impactful new software, and many of the tools we already use have begun creating curricula, projects, and capabilities centered on AI.
In some cases, these changes are thrilling, showing students a world of possibilities that simply did not exist before. Scratch is using machine learning in amazing ways, giving students access to projects that can, for instance, use computer cameras as sensors. Coding, too, has seen a dramatic boost from AI, allowing students to develop the same skills we’ve long focused on but with brand new avenues for creative expression.
In some of the most interesting use cases, AI is being applied to allow machines to seemingly sense the world around them. Our new mBot robots come equipped with an AI camera, and students are now learning not only how to use traditional sensors (ultrasonic, ambient light, and color sensors) but also how to use this new AI-capable sensor, which uses an algorithm to detect and identify objects in the real world. Students can then take that data and program their
robots to respond appropriately. Last year, our 5th Grade students programmed a robot to work essentially the same way a Waymo or Tesla does.
Confident, Prepared, and Inspired
The strength of that technology empowered my students and brought them closer to imagining themselves as professional engineers and makers of the future. These tools help our students connect their own skills and abilities to the amazing things they see being built in the world around them. After a good class, they leave the Innovators Lab feeling confident, prepared, and inspired.
The tools we use and teach at VCS will continue to evolve, but the creativity, passion, and inspiration that animates those tools always comes from the same place: our students. Igniting that creativity, passion, and inspiration is the singular goal of all of our work.
MORE TIME ON THE FIELD
One of the clearest goals heading into this year was to provide students with more playing time.
Two new approaches made that possible. The first was the introduction of “Blue Jay Games,” structured scrimmages with referees, energized crowds, and all the excitement of intermural competition. These events provide valuable playing time and allow students to experience real competition in a supportive environment.
The second was an expanded schedule that brought in more out-of-conference opponents. This shift exposed our teams to a wider range of competition and gave each athlete more opportunities for meaningful participation.
Practice time got a boost, too. By incorporating sessions into the school day, athletes logged more repetitions, refined their fundamentals, and arrived at games with a stronger sense of readiness.
LOOKING AHEAD
The 2026–2027 school year is shaping up to be every bit as exciting as the last one. We’re continuing to invest in coaching, exploring opportunities for expansion, and deepening our partnerships with schools across the area. We will continue to build upon the foundations we established this year in skill, culture, and community. The future for Blue Jay Athletics is as bright as ever, and we can’t wait to show you what our student-athletes accomplish next year.
Connecting Through Conversations with Jen
Bringing Our Community Together Through Conversation
The adult VCS community spends a great deal of time on West 10th Street. Beyond daily Drop-off and Pick-up, there are athletic events, festivals, A Look Inside gatherings, alumni reunions, plays, and countless other community celebrations that fill our calendars throughout the year. But anyone who has attended one of our Conversations with Jen events over the past few years knows that this series is something different. More than an opportunity to connect with fellow community members or hear updates about the school, Conversations with Jen draw on the expertise, experiences, and perspectives of a wide range of guests to engage attendees in meaningful learning and exchange. During the 2025–2026 school year, topics included mushroom foraging, achievement culture, and a candid conversation with our graduating 8th Graders about their academic journeys at VCS.
The guiding idea behind Conversations with Jen is simple: we are all still learning and growing, and some of the most fascinating, relevant, and actionable knowledge resides within our own community—we simply need to start the conversation. Head of School Jen Mitchell has embraced this idea for years, but over the past two school years the series has evolved into a cornerstone of adult community life at VCS and one of the clearest expressions of what our school aspires to be. The events are as diverse as the people who make up our community. Some feature a single guest sharing their expertise, such as a journalist examining the hidden costs of achievement culture or an alum reflecting on the winding path from VCS student to published author. Others invite broader participation, from panels of school leaders exploring the research on how technology is reshaping childhood to community workshops that encourage participants to examine their own identities and consider how that work informs DEIB efforts at VCS.
Each spring, the series concludes with one of our most beloved traditions: graduating 8th Graders taking the Auditorium stage to reflect on their K–8 journeys. Year after year, their insights offer a vital window into the student experience. Seeing how poised and confident our graduates are as they reflect on their time at VCS makes this gathering one of the most informative and mission-centered events on our calendar. Each year, Jen says this particular Conversations with Jen event is the one she wishes could be required viewing for all
parents, given the depth of insight it offers into student experience and growth.
Taken as a whole, the series exemplifies the talent and knowledge present in every corner of the extended VCS community. VCS alum and mushroom forager Melany Kahn ‘78 visited last November, bringing fungi, a frying pan, and a guiding philosophy: that close attention to the natural world is one of the most valuable things we can teach a child. She cooked for the audience as well, inviting even skeptics to taste the mushrooms she had gathered. At the end of the event, few left unconvinced of her philosophy or the culinary and nutritional value of mushrooms. In the next event, a panel of VCS leaders turned to Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation” and the latest research on smartphones and childhood mental health, equipping parents not only with insights, but also with a clearer understanding of VCS’s approach, from device-free policies to a designthinking technology curriculum. And when Awilda Rivera ‘98 returned to campus last year, she did so not only as a visiting alum but as a published author and success coach, speaking candidly with our community about imposter syndrome and the ongoing work of defining success on one’s own terms.
