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2023-2024 Wingèd Ox

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FALL 2023 1

The Wingèd Ox

& ANNUAL

REPORT

2022-2023

Tales from St. Luke’s School • Fall 2023

Contents

3

HEAD OF SCHOOL WELCOME

4

CELEBRATING BART BALDWIN

6

NEW YEAR, NEW FACES

8

RETIREMENTS

9

PA ENRICHMENT GRANTS

13

SUMMER PROFESSIONAL

DEVELOPMENT

15

LOWER SCHOOL CRONICAS

16

UPPER SCHOOL LIBELLUS

18

CELEBRATING THE CLASS OF 2023

21

YOUNG ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

22

THEN AND NOW: AN INTERVIEW WITH

SLS ALUMNI TURNED SLS TEACHERS

24

CALLING ALL ALUMNI!

Annual Report 2022-2023

26

FROM THE CHAIR

27

VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHT

30

GIFTS OF TIME & TALENT

The Wingèd Ox

FALL 2023 3

Head of School Welcome

Dear St. Luke’s Community,

The start of a new school year is a time of great

anticipation, a moment when we embark on new

beginnings while also cherishing the timeless

traditions that have shaped our school's identity.

In my first year as Head of School, I realize we are

writing a new chapter for our school while also

building on the narrative history that makes this

school community so special.

As we settle into the routines of the school year,

and I have the opportunity to meet with so many of

you—formally or informally—and learn about your

St. Luke’s story, I am enthralled by the individual

journeys that brought our community together

and am amazed that within those unique stories

there are themes that consistently emerge. Literally

and figuratively, our space welcomes, nurtures

connection, and fosters belonging. When one walks

through the gates of St. Luke’s School, the bustle of

the city fades and is replaced by the joyful laughter

of children and the enthusiastic pleasantries of

adults greeting each other in the open spaces of our

stunning campus.

The joy of belonging to St. Luke’s School is vividly

present within the building, as well. Recently

I watched as students counted the seconds to

8:00 a.m. so that they could head upstairs to their

classrooms and get ready for their full days. During a

recent Fall deluge, JK students created mud art and

observed worms as they migrated to drier land. As I

work with our Grade 8 students on mock high school

interviews, I am in awe of their articulate retellings

of their care for others, accomplishments, service,

and leadership. The privilege of guiding students on

their educational journey is a responsibility I do not

take lightly and their joy and enthusiasm at school is

the highlight of my days.

The subsequent pages of this Wingèd Ox Magazine

and Annual Report capture so many cherished

moments unique to St. Luke’s: faculty pursuing

lifelong learning and bringing their discoveries back

to their classrooms, new staff bringing new energy

and perspectives, alumni who go out into the world

to lead with heart and make us proud, and so many

volunteers and donors who share their time, talent,

and treasure in support of this magical community.

If we have not yet met, I hope that we will soon.

As we author this new chapter together, please

know that my door is always open. I encourage

you to reach out, share your thoughts, dreams,

and concerns, and be an active participant in the

St. Luke’s family. Together, we will make this a

remarkable volume in the St. Luke’s story.

With joy,

Tracy Fedonchik

Head of School

Top: Ms. Fedonchik greets students on the first day of

school along with her dog Pip’n. Bottom: Exploring the

sand table with JK.

4 THE WINGÈD OX

Celebrating Bart Baldwin

Head of School, 2007 – 2023

After 16 years as Head of School,

Bart Baldwin retired at the end of

the 2022 – 2023 school year.

In his tenure, he oversaw our growth

from a parish school of fewer than

200 students to an independent

Episcopal school of more than 340

students, and physical expansion that

added two stories to our building and

enhanced our outdoor play areas.

Under Bart’s leadership, the school

increased staffing; expanded arts,

sciences, and learning resources;

and institutionalized and

deepened our commitment to

diversity, equity, and justice.

All of these are incredible achievements, but what

we will most cherish and remember about Bart

was the way he made us feel. He made each of us

feel seen – parents, students, teachers, and staff.

In this vibrant, busy, and often overwhelming city,

Bart cherished our community as a sanctuary on

Hudson Street. He fostered an environment where

we all had opportunities to engage deeply and he

encouraged us to enter through the gates with

vulnerability and compassion so that every member

of our school could be fully themselves.

Board Chair Holly Fogle wrote of Bart’s leadership

at St. Luke’s, “What you are leaving here is a true

legacy. A beautiful school with a strong partnership

with the Church. An amazing team of educators and

administrators. And a group of children that feel

deeply cared for because they have always been our

North Star.”

