Lakeside School

Programming that cultivates belonging and community through an exploration of our shared values is a focus in the Community Experience, Engagement, and Impact area of our strategic plan. Learn more about Hope in Action: An Empowering Strategic Plan for Lakeside School. 

I write to you from the depths of summer: It’s hot, the grass is dry and crunchy, and my days are composed mostly of shuttling kids to and from summer camps, wringing out bathing suits, and distributing popsicles. It seems strange to think about the Back-to-School Season™, but according to targeted ads on Instagram and the working-mom-oriented podcasts I listen to, the season is certainly just around the corner.

As someone who has worked in education for nearly 20 years, September is my New Year’s Day — everything is fresh and new, and possibilities abound. It’s my season of reflection, goal-setting, and focusing on how I hope to grow in this new year. At the same time, there is a seemingly endless list of details to master: piecing together dropoff and pick-up schedules, making sure the soccer cleats still fit (and where did the shinguards end up?), reading the myriad school emails (thanks for reading, by the way!), and more. It’s easy to succumb to the frenetic energy of the last few days of August. All of these details (which do need to get done, according to the many reminders in my inbox) aren’t necessarily related to my big-picture goals. It’s easy to lose sight of what’s really important.

In my role at Lakeside — both as family support liaison and human development and health department chair — one of my big-picture reflections each August is about how Lakeside can best partner with parents and guardians. My colleagues and I are constantly asking: How can our school be most helpful to your family? What do Lakeside parents and guardians need to know and learn? How can we help with your big-picture goals?

Which is why, as we approach the start of the school year, I come to you with an invitation to focus on something arguably more meaningful than the many items waiting to be crossed off on your to-do list. I want you to ask yourself and your student: “What is my responsibility this year?”

What might our entire Lakeside community be like if we all asked ourselves that question? When I say “responsibility,” I don’t mean what we might be responsible for — packing lunches, coordinating calendars, and gently “reminding” our children to finish their chores. Instead, could responsibility be understood as who we are responsible to: the people and groups that we most want to serve and uplift?

Being a member of the Lakeside community is not a one-way street whereby students and families who commit to Lakeside sign up to only receive all of its benefits; instead, it is a relationship of multi-directional responsibility and service. Community membership comes with an implicit acknowledgement that we are all beholden to one another. In this relationship of mutual responsibility, what happens to one of us impacts all of us — whether we are celebrating successes or grieving losses — and our individual lives are shaped by having been a member of the community. By choosing to live in community with one another, we sign on to be responsible for caring for one another, and we sign on to be cared for by the community. It is in this responsibility that we find belonging as community members: In being responsible to one another, we also belong to one another.

Students’ responsibilities as community members

Within a community, our responsibilities to one another are different depending on our roles. Students have some of the most exciting, and perhaps most challenging, responsibilities as community members.

• Students are responsible for asking for help, even when they would rather not for any number of reasons having to do with clout, pride, or stubbornness.
• They are responsible for trying new things — new sports, clubs, friendships, and assignments.
• Students are responsible for growing in their integrity — for regularly looking in the mirror and asking: “Do I feel good about how I treated myself, others, and my community yesterday? If not, how am I going to change?” Lakeside’s Statement of Community Expectations is a valuable tool in their growth in this area.
• They are responsible for the weighty and messy work of seeking out meaning and purpose for their lives — for finding what makes them tick.
• Finally, they are responsible for being kind; for remembering, as author John Watson (aka Ian MacLaren) once said, “everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle,” and for striving to be the person that someone else wants to tell about that hard battle.

As you can imagine, these can feel like heavy responsibilities to our young people, and they will not always meet their responsibilities as thoroughly or as thoughtfully as we (and they) might like. But there is much to be learned from the attempt.

As your family gets ready for the school year, I encourage you to invite your child to reflect on their responsibilities as community members. Ask questions like: “What do you want to do more of this year? What do you want to do less of?”; “What is a challenge that you anticipate facing this year? How do you plan to tackle it? What support might you need?”; and “How do you want to contribute to the school community this year?” This conversation will go a long way towards encouraging your child to focus on how they will shape and be shaped by their community membership this year.

Parents’ and guardians’ responsibilities as community members

What is your responsibility as a parent or guardian in this community? In a school, the role of a parent or guardian is usually understood to be focused on the academic and personal growth of one’s own student or students. But what if parents and guardians focused not only on their own children, but on the school community that they and their children are creating and being created by? Here are some questions that I encourage you to consider:

• How can you cultivate a sense of abundance for your child — to help them see that there is an abundance of opportunity, of paths to success, and of time (over a lifespan) to evolve? A focus on the abundance of life combats jealousy, competition, and fear, and builds a community of young people poised to support rather than to compete against one another.
• What are some opportunities for your child to exercise independence and build confidence, knowing that young people who have made mistakes and recovered are ready to tackle the inevitable challenges of middle and high school?
• How can you create boundaries for your children, their possessions (like their cars and their phones), and your home that promote safety for your child and other children and communicate your family values?
• What are some ways to combat the inevitable isolation that comes with raising young people in 2025? Where can you seek out support for inevitable parenting struggles? And how can you offer wisdom and encouragement to other parents and guardians?
• In your relationship with your own children, how can you seek to understand their experience through listening and curiosity? After all, no one knows more about what it’s like to be a teenager at this moment in history than the teens who are in your home.
• Finally, is there a way for you to relentlessly offer yourself grace and self-compassion? No matter how your child or children came to be yours, they did not arrive with a manual or helpful set of instructions. I have never failed at anything as often or as greatly as I have failed day-in and day-out as a parent, and I have never wanted to succeed as much as I want to succeed as a parent. You will fail this year as a parent or guardian, no matter how rosy or optimistic your outlook is on Sept. 1. If you’re anything like me, you will likely yell, say something you wish you hadn’t, forget to put something on the calendar, or harp on your own ideas rather than listening to your child at some point (or perhaps multiple points) this year. But this is the beauty of being beholden to a community and the community being beholden to you: you don’t have to fail alone.

As Sept. 3 approaches, I encourage you to think of that first day of school as a New Year’s Day. With the optimism and sense of possibility that a new year brings, I invite you to ask yourself: How will I be responsible to the Lakeside community? How will I receive the care and support of the Lakeside community that flows from the belonging that community responsibility creates? How will I cultivate this sense of community responsibility and belonging in my student?

Know that Lakeside educators commit to that same reflection on community responsibility as we prepare to greet your child and family in those first few weeks of school. We honor the responsibility of growing the unique gifts of each child at Lakeside. We hold ourselves responsible for nurturing an authentic partnership between the school and parents and guardians, and for respecting that you are and will always be the most important teacher in your child’s life. We are responsible for offering support to you, your student, and your family as you navigate the ups and downs of adolescence. Finally, we hold ourselves responsible for creating opportunities for students to find new passions, make mistakes and learn from them, and build meaningful relationships based on trust.

I look forward to a school year in which we each experience, learn from, and celebrate a deep sense of responsibility and belonging in our Lakeside community, grown from being beholden to, and shaped by, one another.

Best wishes for the start of the year — and especially for finding the computer charger that has gone missing, for getting to the bus on time, and for your child remembering to actually get those missing shinguards into their bag.

Julie Lutton is the 5-12 human development and health department head as well as a family support liaison on the student and family support team. You can reach her at info@lakesideschool.site.