The series also welcomes thoughtfully selected outside guests whose work connects to issues shaping children, families, and education. When journalist Jennifer Wallace joined Jen to discuss her New York Times bestseller “Never Enough,” she offered families language and practical tools to address the mounting pressure on children to achieve, succeed, and continually reach higher benchmarks.
This coming school year, a parent committee will be established to serve as a thought partner in surfacing timely topics, identifying potential speakers, and sustaining the spirit of curiosity and shared learning that defines Conversations with Jen. There will be many more conversations to come, and these events are always richer when the community joins in. We hope you will continue to be part of them.
Community Service:
COSTUMES AND ACCESSORIES
Donated to Homes for the Homeless in October.
23 FRESH DIRECT BAGS FULL OF LEGOS
Donated to Pass the Bricks in December. 184
400
TOILETRY KITS
COATS AND ACCESSORIES
Donated to Homes for the Homeless in November.
$1,230 RAISED
By 6th Graders to purchase books for Project Cicero in December.
Donated and assembled for The Door in January and February.
By The Numbers
499 POUNDS OF CANNED FOOD
Donated to City Harvest in March (a VCS record!)
239 FRESH DIRECT BAGS
Donated to the Food Bank of NYC in March.
13 TREES
Cared for, mulched, and decorated with rock signs in April.
54
FRESH DIRECT BAGS FULL OF BOOKS
Collected for the VCS Book Swap in May. All leftover books were donated to Brooklyn Book Bodega.
HUNDREDS OF HANDS LEAVE THEIR MARK:
The Two-Year Journey to VCS’s New Mural
In the fall of 2024, a group of Upper School students signed up for an elective to learn about mural design and begin the process of renewing the VCS mural. That elective was just the start of a multi-year project, one in which every student at VCS plus countless staff and parent volunteers lent a hand, resulting in the vibrant and richly meaningful new mural officially unveiled to the community this past May.
The new mural, which depicts Blue Jays going about the business of school life surrounded by the actual native trees and flowers of the West Village, is not only the culmination of nearly two years of planning and hard work, it is also the latest milestone in a tradition that dates back to the very beginning of VCS.
A Tradition Nearly as Old as VCS
The very first VCS mural was painted in 1972, just two years after the school opened its doors for the first time. The “brightly painted mural of the skyline,” according to a VCS newsletter from that year, was painted on the wall of the Big Yard, VCS’s primary outdoor space until the new wing of our building was constructed in 2021. Today, the Sky Yard sits three stories above where the Big Yard used to be, and our mural adorns the yard’s south wall. That newsletter from 1972 captures the spirit of the school’s inaugural mural effort:
In an astonishing display of calculated teamwork, the children drew individual sketches, tacked them together, adjusted the scale and then divided the collective work into squares, which they transferred onto the wall. Each child in the group had a specific square to reproduce, and the whole job, covering an entire wall of a building, was completed in under three hours.
It’s remarkable how the very first iteration of the VCS mural incorporated so much of what remains essential to the tradition today: students working together, dividing and conquering a wall-sized canvas, and creating something that reflects the entire community. In 1979, VCS decided to refresh its mural for the following school year, beginning the tradition of updating our mural roughly once per generation of VCS students. Titled “A Child’s Eye-View of Lower Manhattan,” VCS’s second mural depicted the goings-on of the contemporary West Village. A 1980 VCS newsletter notes that the school’s second mural was meant as a work of public art to be enjoyed by the wider West Village community:
The idea of the neighborhood seemed appropriate for a variety of reasons. Most of the children in the school had had positive experiences growing up in this section of Manhattan, and the mural was intended to represent these associations. The school is located close to the Hudson River, where children see many of the vehicles which they naturally enjoy painting, such as tugs, sailboats and helicopters. The focus on the neighborhood would enable the children to paint the people, places and experiences with which they were familiar. The mural was also meant as a piece of ‘permanent and public art,’ seen daily by residents and workers in the surrounding community. As such it became an important gesture in fulfillment of the school’s strong local commitment.
In the decades since those early installations, each generation of VCS students has contributed to a mural that reflects their community. And the design has taken some creative turns. In 1991, the school decided to look back in time, before New York became a densely urban metropolis, and created a mural that depicted the natural landscapes that Henry Hudson explored and the Lenape people occupied before the city’s founding. The 2014 mural, our most recent before the new installation, eschewed landscapes altogether in favor of a more abstract representation of our community. That mural depicted the sonic wave forms created by the sound of VCS students saying "We love VCS" in three languages.
Two years ago, Assistant Head of School and Upper School Director Jessica Romero recognized the mural was due for an update, and the process began anew.
“There was no doubt that we were going to continue this tradition, it was just a matter of how we were going to approach it,” Jessica said.
Keeping it in the Community School leadership considered whether to bring in professional assistance or keep the project entirely within the school community. Quickly, Jessica realized they had an opportunity to do both.
Haley Gewandter graduated from VCS in 2006. She was in Jessica’s very first 8th Grade class, and the two have remained in touch in the 20 years since. Now a professional muralist, Haley established herself in the field working with CITYarts, an organization that partners with New York City schools to create public arts. An expert muralist with experience guiding students and schools through both the artistic process and logistics of art installation, Haley was the perfect candidate to spearhead VCS’s new mural.
“Haley had always stayed close to VCS. She’s done some tutoring work, and she’s filled in as a short-term leave replacement teacher for us in different subject areas, so I knew she was not only a wonderful artist but also an excellent teacher,” Jessica said.