Bart wrote to the St. Luke’s community last year,

“Partnering with and serving St. Luke’s School has

been one of the great joys and privileges of my life,

and I am so much the better for it. St. Luke’s School

will easily and smoothly transcend a change in Head

of School because the heart of the school beats

within each of you.” We are deeply grateful to Bart

for his 16 years of heartfelt service to St. Luke’s

and we wish him all the best in his retirement. If

you’d like to be in touch with Bart to send him your

well wishes or to share a memory, please contact

development@stlukeschool.org.

FALL 2023 5

BY THE NUMBERS

We know that numbers cannot capture the

magic and warmth of Bart, but they can tell

a story. Below are some key facts and figures

relating to Bart’s time with us at St. Luke’s.

` 16 YEARS of serving as St. Luke’s

School Head of School

` 28 YEARS as a head of school

` 40 YEARS in education

` 200 STUDENTS ENROLLED in Bart’s

first year which grew to 340 STUDENTS

ENROLLED by the 2022 – 2023 school year

` 2 STORIES and 20,000 SQUARE FEET

of added learning space plus a beautiful

outdoor and rooftop renovation

` 3 DOGS who accompanied Bart and

brightened our days – Roxy, Luke, and Coeli

` 1 GLOBAL PANDEMIC navigated

` 16 GRADUATED CLASSES

` 553 NEWSLETTERS sent to the

SLS community

Counterclockwise from top left: Bart greeting and addressing students on

the first day of school, September 2022; Bart teaching, September 2022;

State of the School address, January 2019; scenes from Bart’s retirement

party on June 2, 2023 (Coeli hugging Bart; dedicating The Bart Baldwin

Buddy Bench from the Board of Trustees—the Buddy Bench is where

someone can go sit when they need a friend or someone to play with on the

playground; addressing the crowd; Bart with Coeli)

6 THE WINGÈD OX

New Year, New Faces

DANNY ABRAMS joins as an After

School Program staff member and

substitute teacher. He has a degree in

Psychology and a minor in education

from UMass Amherst. In his spare time, he is a

musician: he plays guitar, drums and piano.

EVELYN BELIVEAU joins St. Luke's

School as an After School Program staff

member. She will conduct Homework

Help on Mondays and Thursdays. She

has worked in New York City as a tutor specializing

in reading and grammar and as a teaching artist for

nearly four years. She attended Bowdoin College.

CHEVONE D. CAMERON joins

St. Luke's School as Human Resources

and Administration Associate. Prior to

joining St. Luke’s, Chevone worked at

Motivate LLC (CitiBike) as their HR Generalist/

Associate. She attended Medgar Evers College.

JESSIE CORDRAY joins us as an

athletics coach and substitute. He has

an M.A. from the University of San

Francisco and holds a USSF C license.

He is also a certified youth Futsal instructor and a

staff coach at DUSC. He spent the last six years

teaching in NYC charter schools.

We eagerly welcomed these talented and enthusiastic new members of our community, and we look forward

to seeing the new energy and ideas that they bring to our school and their classrooms and departments.

OLIVIA DULANY joins as the 2R

Associate Teacher. A graduate of

Williams College and a candidate for a

master’s from Chaminade University in

Hawaii, most recently Olivia has been a Teach for

America Corps member and focused on students

with learning differences.

TRACY FEDONCHIK joins as St. Luke’s

sixth Head of School. Tracy spent 21

years at The Dalton School where she

worked first as an associate teacher in

Grade 3, then as lead Grade 3 teacher, before moving

to the Middle School where she taught Grade 5

language arts, social studies, and mathematics. In 2014,

Tracy was named Assistant Middle School Director and

later Middle School Director. Tracy graduated from

Fairfield University with a BA in English Literature and

Creative Writing. After an early start in the business

world, she decided to change careers and earned an

MS in Teaching Literacy and Childhood General

Education from Bank Street College of Education.

THE REV. ISABEL ROBERTS GELLER,

known as Mo-G (for Mother Geller) is

the St. Luke's School Chaplain. Along

with her mentor, Fr. Andrew Ancona,

she will create the Chapel programming and

Eucharist services. Mo-G will also help to teach the

Religious Education and Justice classes in the Upper

School. Before heeding the call to ordained ministry,

she was the stage door manager with Dance Prism,

a semi-professional ballet company in Concord, MA,

and the senior warden at St. Andrew's Episcopal

Church in Ayer, MA.

