Today was our official grand opening… it was really an amazing day for all of us in the SLA community. I’m officially exhausted (in fact, I am only awake because of Theo’s midnight feed, and I’m soon to head back to bed.) There are those days when ceremony really does mean a great deal, and to see all the SLA students and parents together with all of the SDP people who helped make SLA a reality was unbelievable. The school has gone from an idea to a reality, and we’re well on our way to building the school we want it to be.

(Sadly, I don’t have pictures of our two student speakers, Khari and Alison, who were incredible.)

A word about the ribbon cutting itself. We’re a science school… so we didn’t do the classic “big scissors” ribbon cutting. The students in Mr. VanKouwenberg’s Intro to Engineering class designed the ribbon cutting as a Rube Goldberg-style adventure. If I can get a copy of video of it, I’ll post it here, but until then, here was the sequence:

Dennis Wint, CEO of The Franklin Institute, pours the marbles into a tube.
The marbles land in a mug (with the SDP logo, actually) which rests on a scale
The extra weight tips the scale
Which lifts a lever
Which tips a ball– tied to a string — into a tube
As the ball falls, the string is pulled
Which releases a stopper
Which allows glycerine to fall onto a plate of potassium promagnate
Which sets off a reaction which burns
Which burns through a string
That releases the guillotine
The cuts the ribbon

And it worked!

If you look closely at the crowd as we cut the ribbon, you can see Dr. Thornton, Chief Academic Officer of the School District of Philadelphia, looking on intently and really clearly enjoying the moment. It really was a great day that, I hope, allowed everyone who has been part of SLA’s development to take a great deal of pride in what we are becoming.

It was a really emotional day, somewhat unexpectedly. I like to think that I’m not someone who stands on ceremony much, and with all of the work we’ve been engaged in to get SLA up and running, I wasn’t concerning myself too much with the details of the day until this week — and even then, I was trying to make sure that the day didn’t distract us too much from what we were really trying to do, which was, of course, invent ourselves as a fully functioning school.

But that was my mistake, because today was 100% part of what we are trying to do. Today was the day that we all stood up in front of our families (and a lot of the faculty had family there, myself included) and the larger educational community in Philadelphia and spoke proudly about who and what we are. And the larger educational community as represented by Paul Vallas, CEO of SDP, Dennis Wint, CEO of the The Franklin Institute, Marsha Perelman, Chair of the Board of the Franklin Institute, Carol Parssinen of the Franklin Institute, and Ellen Savitz, Sr. VP of Development of SDP spoke about their roles in SLA and their hopes and dreams for us. And many, many people, from our parents to all the folks who take justifiable pride in their role in helping us over the past year were there to celebrate with us.

And all that matters powerfully. There was the moment when I was on stage, and I looked into the front row and saw Ellen Savitz crying. Ellen, as much as anyone, is responsible for SLA. I must have spent dozens of hours in her office this year, talking, listening, strategizing, planning and dreaming. She has been an amazing mentor for me as I moved back to Philadelphia, and to see her moved by the emotion of the day was a moment I won’t forget. And I admit, there were several moments when I was speaking when it wasn’t easy to keep speaking with all the emotion in my voice.

We decided, after everyone had gone, that the perfect way to memorialize the day was to walk over to our partner, The Franklin Institute, and pose on the steps with everyone… and including that picture seems like the perfect way to end this post. So with that, I give you a picture of the Class of 2010 — our first class at SLA.