Jessica asked Haley if she’d be interested in guiding the creation of the new mural, and Haley says she was immediately on board.
“This was something I knew I wanted to do before Jessica even asked me,” Haley said. “My very first muralmaking experience was contributing to the VCS mural. I was maybe 7 years old. I painted a little yellow taxi cab, and I will never forget it. I was so excited, and I worked so hard. For the rest of my time at VCS, every time I was in the Big Yard, I would go to the mural and find my little taxi cab. It was a big point of pride.”
Dreaming up a Design
Haley generated a meticulously detailed framework that specified every stage of the multi-year project, beginning with that Upper School elective in fall of 2024. The idea was to give students an opportunity to learn about mural-making before dreaming up their own concepts and eventually bringing a single concept to fruition.
Julia A. '27, then a 6th Grade student, said she joined the elective as an opportunity to make a lasting mark on the school. “I was interested in joining the mural elective because I had a chance to be a part of a new community and a painting that would stay at VCS for the next decade and generation to come.”
The elective covered mural history, color theory, composition, and design. Haley guided students through the finer points of perspective and different mark-making techniques. They explored different types of paint and brushes, and took a field trip to Jefferson Market Garden to sketch from life. They also spent time researching the native plants and trees of their neighborhood.
“The students found a website where they’ve catalogued every single tree around New York City. You can zoom in on a map to your street and see which trees are planted near your home or school,” Haley said. “We discovered that the majority of the trees surrounding VCS are a tree called the thornless honeylocust tree. All of the students wanted there to be a thornless honeylocust tree in their designs, and that became one of the central design elements for the mural. There’s a huge one on the left side.”
Haley’s class set up a suggestion box in the Lobby, and throughout the year, students in every grade submitted their ideas. In the spring, a second elective class began planning the mural, using many of the ideas submitted by their peers. They quickly ran into a tricky problem: they wanted to represent the VCS community explicitly, but they didn’t want to exclude anyone. Painting every student and staff member was not going to be possible, and they knew they couldn’t pick just a few to immortalize. Then they had a great, big, blue idea.
“They decided to anthropomorphize the Blue Jay mascot,” Haley explained. “So the Blue Jay became each and every student and faculty member at VCS. It was brilliant!”
From Pencil Sketches to a Painted Wall
They started with pencil sketches. “I didn’t want to overcomplicate the initial design process with color,” Haley said. “That’s something I’ll often do with my own mural work. I think it’s a valuable exercise to strip away the color and really focus on perspective, composition, scale, and how everything will flow together.” After students had completed their pencil sketches, they developed color palettes to establish a sense of tone and mood before coloring their sketches.
Then came the pitching. Elective students first presented their designs to other classrooms, where they received constructive feedback from their peers. They brought that feedback back to the elective and incorporated it into a second round of designs. Then they pitched their revised proposals directly to Jessica, representing the VCS administration team. “It was the real deal,” Haley said. “It’s what I have done professionally
when I’ve needed to pitch designs to clients. And here they were doing that same exact process. I enjoyed watching them rise to the occasion.”
During the summer of 2025, Haley took all of the student proposals and began weaving them into a single, unified design. She prepped and primed the wall in late August, sketching the full mural onto the surface. Then in September, painting began.
A Brush in Every Hand
Guided by Haley, her assistant Evelyn Beliveau, and Art Teachers Bibi Tran and Lindsay Robbins, every student at VCS painted some part of the mural. Haley also organized Alumni Painting Days on weekends in the fall, giving graduates a chance to participate, and crucially, giving former 8th Graders who had been part of the previous year’s design elective the opportunity to bring their ideas across the finish line.
Students have been finding their mark on the wall ever since. “One student painted a little bumblebee, and I think she assumed it would be painted over, even though I assured her it wouldn’t be,” Haley said. “She ran up to me after the mural was done and she was so excited that her bumblebee was still there. It reminded me so much of my taxi cab, and I felt so proud for her.”
In May of 2026, the finished mural was officially revealed to the community. Bright and busy, the design is overflowing with the day-to-day activity of life at VCS, thanks in large part to the elective students’ ingenious idea to use the Blue Jay as a stand in for VCS community members.
“There’s a Blue Jay chorus teacher leading little Blue Jays in song,” Haley pointed out. “A Blue Jay gym teacher guiding students through a soccer drill; a class in session on the grass; young Blue Jays playing with a rainbow parachute. The buzz of the school community is present everywhere, represented entirely by Blue Jays.”
"I love that it's imaginative and whimsical, yet still familiar," said Jessica. "You can find things that you know, like our school building and other New York City buildings. At the same time, it’s not a real place. The school grows and changes, but there are things that persist and stand the test of time. Haley accomplished a very challenging task of making something that people of all ages can enjoy.”
The intricacy of the design has also created a sort of community oriented Easter egg hunt, with students pointing out the details they’d suggested early in the process or having vigorous debates about which Blue Jays represent which faculty members. At one point
during the painting process, the team was deciding whether or not to fill in the eyes of certain groups of Blue Jays. They tested one Blue Jay with filled-in eyes and decided against it. But before they repainted the bird later in the week, a student stopped by, spotted the Blue Jay with filled in eyes, and announced, “That one’s me.”
“After that, there was no way we were going to change it,” Haley said. “It’s still there with the filled-in eyes.”
