A day before October break, our new college counselor, Alex McGregor announced that he was resigning immediately and would not be returning to LILA.  The announcement was a surprise and Deborah Thornburg and I met immediately with all secondary school teachers to announce the sudden departure and to discuss how best to handle the situation.  Although everyone was in shock, all agreed that the most important thing was to make sure that this rapid departure would not affect the lives of our students in any way.

As the head of school, I was faced with the difficult situation of how to staff this key position.  I felt that it was imperative that we find someone who was familiar with both the IB and the university system in the United States as well as with the special challenges our students face in dealing with a dual immersion program.  I knew that both teachers and parents wanted to see someone come in and plant some roots and develop the program over several years… and then I remembered a wonderful informal coffee chat I had had with one of our own LILA teachers who had expressed an interest in the position last May, which was too late as I had already committed to hiring Alex McGregor.

And so it was, I went up to the teacher in question and brought him the formal, heavy, 4-page job description and asked him to sleep on it.  I knew that this was someone who would fit all the requirements that we needed, and someone who the students trust implicitly… I also knew that he would truly consider what he was getting into and would not take it unless he felt comfortable with the challenge…

So when David Redfield, long-time LILA English and TOK teacher, called me last Saturday to accept the position, I breathed a heavy sigh of relief… and then panicked a little as I thought of the enormous shoes I needed to fill for the junior high students who would be losing a very popular English teacher eight weeks into the year… one of which was my own son…  We placed an ad and immediately received a truckload of resumes.  Guillaume Dupont, Secondary Pedagogical Coordinator, and I spent the week interviewing the candidates who seemed most promising.  We saw several talented individuals, but one stood out above the rest as he walked us through his philosophy of education and explained his techniques and strategies for making group work efficient and productive.   And so we hired Thomas Halpenny from Boston to become the newest member of the LILA team.

To make sure the transition for the students is smooth, David will continue to teach class for a few days and Thomas will sit in.  Progressively the baton will be passed over the course of the week, until Thomas takes over altogether for the 7th, 9th grade English, and 9th grade Tech & Skills.  David will keep his TOK class with the 12^th graders.

And so it goes, a new page in the LILA book is turned; an exciting chapter starts on Monday.