A(nother amazing) Week-in-the-Life of an FWCD Head of School

At a recent admission event for prospective kindergarten families, as a way of sharing the energy and enterprise in our School community, I simply listed the things I had gotten to do the previous week. First, I had been with our new grandparents. Then, I had been to Mexico, scouting a student exchange prospect. Later in the week, I had welcomed to our ceramics studio a community group, accompanied by FWCD’s very first Fine Arts Department Director, 95-year-old Evelyn Siegel H’99. I also mentioned that I had been with our Middle School boys B volleyball team that I helped coach this fall, celebrating their first win of the season. 

Coffee House: Of and By the Students

In this particular “week-in-the-life,” though, the two standout activities were student-led initiatives. Our admission visitors, parents of 4- and 5-year-olds, got glimpses of just what was possible for their children in this environment. Their children might someday be a part of something like the Coffee House we had had that week. Created six years ago by then-sophomore Allie Arnold ’18, the FWCD Coffee House is a chance for students to share a song they have been working on, an improv act they were developing, or perhaps a dance they had choreographed. Students have kept the Coffee House going, thanks to a student organizer stepping up like this year’s, Alex Nolan ’23, and numerous performers he recruited. This fall’s singers, musicians and actors set up for an audience of their peers on the night before Parent Conferences (e.g., no homework!). 

Many schools battle apathy. These prospective parents heard clear evidence that our students are motivated to share their performances, and they show up to celebrate the performers.

Solar Car Design Project: The Students Again

The other student-initiated activity that same week that I told prospective families about came with a prop: a file folder with pages tabbed and marked. It was labeled with a formal sticker, “Mr. Lombardi” and “Solar Car Project.” Three juniors had formally presented me that folder detailing what it would take to get funding and approval to participate in a project building a car that they would then drive from Fort Worth to California in July. I had posed a number of expectations and created several requirements for them to proceed. They had to meet with a variety of folks on campus and off, and they had to return and present their findings. Given the "busyness" of the typical FWCD Upper Schooler, there was a chance the project would have died right there, lost at the bottom of a high school junior’s “to-do” list.

But the project lives on. Simon Dickerson, Richard Souchick and Arjun Vasudevan, all members of the Class of 2024, did a masterful and professional job of presenting their project, addressing the risks and highlighting the potential rewards. They have identified insurance needs and funding prospects, while beginning the process of engineering a one-person vehicle to make the journey to California entirely under solar power. 

That these students were the ones motivating the teachers and administrators said so much to an audience of parents of 4- and 5-year-olds. Wouldn’t you want your child to be in a place where that sort of motivation and capacity not only existed, but was nurtured and was rewarded? Your children are in that school.