What the Mural Means
With the finished mural now gracing the Sky Yard for the next decade, students who participated in the elective speak about their pride in seeing their work completed, and the fun they had creating it.
“My favorite part of working on the mural was seeing the finished product, because it was really cool to see our work and ideas come to life,” said rising 8th Grader Luna J. ’27. “It was also really fun to paint the mural with all my friends and bond over something we all created together.”
When Jessica looks at the mural, she says she thinks about everything that makes VCS unique. “School is so cyclical; it’s a fresh start every year. A lot of what we do at VCS is about renewal: work comes off the walls, Woodshop projects go home. So much of schooling is about starting fresh. The mural is one of the only examples I can think of where student work stays here, and where everyone is involved. That’s pretty rare.”
The ten-year renewal cadence means that every student who completes the K–8 VCS journey will paint at least one mural. The new mural will be there on the first day of school for this fall’s new Kindergarten class, and by the time they graduate from VCS, they will have contributed to the creation of our next mural. That direct, personal participation students have in their school environment can leave a lasting impression.
Just ask Haley. Twenty-five years after she carefully painted her little yellow taxi cab on the south wall of the Big Yard, she came back to West 10th Street and helped another generation leave their mark. She hopes they’ll feel about their contributions the same way she has always felt about hers.
“I hope that they feel the buzz of the community in it,” she said. “I hope that they feel that more than 300 hands painted it. And I hope that they feel the magic that comes from an entire community coming together to do something together. It’s not an easy thing to do, logistically, and because of that, it’s a very rare thing. It was quite the undertaking, and VCS just jumped right on in.”
Highlights From the VCS Spring Benefit
This year’s sporty-chic Spring Benefit was a true celebration of the VCS Community, which came together to raise more than $138,000 in support of our Tuition Assistance program.
Spring in New York is always a relief. Even if it arrives slowly and in spurts, the season’s blooming cherry blossoms, warm(ish) weather, and a few more hours of precious, life-giving daylight bring excitement back to a city ready to stow away its snow boots. It’s appropriate, then, that the VCS Benefit—one of our school’s most fun and inspiring social gatherings—returned to the spring this year. This year, the event’s sporty-chic theme gave the Benefit even more of that spring feeling, as the adult VCS community donned its most cocktail-ready athletic gear for an evening of mingling, music, food, and revelry, all in support of VCS tuition assistance. Held on Thursday, March 12th, Benefit Co-Chairs Jessica Jacobs, Jill Preschel, Sarah Rueven, and Sarah Saper invited current parents, incoming families, and staff to enjoy an evening of fun and a little friendly competition. The Benefit was held at T-Squared Social, a restaurant and events space equipped with games, sports simulators, and plenty of massive, sports-tuned televisions. T-Squared proved to be an ideal venue for guests to bond, show off their golf swings and jump shots, and enjoy the music of VCS parent Nick Moshkovich AKA DJ NVM.
In addition to providing our adult community with a moment of post-winter celebration, the Benefit was an opportunity to support an important VCS cause. This year’s Benefit featured live and silent auctions in support of tuition assistance, helping us continue to ensure our unique academic experience is accessible to families who align with our mission and values. With incredible enthusiasm from our community, and some encouragement from our professional auctioneer, we were able to raise a whopping $138,600 to support this critical resource.
We are so thankful to everyone who attended this year’s benefit, and especially to our Co-Chairs for making it fresh, exciting, and impactful. As always, we are so grateful for the support and dedication of our community. Thank you for springing into action to help our school continue to thrive.
¡Bienvenidos a España!
In preparation for this year’s Spring Break trip to Spain, VCS 8th Graders participated in an elective in which they corresponded with their Spanish pen-pals, researched the cities they would visit, practiced their Spanish, and considered everything they’d hoped to learn first-hand about their destination region of Andalusia.
In March, they set off on a 12-day journey to experience Spanish culture not as tourists, but as curious, respectful, and eager-to-learn guests of their Spanish homestay families. The following travelog is a ground-level glimpse into their incredible experience through the eyes of an 8th Grader.
The Journey Begins
On the evening of Wednesday, March 18th, we gathered at the airport. Our flight departed at 9:00 p.m., and we arrived early enough to let the reality sink in together: we were headed to Spain!
We landed in Madrid the next morning, tired but excited. We set off immediately to visit our Spanish pen pals’ school, finally meeting in person the students we had been writing to all year. The conversations were a little awkward at first, with a mix of Spanish and English, but there was a lot of laughing, and we quickly made a genuine connection.
From Madrid, we boarded a high-speed train south to Seville, where our homestay families were waiting to welcome us.
Life with Our Familias Españolas
Staying with local families was the heart of the trip. From the very first evening, we were immersed in Spanish life, sharing a home-cooked dinner, navigating conversation in Spanish, and learning the rhythms of the households. All of the families were eager to share their city, their food, and their traditions with us. Mornings began at the MundoLengua school for Spanish
language and culture classes, but our real education happened around the dining table and in daily conversation with our host families.
Exploring Andalusia
Seville served as our base, but Andalusia has so much to offer. Over the course of the trip, we explored the region, each day visiting somewhere new. Our first full excursion was to Cádiz, one of the oldest cities in Western Europe, with a stop at the ancient Roman ruins of Itálica along the way. In Cádiz, we climbed the Torre Tavira for beautiful views of the coast and practiced ordering lunch entirely in Spanish. A day trip to Córdoba was a highlight of the week. We saw one of the most incredible buildings any of us had ever seen, a mosque-cathedral called the Mezquita. We also wandered the ancient Jewish Quarter, visited the synagogue there, and had a picnic lunch.