TYRIEK GOOD joins as a PE Associate

Teacher, allowing us to better support

and expand that program. Tyriek has

vast coaching experience including

coaching at The Dalton School, Hunter College,

and the Agnes Irwin School in Pennsylvania.

A graduate of City College in New York, he has

particular experience in intercollegiate sports

which will support our intra- and inter-mural

programs immensely.

FALL 2023 7

CLAUDIA SOL HINOJOSA joins as

Interim Spanish Teacher for Grades 5

– 8. A native of Mexico, Señora Sol joins

us after years of experience teaching

Spanish and working as a Spanish Curriculum

Developer at schools in New York City, Wisconsin,

and Oregon. Claudia also has worked as a

professional salsa dancer and has taught salsa dance

and Zumba classes throughout her career. She

received a bachelor's in Psychology from

Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León in Mexico.

AYESHA LONG joins as Chief DEI

Officer and will work alongside every

constituency group to oversee

St. Luke’s DEIJB policies and practices,

partner with educators and student services,

educate families on DEIJB principles, and support

students in their learning of these concepts. Ayesha

worked previously at City and Country as the Middle

School Director and the Director of Community Life,

Equity, and Inclusion. She has also worked at The

Dalton School, Empower Charter School, and New

York City Department of Education. Ayesha received

her undergraduate degree from Hunter College and

a graduate degree from Brooklyn College.

ELIZA MACY joins St. Luke’s as an After

School Program staff member. Eliza

comes from the Brooklyn Botanical

Garden where she taught gardening to

elementary school students. Because of this, she has

brought horticulture education activities to ASP.

Eliza attended Macalester College.

LUKE MUSCAT joins as co-lead Junior

Kindergarten teacher. A dancer and

educator, Luke is a candidate for his

doctorate in education, having earned

his master’s at Bank Street College. He worked

previously as head toddler teacher at Barrow Street

Nursery School and has also been a first grade

teacher at Hewitt and a long-time dance educator.

ALEX OWEN joins as the Grade 7 and 8

Music Teacher. Alex has taught music to

a variety of ages, and most recently

taught elementary music at Quad Prep.

In addition to teaching at St. Luke's, Alex is a busy

jazz trumpeter and vocalist and will be incorporating

his experience as a working musician into all of his

classes. Alex is a graduate of Connecticut College

and holds a Master's degree in Music Education

from Teachers College, Columbia University.

ANGEL PEÑA joins the Grade 4 team.

She worked previously as a Grade 5 and

6 teacher at Achievement First

Brownsville Middle School, a charter

school in Brooklyn. Prior to that, she taught

Grade 3 and 4 in Arizona, where she earned her

undergraduate and master’s degrees from Arizona

State University.

MAGGIE PERAULT joins the Grade 4

team but is already known to the St.

Luke’s School community, having served

as the family leave replacement for

Grade 3 last year. She has also been a Grade 2 and 4

lead teacher at Lycée Français, and prior to that, a

Grade 3 and 5 lead teacher in public school. She

holds an undergraduate degree from the College of

William & Mary and a master's degree from

Teachers College, Columbia University.

ERICA PETTIS joins St. Luke’s as the

Director of Development. In her role

she will focus on leading our Annual

Fund and Spring Benefit fundraising

efforts. She will also work to grow our alumni and

alumni parent engagement and programming. Prior

to joining St. Luke’s, Erica worked at Graham-Pelton

consulting as their Independent School Practice

Group Leader, the Allen-Stevenson School, and the

Pingry School. She's a graduate of Hamilton College.

KAELANI PRYCE joins St. Luke's as a

Human Resources and Administration

Associate. Prior to working at St. Luke’s,

Kaelani worked in the HR field at a

nursing home. She has also served as an education

paraprofessional with the NYC Department of

Education. She is a graduate of CUNY Lehman College.

DEION A. SAINVIL joins as an interim

Grade 5 and 6 History Teacher and

Grade 5 Advisor. Most recently, Deion

interned at Bloomsbury Children’s

Books and taught at Coral Springs Charter School in

Coral Springs, Florida. He holds a Bachelor’s of

Science in Social Science Education from Florida

State University and a MFA in Writing for Film and

Television from Emerson College.

