Arlene Galve Salgado named Head of School, The Spanish School

After an international recruitment effort we are pleased to re-introduce Arlene Galve Salgado to our school community.  Arlene began the school year as Assistant Head of School and served as the Interim Head of School during our search period.  Although Arlene has been invaluable in her role as Assistant and Interim Head of School, she impressed the search committee with her practical, honest approach to school leadership and team building, her energy and enthusiasm for our mission and her ability to connect with our diverse student and family population.  We will begin the search for the Assistant Head of The Spanish School this week.   Thank you to all of the families and staff who supported us during our search for Head of School for The Spanish School.

Think you know Arlene?  Below is her introduction in her own words.  Join us for a Meet and Greet Coffee with the Head of School this Thursday, February 11th from 8am-9am.

Dear Spanish School SLLIS families,

It is a pleasure and honor to become the Head of School at St. Louis Language Immersion School (SLLIS), The Spanish School. As a leader of this school I am highly committed to the student’s learning, innovation and collaboration. I would like to share some information about my educational background, professional experience, and family life.

I am a native Spanish speaker from Mexico. My educational experience spans more than eighteen years in a variety of educational settings such as teaching, curriculum design and administration. As an administrator, I was a principal at a few schools, and administrative vice-president in a hospital. In those settings, I had the opportunity to work with all age and groups of students. I am a very responsible and dynamic person, highly motivated, who can handle multiple tasks at the same time. I strongly believe that all children have the right to an education and that all of them are capable of learning. I have had leadership roles in my professional career and I have built connections with all stakeholders. I have also worked with a diverse population and I respect and embrace cultural differences. I have been fortunate to be immersed in the American and Hispanic cultures.

I earned a Masters of Arts in Teaching from Columbia College in Columbia Missouri; I attained a Bachelor in Science with a major in Psychology from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). From there, I earned a Special Degree Certification in Family Counseling, from the University of Pedregal. One year later, I received a Special Degree in Health Care Administration, from UNAM, and a Special Degree in Public Administration, from UNAM as well.

For the past eight months, I have served as Assistant Head of School, The Spanish School, and for the last five months I have served as Interim Head as well. I have already been part of the team, and I have the opportunity to witness the birth of our Spanish School and its growth. I have built a warm and respectful relationship with students, staff, parents and the administration team. I have had the opportunity to learn, understand and practice the SLLIS philosophy and reach to attain the goals.

The transition as Head of School will be smooth for you as parent/caregiver, for our students, and for the Spanish staff, since I already know the curriculum, the expectations, the mission and vision, and the strengths and weaknesses of our program. My commitment to you and the students is to embrace the challenges in a professional manner, in a positive mode and look for solutions. My greatest initiative is to provide the leadership that will facilitate a school environment to provide differentiated instruction to meet the needs of each student to the best of our ability. The educational program must be academically challenging, engage each student by linking the curriculum to previous knowledge and experience, and also be exciting to promote further exploration of new ideas. Parents, teachers, support staff, and administration all have an important role to encourage our children to become active learners. It is my sincere desire to provide opportunities for our students to acquire the skills to become productive citizens in a vastly changing society. Through a close and collegial partnership with all of you, we can make our school an even a better place for our students to learn and grow.

On a personal note, I have been married (for 20 years) to a Computer Engineer who has always supported my professional development.  I have two wonderful sons, my oldest son is in college as a pre-medicine student, and my youngest son is in 8th grade. Both of them have been volunteers in the after school program and in several SLLIS’s events.

Please feel free to contact me or stop by for a visit.

Respectfully,

Arlene Galve Salgado
Head of School, The Spanish School
Phone 314-533-0597 (direct number)
arlene@sllis.org

Who we are

Greetings all – What a whirlwind month we’ve had! Muchas gracias a todo! I so appreciate all of the volunteer efforts of so many – especially in the recruitment events for our school. I am very anxious for July 1 when I can focus all of my attention on working with you – parents and staff – to see our dreams come true. Our moving truck is scheduled to drop us off somewhere in the greater St. Louis area (place still TBA) on June 11 – yes we are a bit panicked!

While packing up both home and 2 offices, and reading all of the resumes of both Spanish and French school staff to write our two FLAP grants (They’ve been sent, by the way!) – I’ve had several poignant and for me important moments of reflection – especially about our first PYP theme for the year, “WHO WE ARE”.