The Year in Art
From the Woodshop to the Auditorium, from art rooms to music classes, the arts at Village Community School are woven into the fabric of daily life at VCS. In 2025–2026, our students painted, sculpted, sang, built, performed, composed, and danced their way through another remarkable year.
By Liz Thompson, Drama Teacher
Performing arts education thrives when students feel free to self-motivate, express themselves, and shed self-consciousness. Our Drama curriculum is intentionally designed to give budding thespians that space. In 5th Grade, Drama students engaged their voices, bodies, and imaginations this year to develop foundational acting skills, culminating in an original collaborative piece performed for peers. Sixth Grade deepens that work: in the first semester, students explored directing, set design, and costume work; in the second, they performed scenes, took part in our annual Shakespeare Fest, and collaborated with 2nd Graders to bring original fairy tales to life in a homemade puppet theater.
Through Performing Arts Classes and the Design and Production elective, 7th and 8th Graders continued to build on the Drama skills they’d built in 5th and 6th Grade. In Storytelling, students explored narrative through a modern performance lens. In Design and Production, they took real ownership of our Upper School productions. They problemsolved, collaborated, and discovered the pride that comes with building a show from the ground up. It is this day-to-day work that makes our annual Fall Play and Musical possible.
DRAMA
LOWER SCHOOL ART
By Bibi Tran, Lower School Art Teacher
The Lower School Art program honors discovery across a wide range of mediums, including collage, drawing, painting, ceramics, and printmaking. Students are guided toward becoming autonomous, authentic artists through an integration of mind, body, and heart.
Highlights this year included observational plant drawing, color mixing and shading in paint, ceramic vessels, and printmaking for Kindergarten and 1st Grade. Second Graders explored puppet making, and 3rd Graders worked with three-dimensional forms through construction-based cake sculpture projects.
A new thread this year has been the mind-body connection. Students are encouraged to notice their posture and physical presence as an extension of their mental state, helping them ground themselves and engage more freely. The results have been remarkable. Younger students are tackling representational collage earlier, while older students are approaching self-portraiture and figure drawing with a relaxed yet high-effort mindset.
UPPER SCHOOL ART
By Olenka Bodnarskyj, Upper School Art Teacher (Leave Replacement
for Lindsay Robbins)
Most explorations in Upper School Art are framed around a big idea, built upon through observation, interpretation, creation, and reflection. Students learn that context matters deeply, and that for many cultures, art is integral to daily life.
This year’s projects beautifully reflected personal identity. Sixth Graders explored typography by designing their own fonts. Seventh Graders collaborated on a Patch Jacket, each designing a felt patch revealing something about themselves. And 8th Graders created large-scale portraits of significant people in their lives. Getting to know our students through their art has been one of the greatest highlights of my time here.
LOWER SCHOOL MUSIC
By Kristina Vaskys, Lower School Music Teacher
Whether singing at assemblies, learning a dance from India, composing for recorder, or producing first sounds on a brass or woodwind instrument, Lower School students were always actively engaged in music making this year. We learned by doing—with our bodies, our ears, and our minds.
Highlights included our many all-school assemblies, including decades-spanning VCS traditions, and two K–2nd Grade sing-alongs with parents. In October, the Yale Spizzwinks a cappella group returned for a wonderful whole-school performance. Our 4th and 5th Graders also had the opportunity to learn flute, trumpet, clarinet, and saxophone, taking students from their very first sounds to full melodies by year’s end.
UPPER SCHOOL MUSIC
By Jeannette Miller, Upper School Music Coordinator
Upper School students explored creativity and honed their skills across a range of Performing Arts Classes. This year we welcomed two wonderful new teachers: Kiena Williams in Chorus and Angelina Romero in Dance. Band, Chorus, and Guitar Ensemble presented two concerts—one in winter and one in spring— showcasing the power of ensemble music making. The Storytelling class entertained us with acting scenes and moved us with oral histories from elders. Creating Music had us grooving to garage-band beats in winter, then had us awed in spring with original compositions for two instruments. And Dance had everyone wanting to get up and join in at both PAC shares!
WOODSHOP
By Judy Kashman, Woodshop Teacher
Woodshop at VCS is an exciting, hands-on makers class for all Lower School students and is also available as an elective for Upper School students.
This year, K–3rd Grade students enjoyed more unstructured tinkering time, freely building and combining materials. Upper School students took on an exciting new project: building automatons—moving mechanical devices made entirely of wood. To kick off the project, Woodshop elective students visited the Whitney Museum to experience Alexander Calder’s “High Wire: Calder at 100” exhibit, the perfect inspiration for bringing wooden characters to life.
In the spring, the Library hosted “Combo Creatures,” an exhibition by 5th Grade Woodshop students featuring sculptures of two real or fantastical animals hinged together, painted with detailed surface designs, and placed in constructed environments. That project was a true testament to the imagination and craft that flourishes in our Woodshop every day.
Natasha Franck ’02 Finds Comfort in the Abstract
The founder and CEO of EON explains how VCS’s discovery-based curriculum gave her the tools to build her game-changing digital ID company.
