June 1, 2020 – A Message from LuHi

Dear LuHi Students and Families,
This has been a truly difficult week in our country. We have seen a fellow human being killed and are now witnessing anger, frustration, and unrest throughout cities across America. My heart is heavy. I hurt for the family of George Floyd and acknowledge the pain felt throughout the black community. LuHi is and always has been a diverse school community. Any form of racism, social injustice, or act of violence in our country is deeply troubling and intolerable to us as an educational institution. LuHi’s core values are Christian Love, Excellence, Community, and Family. As I process the events of the past week and plan for how our school best moves forward, I have felt led to highlight two of these core values along with their descriptions.
Christian Love – LuHi operates in Christian love. We love God with our whole heart and want to share His love. We also love our neighbors as ourselves.
This is without a doubt LuHi’s most distinctive and important core value. With Jesus as an example, we set out to treat our brothers and sisters in Christ the way we hope to be treated. What a deep, meaningful challenge! We must move forward with a renewed purpose to love our neighbors at LuHi, in our home communities, and across our country, the way God intended us to.
Family – LuHi is a family. We connect, protect, listen, respond, and respect. Our diverse student body, with individual varied gifts and talents, grows together having been rooted in Christian faith.
These five verbs are powerful: connect, protect, listen, respond, and respect. I have taken time to reflect this week to think about ways our school can best live out this core value. This work in our own families is a lifelong process and here at LuHi we must also continuously seek to connect, protect, listen, respond, and respect. Prior to the pandemic and the resulting shift to online learning, our team had been working toward a supportive, learning and empathy-centered approach to facilitating the conversations we need to see in our country, and therefore in our school, at this time. The events of this past week have once again reinforced the need to provide a forum for productive conversations about race and diversity. Students are seeing and hearing content from a plethora of sources and it is our job to help every student process, discuss, understand, and connect as a student body growing together in Christ. We are committed to being more intentional about this important work moving forward.
Students and parents, I encourage you to sit down around the dinner table, living room, or wherever you are most comfortable, to discuss the current events in our country. As a community of faith, the core values referenced above might be a helpful way to guide the conversation. I pray that we all grow stronger in our commitment to pursuing love, peace, justice, and unity moving forward. I send love to you all and thank you for your partnership.
God Bless,
John BuckHead of School