One interesting piece I came across – having been in a somewhat rural setting for the last three years – was the following called, “An Old Farmer’s Advice”. I think you’ll find as I did, that even though we are from so many different places, we really are so similar!
AN OLD FARMER”S ADVICE:
* Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight, and bull-strong
* Keep skunks, bankers, and lawyers at a distance.
* Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.
* A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.
* Words that soak into your ears are whispered – not yelled.
* Meanness don’t jes’ happen overnight.
* Forgive your enemies – It messes up their heads.
* Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.
* It don’t take a very big person to carry a grudge.
* You cannot unsay a cruel word.
* Every path has a few puddles.
* When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.
* The best sermons are lived, not preached.
* Most of the stuff people worry about ain’t never gonna happen anyway.
* Don’t judge folks by their relatives.
* Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
* Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll enjoy it a second time.
* Don’t interfere with somethin’ that ain’t botherin’ you none.
* Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.
* If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin’.
* Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.
* The biggest troublemaker you’ll ever have to deal with, watches you from the mirror every mornin’.
* Always drink upstream from the herd.
* Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.
* Lettin’ the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin’ it back in.
* If you get to thinkin’ you’re a person of some influence, try orderin’ somebody else’s dog around.
* Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.
Hasta pronto! Debra

¡Bienvenida Debra Cole! Head of The Spanish School

Welcome Debra Cole, Head of The Spanish School

Debra is a 25 year veteran language educator who founded the Spanish-English dual-immersion elemenary program in Beardstown, IL, successfully recruiting 50% Spanish-dominant families and 50% English-dominant families to participate.  Debra is a true instructional leader with a strong commitment to parent engagement and shared leadereship and will be an amazing asset for our community-building. Debra is currently writing our federal Foreign Language Acquisitoin Program grant and transitioning with the final new hires for The Spanish School.  Tuesday, the local teachers for The Spanish School will spend the day in Beardstown observing their kindergarten and 1st grade classes.  Sunday, April 26th Debra and the founding staff of The Spanish School will host a face painting and sock puppet table at St. Cecilia’s Día del niño event.  Join us if you can, the festival lasts from 1pm-5pm.

Bienvenue Conrad Wildsmith!

Join us in welcoming Conrad Wildsmith as Head of School for The French School.  You will soon be able to read Conrad’s professional bio on our website, but for now, here is a little insight into what inspired him to join our founding team.

Being new to any school is challenging, but my trepidation of being a new freshman at a school 4,000 miles from my St. Louis comfort zone was a leap with no sure landing.  The vibrant languages echoing through the halls created the rich backdrop to an engaging and inspiring high school education.  The International community in Waterloo, Belgium nurtured my spirit and formed one of my core educational beliefs; the more diverse the community, the more there is to gain from the learning environment.

The amazing students in the School District of University City and the development of my own young scholar captured my interest in the dimensions of giftedness.  It was clear that the constructivist fifth grade architecture, cooking, and poetry projects I designed showcased students’ talents and gifts undetected by textbook based curricula. My studies in Gifted Education enforced my strong belief that we all must move from judging whether or not a student is smart to examining how each student is smart.

I wanted my son to experience the dynamic life of an international school and moved the family to the International School of Paris.  True to my expectations, the school welcomed and stimulated our family, with one significant improvement, the Primary Years Programme.  Now instruction was driven by the students, reflecting their myriad of backgrounds and demanding collaboration and collective action.  Never had I been so enthralled as a teacher and never had my son been so magnetized by school.  The PYP galvanized in me the fact that children, not teachers should be the center of the classroom.

Learning is enhanced by challenge and inhibited by threat.  Being immersed in a new language will certainly challenge all of our students.  I feel privileged to be charged with creating a comfortable environment for immersion learning that makes the students feel like special and worthwhile people.  I feel that I have been working toward this school and this position all of my life, and I am thrilled to be a part of this fundamental change we will bring the the St. Louis community.

Conrad Wildsmith
Head of School
The French School

¡Bienvenido a Alicia Rodriguez Bower!

Join us in welcoming Alicia Rodriguez Bower as Founding Head of School for The Spanish School.  For Alicia’s professional bio, read our website.  Here she is, in her own words.

I have been a proponent of foreign language education all of my life.  I have realized over the years how much communicating in other languages enhances anyone’s quality of life.  Not only does language learning help students understand and appreciate other cultures by knowing their language, it also adds so much to a student’s knowledge of his/her own native language.

I was immersed in English when I came to this country as an 11 year old who spoke no English.  My family that came from Cuba settled in Indiana and none of us knew English except my dad.  Because we were surrounded by English, it didn’t take long to learn the language well.  My parents made sure, though, that we also spoke our native language, Spanish, at home as well as learned to read it and write it in order to be fully bilingual.

Because of my personal background and my experiences in foreign language education and the immersion system, I truly believe this program offers a magical education for students that will prepare them to the world that we live in which becomes smaller and smaller every day.  I am looking forward to the wonderful success of The Spanish School in St. Louis and know that working together we will make this dream become a reality.

Alicia Rodriguez Bower
Head of School
The Spanish School