The admissions criteria at Village Community School is perhaps more art than science. Where some schools rely exclusively on a rigid checklist of readiness milestones to measure each applicant, our admissions team—like our curriculum—uses a more holistic approach, looking for nuanced clues as to how a child learns and what their social-emotional needs are. Which may explain why we’re lucky enough to have Natasha Franck in our community. Natasha, class of 2002, admits her first impression probably wouldn’t have received a perfect score on one of those readiness checklists.
“I actually remember my interview with Tori [Ruffolo, VCS’s former Admissions Director], and I kept calling her Mom. That was probably a sign of a slightly strange stage of development,” she told us in an interview in December. “But they decided to accept me, and I was there through 8th Grade.”
Now the Founder and CEO of EON, a groundbreaking company at the forefront of bringing the $3 trillion fashion industry into the Internet of Things, Natasha was a natural fit for VCS. She embraced the school’s interdisciplinary approach with a mindset she continues to apply today as her company unites technology, data, and fashion to drive industry-wide innovation.
“I’ve always been curious,” she said. “I’m just curious about how to solve things from the inside-out. I like to look at things very holistically, in their totality.”
If that sounds a lot like the VCS approach, Natasha says it’s no coincidence. “VCS made us think that way. It’s like, OK, I want to be able to do this, and I want to learn this, and getting that sense of discovery and feeling like the world is discoverable is one of the biggest things I think education can give you, because everything that’s in a text book is in the past; In order to teach kids how to go forward, they have to want to discover.”
That drive toward discovery helps explain how Natasha built EON despite having no formal business education. (Natasha earned a B.A. in Art History from Georgetown University before stints in municipal arts, community planning, and sustainable building and real estate.)
“I was very interested in doing something with a social impact, so I started with the questions, what are some of the big problems in the world, and which are the ones I think could have an impact on? Which is not exactly a business plan,” she said. “The primary objective of a new business is supposed to be revenue, so there was a little bit of a disconnect, but for me, a business is another way to put your idea into the world.”
The Internet of Things is a phrase used most often to refer to wi-fi enabled appliances like refrigerators, washing machines, blenders, and all sorts of other items that are so often accompanied by a smartphone app these days, but EON is aiming for something much more impactful. The company is assigning digital IDs to products, building an ecosystem in which the full lifecycle of a product can be tracked and verified, allowing manufacturers, retailers, and consumers insight into a product’s materials, resale history, and various compliances.
“Our theory was that for the billions of things that we as a society produce, utilize, and—ninety percent of the time—dispose of, in order to manage those things sustainably, you would need an identity system for those products,” Natasha told us. “Think about Blockbuster. You would rent a movie and return it, and there would be a barcode on it that would track how many times it has been rented and where it’s been. If everything that any company produces has that, you’re creating a system where everything is an asset that can be managed.”
In the past year, the EU has expanded its product regulations to ensure that items sold in European countries meet various health, safety, and environmental standards. Those requirements cover materials, manufacturing processes, and a product’s performance or utility. That is a lot of information to track and manage, and EON may be the company best positioned to facilitate trade under these regulations.
“I came at it from a sustainability perspective, not a technology perspective,” Natasha said. “The tech piece came as we worked backwards to figure out how to make this a reality.”
Perhaps her most critical advantage in the business world, Natasha says, is her ability to communicate novel ideas and maneuver ill-defined parameters. “I think it comes from being able to pull different disciplines
together. It’s about being comfortable with the abstract, because when you are building something new, you have to communicate with people about something that literally doesn’t exist.”
Natasha’s comfort with the abstract and her persistent passion for discovery have allowed EON to take advantage of a number of opportunities adjacent to the company’s original vision. In addition to supporting sustainability and product regulation, EON’s product ID network is also creating a global inventory network, which Natasha says could allow consumers to effectively shop a worldwide second-hand market. It may also help companies fight back against the $2 trillion counterfeit industry by verifying products before retailers stock them.
“It’s not like I’m a big authentication person,” she said. “It just became another problem to solve on the way to our original idea.”
It is not difficult for Natasha to trace a straight line from EON back to elementary school. “VCS made us very conscious about community and doing something good for the world,” she said. “It made us very ethically minded before we even knew what that meant. It was built into the community.”
Looking back at her time at VCS, Natasha says she can see herself becoming the person she is today. “I still have my report cards, and it’s almost like a history of my childhood development. I can see my personality coming out through the years through the remarks of all these different teachers.”
And while not every VCS graduate is a business leader, Natasha says the school provides all of its students the tools required to pursue whatever it is they’re interested in after graduation.
“The skills that are important now in the world, it’s not about being able to memorize dates or do math in your head; it’s about figuring things out for yourself, it’s about assimilating different ideas and new realities,” she said. “That’s the education that VCS provides. It’s about the totality of your experience as a person, and it’s about inspiring inquisitiveness and discovery.”
VCS Alumni
Read the latest batch of life and professional updates from our alumni community.