SHEILA SHELDON joins as Chief

Financial & Operating Officer. In her

role, she will provide strategic

leadership, analysis, management and

oversight of all finance and operations while leading

high functioning teams in the Business Office,

Facilities, and IT Departments. Sheila worked

previously as the Director of Finance at the

Archdiocese of New York, and prior to that was a

Controller at St. John's University. She holds a degree

in accounting and finance from New York University.

8 THE WINGÈD OX

ALLISON SNYDER joins as the 3W Associate

Teacher. Most recently, she was a Grade 1 and

3 associate teacher at Ethical Culture

Fieldston School. She sees teaching as a

service and has taught writing to incarcerated women,

advocated for students with learning differences, and run

classes in executive functioning. She is a graduate of Sarah

Lawrence College.

JINLI SPENCER is an alum of St. Luke’s School

and is thrilled to return as the Grade 3P

Associate Teacher. A graduate of Wellesley

College with a master’s expected from the

University of Pennsylvania, Jinli is passionate about gender

equity in education. As part of their master’s program, they

taught third graders at a public charter school. In addition,

they have been an editorial assistant at a publishing house

specializing in children’s literature.

ZOE TEZAK joins Rebecca Swanberg in the

Communications Office as our

Communications Manager. She was previously

the middle school office manager at The

Dalton School and prior to that received her Bachelor’s of

Science in Media Studies and Communications from NYU.

ZAHARA WIGNOT joins St. Luke’s School as

the Executive Assistant to Head of School,

Tracy Fedonchik. Zahara has held similar

positions at Harlem Day Charter School,

Avenues The World School, and McKinsey & Company.

She holds a B.A. from the University of Washington.

New Year, New Faces (Cont.)

Retirements

Scenes from a special chapel service

celebrating Ms. Bramble on May 24, 2023.

We are so grateful to all our professional staff, and particularly

appreciative of the gifts of those who are moving on to new

adventures. We wish everyone well and are so grateful for their

time and impact at St. Luke’s School! Here we want to celebrate

the two incredible staff members who retired at the end of the

2022 – 2023 school year.

BART BALDWIN (Head of School) retired after 16 years as Head of School. (See page 4-5 for a

longer tribute to Bart’s years of service to St. Luke’s.)

BRENDA BRAMBLE (Registrar) retired after 34 years providing service and inspiration to the

families of St. Luke’s School. She was the first person many students, teachers, and families saw

when they entered the school each day and she masterfully juggled bus duty, phone calls, late

arrivals, and early dismissals with a smile each day. We will miss Mrs. Bramble and wish her a very

happy retirement!

FALL 2023 9

PA Enrichment Grants

the 16th century, Emperor Rudolph II,

whose base was in Prague, established

an alchemical library and invited many

famous alchemists to work there

under his patronage. Despite his

support, alchemists faced persecution

from some Christian groups who

believed their work was about magic spells and

the occult. I was very curious to visit this museum

because alchemy is an ancient philosophical and

proto-scientific tradition that historically existed

in India, China, the Muslim world, and Europe.

Alchemists believed that all matter consisted of the

same five elements (earth, air, fire, water, and ether)

in different arrangements and proportions. Alchemy

consisted of altering the proportions of these

elements to make desired substances. According to

this idea of matter, every chemical reaction was a

transmutation. Transmutation is a change in which

one type of matter becomes another. For instance,

alchemists believed that lead's transmutation would

lead to the formation of gold.

After Prague, I visited the German Monk Gregor

Mendel's Monastery in Brno, Czechia. He is one of

my favorite scientists. After completing his daily

duties in the monastery, he conducted the famous

pea experiments that kick-started modern genetics

study. This monastery is still functioning, and the

original papers of his treatise still exist for all to read.

No science trip would be complete without a

stop at the Max Planck Society in Berlin which

was established in 1911 as the Kaiser Wilhelm

Society for the Advancement of Science. Here, new

sciences were developed, such as biochemistry,

physical chemistry, genetics, microbiology,

non-Mendelian genetics, nuclear physics (first

successful fission experiment), inorganic chemistry,

biophysics, and more.

However, there is a dark side to the history of the

Max Planck Institute: scientists participated in

the crimes of the Third Reich by justifying them

scientifically. This resulted in the deaths of millions

of Jewish and Roma people. Currently, the research

institute is bringing their horrific immoral history

to light so this does not happen again.

I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to the PA

Grant Committee for granting me this opportunity.

It was truly awe-inspiring to tread the same paths

and explore the laboratories once frequented by

brilliant minds.

