2015 SSDS Annual Report

“Your beliefs become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your words. Your words
become your actions. Your actions become your habits. Your habits become your values.
Your values become your destiny.”
— Mahatma Gandhi
Each year, SSDS grows and matures as a reflection of our students, parents, teachers and staff. Teachers and
parents create loving classrooms in which children explore, play and grow. Parent and teacher committees
produce school events and trainings. Staff manage a myriad of projects that make things work. Building and
playground maintenance is improved on community workdays. Educators learn and expand their worlds
alongside parents and their students. So much is driven by all of you, making things happening here at SSDS.
For me, the 2014-2015 school year represented a significant milestone in my career as an early childhood
educator – my 20th year at SSDS.
Over the course of the year, people often asked me, “Where do you find inspiration?” “What does SSDS mean
to you?” “What motivates you?” In my mind, the only response to these questions is community.
My father, Paul Meredith Bradley, was a Methodist minister. Not the kind of preacher that you see on a Sunday
morning at the pulpit, but a minister of education who spent his life involved in the spiritual education of
children, youth and adults.
As a child I was a camper in a camp my dad held for under-privileged children. As a youth I worked with
my dad to organize a tutoring program for foster kids who needed not only extra academic support but
also needed a friend or buddy. My youth group, guided by my father, was always a place where everyone
belonged, where barriers of social groups, what school you attended or where you lived, didn’t matter.
Whether he realized it or not, my dad was a true example of fellowship and community.
My dad showed me that developing meaningful connections with people leads to the creation of
communities. All people want to belong. We want to be part of something where we can contribute and
make things happen. We want to witness firsthand how our contributions make an impact. And, of course, we
hope our children will have these same meaningful experiences as they go through life.
Twenty years ago, when I began my journey at SSDS, I had no idea that building and fostering a community
would ultimately be the strength and magic behind our school. Like you, I came here seeking to work with
and learn from children. Like a pebble dropped into a pond, children are the epicenter of that stone’s impact
on the water, and the ripples, as they move outward, are all the relationships and connections created by our
love and desire to give children the best possible start in this world.
As parents and educators, the examples we set matter. I now see how my own beliefs and work here at SSDS
have evolved from what I observed as a child. I have come full circle: the ripples continue to expand, as I see
each of you, parents and staff, truly present, shaping our community and serving as role models to show our
children each and every day the value of belonging, giving, and being a friend.
As I reflect on my 20 momentous years at SSDS, I am proud of the community we have built together, proud
of our legacy and how we are shaping the makers of the future. I look forward to knowing the people our
children grow into, and seeing that future they create. Oh, what a future it will be.