After graduating from Georgetown University, Richard Baum ’79 began his career on Capitol Hill, working on drug policy issues during the crack cocaine epidemic. In 1997, he joined the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy as a civil servant, where he served for nearly three decades across five presidential administrations. He retired from government service in late 2025, including a period as Acting Director of the agency. Drawing on that experience, his new book examines key lessons from past drug policy efforts— highlighting where approaches fell short, what the evidence shows is effective, and what must change to
better address addiction today. Through 32 specific recommendations, Mr. Baum outlines policy, legislative, and funding priorities needed to confront an evolving crisis that now includes not only synthetic opioids like fentanyl, but also stimulants such as methamphetamine and cocaine, as well as other dangerous substances. He closes the book with a reflection shaped by decades of public service:
“If we want to save the lives of people who are struggling with addiction—if we want them to seek and accept help—we have to offer them not shame, not stigma, not ‘tough love,’ but the real love they need and deserve.”
Cassandra Neyenesch ’83 released her debut novel, "A Little Bit Bad" on May 5th. Published by Simon &
Schuster/Summit, the novel is about a San Diego social worker whose love affair with her neighbor’s roofer is interrupted by a murder. Author Sophie Strava raves, “A Little Bit Bad is wholly original and compulsively readable. It’s fresh, dark, subversive and wildly compelling. I can’t stop thinking about it. Neyenesch turns the suspense genre on its head in the best way; I couldn’t get enough.”
Natasha Huggins ’93 has published an article in a new book titled, “Passport to Possibilities.” She wrote about her experience teaching English in Japan on the JET Program. The article explores identity and belonging.
Lauren Breuning Weinrib ’99 lives in East Hampton with her husband, Ted, and their 14-year-old Vizsla dog, Parker. Lauren travels quite a bit for work as a Program Manager in the Research Org at Google, which she really enjoys. She still enjoys spending summers on Fire Island and fondly remembers her classmates visiting her there.
We are excited to share that on June 16th, Harper published "Voyagers," the debut novel by Meg Charlton '01. Author Joshua Henkin praised the novel, saying: “In the tradition of Gabrielle Zevin's 'Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,' Meg Charlton's 'Voyagers' is a finely written and propulsive novel about the enduring power of friendship. It takes on big issues:
Class Notes
the reliability of memory, the price of childhood fame, the ways adults use children for their own purposes. It’s also a book about aliens, geared for terrestrials. Which is to say it’s complex and human, anchored by a beating heart.”
Congratulations Meg!
Natasha Strugatz ’12 recently joined The New York Women’s Foundation as a Development Coordinator. Established in 1987, The New York Women’s Foundation is among the largest women-led grantmaking organizations in the world. Their recent Celebrating Women® Breakfast brought together leaders, advocates, and community members to honor women whose leadership strengthened communities across New York, while raising critical support for grantee partners serving girls, women, and families.
We learned that Tristin Brown ’12 is the Co-Founder of Swank Consulting. Tristin elaborates, “Swank was built to champion both emerging voices and established brands looking to move with culture. Everything we do across PR, partnerships, and strategy ladders back to one thing: powerful, intentional storytelling. Over the last two years we’ve had the pleasure of working across fashion, beauty, and entertainment crafting press stories, producing photoshoots, curating exclusive events, and landing placements in major publications. It’s been everything I could have dreamt for my career and more.”
Josh Gomes ’15 will be embarking on his Master’s program in Childhood Education at NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development in the fall!
Ana Sofia Harrison ’17 writes, “A little less than a year ago, in Spring 2025, I graduated from Barnard College with a degree in Human Rights and Gender Studies, with a concentration in Feminist, Intersectional Science and Technology studies. I finished up writing my honors thesis, which explored the intersections of gender, sexuality and drug-addiction harm reduction practices. I had also just concluded a nine-month internship with the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), where I contributed to AI governance and civil rights policy research This timely topic opened many doors to my approach to research and expanded my awareness on over policing and surveillance in New York City.”
In Their Own Words: Excerpts from the Class of 2026’s Graduation Speeches
Each year’s VCS Graduation ceremony is about so much more than delivering diplomas; it is a celebration of the young people who have grown up within our community, and it’s an opportunity to hear from them directly as they prepare to move on to the next chapter of their lives. Eighth Grade Graduation speeches are one of the most cherished VCS traditions because they allow our students an opportunity to reflect deeply on their VCS journey and share their insights with an audience of family, staff, and fellow students.
At this year’s Graduation ceremony in June, the Class of 2026 painted a vivid picture of life at VCS and what it means to be a part of this community. Thoughtful, heartfelt, and often funny, their speeches are a testament to their individuality, their growth, and the deep ties they have formed here. We are immensely proud of each of them, and we congratulate the Class of 2026 as they embark on high school and all that lies ahead.
VCS is a community that uplifts students in the best way possible. A community that creates a social and educational foundation that is unwavering. A community that forms its students into people who aren't afraid to ask for help. As we all know, asking for help is not always easy. — Amélie P.
Even though I’ve only been here two years, VCS has influenced my values more than any other school I’ve attended. I feel a deeper connection to values like diversity, leadership, independence, community, and creativity. These have helped me reflect on my own personality and how I want to grow as a student and a person. — Ryan B.
Nine years ago, I walked into VCS as a fragile, scared five-year-old. Today, I walk out a proud alum, ready to take the next big steps in my education. My presence on this stage today is a direct reflection of the incredible support from the VCS community. — Clara O.
The best thing VCS has done for me is preparing me both for the school years ahead and life after education. We’ve had lessons on things you might want to use in real life, as in Social Studies, and we’ve learned about real world problems. One thing I’ve learned from VCS is that to truly be prepared, you have to be both academically smart and able to function in the real world. — Calvin H.
