty to provide our visitors with a glimpse of life at MFS. If you have friends who are considering MFS for their children, please encourage them to attend this event or the Open House on November 12.

In the Lower School, we were very excited to start our Find Out Fridays this month. Once a month through March, parents are invited to spend a half hour with their child in the classroom to see first-hand some of the lessons and projects their children are working on.

Many grandparents and special friends will have the opportunity to see these Lower Schoolers in action next Friday when we host the first of four grandparents days. Our Lower School Grandparents Day is our busiest of the year and always one of the highlights of the school year for our students. 

Next Saturday, October 29, senior Laura Bader and the Upper School Science Olympiad team will host Science Fun Day for Lower School students.  This is part of Laura’s Honors Program capstone project.  Bring your Lower School students out for the fun from 9-11 a.m. in the Dining Hall. Recommended ages for the event are 5 to 10 years old.

Laura is one of the team captains on our field hockey team, which currently is in contention for the top seed in the Friends League playoffs. Some of our fall sports teams are having great success. Our girls soccer team has also clinched a Friends League playoff berth, and the girls tennis team earned convincing quarterfinal and semifinal wins in the NJSIAA Non-Public B South tournament before dropping a close match in the sectional final yesterday, 3-2, to Ranney School.

And I haven’t even mentioned Spirit Week…this week Upper Schoolers are in the midst of class competitions such as hallway decorating (feel free to swing by Friday morning to see for yourself) and airbands.

It is truly invigorating to work at a school with such an energetic student body, faculty and staff, not to mention our fantastic parental support.

I wish you a wonderful fall season and I hope to see many of you at some of these upcoming events.

Best,

Larry Van Meter ‘68
Head of School