Letter from Leadership from Dr. Veal

Dear Families,

A Note of Gratitude

As I look back on my first year as your Associate Head of Curriculum, Culture, and Community, my primary emotion is gratitude. This community has welcomed me with open hearts and a shared commitment to the “Keys Way.” Whether during the school day or at school events, I have been inspired by the kindness and dedication our faculty and families have shown as we’ve worked together to center our students in our mission’s work: Know and be known.  Listen and be heard.  Dive in.  Thank you for making this first year so deeply rewarding.

Part of truly listening and hearing our community involves ensuring our academic structure supports every student’s journey.  To that end, the C&I (Curriculum & Instruction) team and I have begun to establish goals in the area of curriculum and instruction, and we’re excited about the learning that these opportunities present. Here are just a few things we’re thinking about for 2026-2027…

From Framework to Practice: Mapping the K-8 Arc

In my previous post, I shared a bit about how our professional development work this year has centered around looking at the CASEL developed TSEL (Transformative Social Emotional Learning) competency framework as a guide to our SEL and identity work.  At Keys, our commitment to inclusivity is more than just a goal; it’s an active practice. So, to ensure we are honoring our commitment to identity and belonging, we’ve decided to adopt this TSEL framework as our anchor in best practices. By using this framework we are taking actionable steps to support our mission of inclusivity, ensuring that honoring student identity and the integration of SEL remain at the forefront of our educational priority and our standards of excellence.

For the upcoming school year, our C&I (Curriculum & Instruction) team will investigate ways to continue our TSEL competency inquiry, including intentional connections between the DEIJ standards and the TSEL framework. Our goal is not only to teach identity work and SEL lessons, but also to ensure that they are woven into the very fabric of our curriculum from Kindergarten through 8th Grade. Our goal would be getting to the place of transparency of how we “map” the progression that occurs across the grade levels; that is, as students grow, their understanding of themselves and their community grows with them in a developmentally aligned, meaningful way.

Strategic Inquiry: The K12 Change Lab Partnership

Meaningful, lasting change requires both time and rigor. To that end, I am incredibly excited to share that our C&I team has embarked on an 18-month partnership with the K12 Change Lab, running from April 2026 through September 2027.

This partnership will serve as a “strategic inquiry” into our assessment practices. Some of the questions we aim to investigate are: How do we measure what we value most? How will assessments include student feedback?  How will what we measure impact how we report what we learn?  How does assessment work in the age of AI?  By looking deeply at how we assess student growth in academics, SEL, and identity work, we will ensure that ours is a data-informed model that captures the full, robust picture of a child’s journey of learning at Keys.  This partnership will allow us to refine our grading systems to produce meaningful outcomes, ensuring that every assessment provides students with the clear, actionable feedback they need to thrive.  Equally as important will be our efforts to continue to prioritize the alignment between our grading and feedback systems and our school’s deepest values.  Our strategic inquiry process will surely include student, staff, and family input, so be on the lookout for future opportunities to engage in this process with us!
Looking Ahead: Learning with Leadership

Finally, our work is most effective when it includes you—our families. I am delighted by recent conversations with the KSA leadership to plan our “Learning with Leadership” sessions for next year. These will be collaborative spaces where we can dive into:
TSEL Competencies: Understanding the “why and how” behind our TSEL framework.
Affinity Spaces: Exploring how we foster belonging for all students and their families.
Math at Keys: Seeing how our inquiry-based approach comes to life in the classroom.
There is so much more exciting work to come, and I am honored to lead it alongside such a dedicated team of educators and this community. Here’s to a strong finish to this year and a vibrant, inquisitive year ahead!

Warmly,

Dr. Elizabeth Veal
Associate Head of School for Curriculum, Community & Culture