I will be forever grateful how VCS pushed me out of my comfort zone into acting, sports, and public speaking. While going off to high school might be scary, VCS has given every single one of us the tools it takes to make it wherever we go. — Ilana K.
If my time at VCS has taught me anything, it is that we are capable of adapting, growing, and building community wherever we go. — Emma F.
VCS taught us far more than just academics; it taught us to embrace every moment and to seize every opportunity. The friendships we made along the way are friendships that will probably last forever. It has helped me become my best self. — Yasha G.
All of us started out as strangers to each other, but over these last nine years, those same strangers have become my teammates, my homeroom members, and most importantly, my friends. — Otto K.
Somehow, the kid who couldn’t sit still ended up playing saxophone, performing in school plays, going on the Spain trip, and even winning the VCS soccer championship. All of you supported me, believed in me, and helped me grow from a kid who was constantly being reminded to stay on task into someone ready for high school. — Jack C.
Class of 2026 High School Acceptances
The American School in London
Ashbury College (Canada)
Avenues The World School
Bedford Academy High School
The Berkeley Carroll School
Brooklyn Friends School
The Browning School
The Calhoun School
Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School
Convent of the Sacred Heart
The Dalton School
Dwight School
The Ethical Culture Fieldston School
Fordham Preparatory School
Friends Seminary
Grace Church School
The Hewitt School
The High School for Environmental Studies
The Hill School
Horace Mann
The Hun School
LaGuardia High School of Music & Art
Léman Manhattan Preparatory School
Loyola School
LREI
Marymount School of New York
Midwood High School
The Nightingale-Bamford School
Notre Dame School
NYC Lab School for Collaborative Studies
The Packer Collegiate Institute
The Peddie School
Poly Prep Country Day School
Riverdale Country School
Saint Peter’s Prep
School of the Future
The Spence School
Tonbridge School (U.K.)
Trevor Day School
Trinity School
UNIS
Xavier High School
Colleges and Universities Currently Enrolling
Amherst College
Bard College
Bates College
Bennington College
Boston University
Bowdoin College
Brown University
Carleton College
Carnegie Mellon University
Chapman University
University of Chicago
City Tech College (CUNY)
Colby College
Colgate University
University of Colorado Boulder
Colorado College
Columbia University
Cornell University
Duke University
Eckerd College
Elon University
Emory University
University of Florida
George Washington University
Georgetown University
Hamilton College
Harvard University
Haverford College
VCS Alumni
Howard University
Indiana University
Lehigh University
Massachusetts College of Art and Design
McGill University
University of Miami
University of Michigan
Middlebury College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Mount Holyoke College
New School
New York University
University of North Carolina
Northeastern University
Oberlin College
Olin College
Otago Polytechnic
Pace University
University of Pennsylvania
Point Blank Music School Los Angeles
Pratt Institute
Princeton University
Purdue University
Rice University
University of Richmond
Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)
University of Rochester
Scripps College
Skidmore College
Smith College
University of Southern California
Southern Methodist University
Spelman College
University of St. Andrews
Stanford University
Stony Brook University
SUNY Binghamton
SUNY Purchase
Syracuse University
Temple University
University of Texas at Austin
Tufts University
Tulane University
UCLA
Vassar College
University of Vermont
University of Virginia
Wake Forest University
Washington University in St. Louis
Wesleyan University
Whitman College
Williams College
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Yale University
Investing in the VCS Experience
Each year, VCS invites parents, alumni, grandparents, and friends to support a curated collection of initiatives that enrich student life beyond the programs and resources sustained by the Annual Fund. These special opportunities allow our community to make an immediate and meaningful impact on the student experience while creating a lasting legacy for generations of VCS students to come.
2026–2027 FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
7TH GRADE BROADWAY FIELD TRIP
$4,000
The vibrant cultural life of New York City is one of the greatest advantages of our home in the West Village, and we believe every VCS student should experience the magic of a Broadway performance. The 7th Grade curriculum, with its focus on drama, literature, and storytelling, lends itself especially well to this opportunity, allowing students to connect their classroom learning to a live, professional production in the heart of the city’s renowned theater scene.
STAGES ON THE SOUND WORKSHOP
$6,000
Stages on the Sound is a New York City-based collective of teaching theater artists. With your support, we’ll bring Stages on the Sound to VCS for a customized residency, during which the artists will work with students to create an original production.
NEW SCOREBOARD FOR GYM A
$10,000
As the Blue Jays continue to host more athletic events with our D.I.S.C. school peers, we can no longer hold games only in Gym B, which is already outfitted with a top-of-the-line scoreboard. With your support, we will bring a beautiful and functional new scoreboard to the 4th Floor gym so that we may host games in both gyms.
To contribute or learn more, visit vcsnyc.org/funding2026-27 or contact Dean Kripalani, Director of Advancement, at dkripalani@vcs-nyc.org.
WELCOME TO THE NEST!
With the introduction of our new Pre-Kindergarten program, the promise of a VCS education begins at age four, extending our student experience into a ten-year journey.
Designed to offer a warm and joyful transition into the VCS community, The Nest will lay the foundation for academic and social-emotional growth, helping students enter Kindergarten as curious, capable learners who already love coming to school each day.
We are currently accepting applications for the 2027–2028 school year, and we hope you’ll join us!
To learn more about The Nest, visit vcsnyc.org/TheNest.