Each summer, the Parents

Association sponsors grants intended

to help professional staff engage in

studies or travel that enriches their

curriculum. The PA Enrichment Grant

Committee was pleased to select

seven recipients to receive grants for

travel during the summer of 2023.

DANIEL DEEPAK, Grade 6-8 Science & Coding Teacher

Visiting the laboratories in Prague, Brno, and the

Dahlem district brought back memories of my

grandfather's chemistry lab. My grandfather, Hari

Krishna Srinivas, ran a chemistry lab in Rangoon

(now Yangon) in Burma (now Myanmar) where

he used Ayurveda, Indian medicinal system, and

modern pharmacological practices to produce

medication for both cure and prevention. When I got

to the Museum of Alchemy in Prague, I could feel the

excitement of the early alchemists who were trying

to find ways to heal broken hearts and prolong

people’s lives.

The Museum of Alchemy in Prague is in the old

Jewish quarter of Prague. Built in 300 AD, it has

a secret door in a bookcase leading to the labs of

the alchemists and an underground passageway

to King Rudolph’s castle. In their labs, they made

elixirs for eternal youth, love, and memory; the old

Jewish quarter was a haven for them to practice. In

10 THE WINGÈD OX

CAMELLIA HARTMAN,

ASP Music Teacher & Substitute Teacher

This past August, I traveled to Emerald Isle in search

of the “Irish Session,” a cultural phenomena so

commonplace in Irish culture that citizens laughed

when I shared this as the subject of my intellectual/

spiritual pursuit. Irish sessions are informal,

sometimes impromptu, gatherings of musicians and

nonmusicians alike, with the shared goal of finding

“the Craic” (exuberant, life-giving spiritedness)

over a soundtrack of traditional and familiar tunes.

What these sessions illuminated for me was not just

a delectable dose of lively jigs, reels, waltzes, and

hornpipes, but also a profound connective thread

woven through differing regions, histories, and

ideologies.

My main goal was to observe the ways that Irish

culture and life supports this kind of unmediated,

creative mode of expression: a session can exist in

a restaurant, bar, or music hall, but it can also be a

spontaneous gathering of friends around a kitchen

table or in a backyard. There is no hierarchy of the

session; all are welcome, and all play an equally

important role – whether that be as a musician,

a listener, a clapper, hollerer, guest vocalist, or

requester of songs – in finding “the Craic.”

In my two weeks of travel, which spanned a

U-shaped driving tour of the island (Dublin

→ Kilkenny → Cork → Dingle → Doolin →

Ballyvaughan), I heard and watched hundreds of

songs performed, some of which were explained to

me for their historical significance, some of which

were so old and entrenched in the cultural memory

that they didn’t even have names. Each session

had a different instrumental configuration, some

with singers, some without; people of all ages were

present, from tiny babies and toddlers running

around to weathered, knowing faces singing

ancient songs.

I could share so much more about this special trip,

but for now, jumping back into this school year, I

am so excited to bring some of these songs back to

my music students, to encourage them to learn by

ear and find the joy, “the Craic,” in sharing music in

community. I will encourage my students to keep

journals of their thoughts and feelings and think of

how these personal stories can turn into creative

expression, inspired by the long musical history that

lives so vividly in everyday Irish life. I look forward

to finding more ways to activate the broader St.

Luke’s community in acts of music-making and

appreciation, building confidence and excitement

around performance and art!

ELON ROSENBERG, Grade 4 Teacher

This summer, I had the incredible opportunity to

visit South Africa with the support of a Parent

Association grant. I especially wanted to visit this

country since combining a study of Africa with

our Geography unit a couple of years ago. While

reading Nelson Mandela’s powerful autobiography

Long Walk to Freedom, I was able to visit many sights

connected to his life and South Africa’s inspirational

struggle to end apartheid. I was able to go on a tour

led by a former political prisoner of Robben Island

off the coast of Cape Town, where Mandela spent

the majority of the 27 years of his incarceration.

Later in my trip, I visited the empowering Apartheid

Museum in Johannesburg and the township of

Soweto where Nelson and Winnie Mandela lived

and where the Soweto Uprising took place in 1976.

One of the most amazing moments was meeting and

listening to stories from Antoinette Sithole, who was

one of the students who marched on this day and

is known for being in a photograph that shook the

world, in which she was pictured next to her dying

brother. When speaking to people about apartheid,

despite the sadness of the subject, there is pride for

what they were able to overcome.

PA Enrichment

Grants (Cont.)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32