Weekly Message from HOS 2026/06/15-2026/06/18
Dear Keystonians,
As we look forward to the summer holiday and the school year to come, I am deeply grateful for the energy and heart that has gone into this year of “Keystone Dreams”.
As we look towards the 2026-2027 school year, our school is in excellent shape. Our students are thriving, demand for enrollment remains high, and we are at a stable school size with very low faculty turnover. This year, we have just a couple dozen new teachers to welcome and orient to our Keystone model in the summer months.
For me personally, this has been a year of dreams fulfilled. I love seeing the school continue to flourish and develop, and I deeply value the responsibility of serving as Keystone’s Executive Head of School. As my first term comes to an end this month, I am happy to share that I have accepted the invitation of Keystone’s Board of Trustees to continue in my role through the 2028-2029 school year. It is an honor to serve this community, and I look forward to all we will experience and learn together in the years ahead.
The new teachers joining us this fall represent one of the most accomplished new faculty groups yet. Our school has built a strong reputation—not just for the quality of our students, but for our vibrant, talented, globally minded employee community, our invested and engaged parents, and our home here in Beijing. People from around the world now see Keystone Academy as an exciting destination for their professional and personal journeys.
For the school year ahead, we look forward to welcoming new teachers from around the world. We will have six new teachers and academic leaders in Primary School, thirteen in Secondary School, and several more in whole-school roles in the CSD and Engineering and Emergent Technology. Across the school, we will welcome five new English teachers and four new math teachers, along with new colleagues in Individuals & Societies, Chinese, Computer Science, Design, Engineering, and Robotics. We are already busy helping ensure a smooth transition to Beijing and Keystone for these new colleagues—even as we finish this school year.
Several years ago, the theme for orientation began to extend into the school year itself, becoming a touchpoint for our entire community. Keystone Dreams has been a wonderful theme, inviting all of us—children and adults alike—to reflect on our individual and collective hopes for the future.
For the 2026-2027 school year our theme will be Shared Light: 和光同尘 (hé guāng tóng chén). This continues our practice of finding a bilingual phrase that is greater than the sum of its parts—a theme with layers of complexity and beauty. It is a theme that can teach us.
What do the cultures we come from tell us about shared light? Last weekend at lunch, some colleagues and I were chatting about our own school graduation experiences. A Kenyan colleague shared that when she graduated from college, it was a celebration not just for her family, but for her whole village. “Village” can feel like an abstraction in a cosmopolitan, modern society, but for her it is a very concrete sense of people and place. When she returns for a visit, she carries both belonging and responsibility. As a woman in STEM, she is often called upon to mentor younger girls—to help them find a path that brings as much prosperity and pride to their families and villages as her path has brought.
In that sense, shared light is both reflected and passed on.
As we prepare for the summer, I invite our community to reflect on this theme. If a thought, story, or question about Shared Light: 和光同尘 (hé guāng tóng chén) comes to you, please send it my way. Your ideas will help us plan for orientation and the start of the new school year.
Wishing you and your family a healthy Dragon Boat Festival!
Warmly,
Emily
