Neighborhood News: Spring 2026
This fall, we sent you a letter and a piece of art inspired by a chapter from Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. The chapter ends with Dr. Kimmerer’s description of how ponds trickle downstream into other waters. We promised to remember: What we do here, at NS, matters, because what we do here impacts our neighbors. We aim to build curriculum and community such that when NS students thrive, our neighbors also thrive.
But in that letter, we did not explain the chapter’s central plot. In it, Indigenous botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer details a project that has spanned more than a dozen years of her life: trying to clean a pond so that it would be swimmable for her children. The pond had been a cool refuge for generations of children. She felt a responsibility to caretake the water for young people yet to come.
NS has also been a refuge for generations of children, and this year, we too cared for young people yet to come. This was the 39th year of NS history, and the very first year without our beloved founding leaders. We took powerful action to ensure that Neighborhood School would be sustained, for years to come, despite the new challenges facing progressive education in Boston in 2026.
Recently at staff meeting, I asked teachers to work in pairs to create art. Make a visual map of the story of the year at NS.
One teacher illustrated many hands doing work. We discussed the image of a ship, with a strong rudder and sails, navigating rough waters. One teacher scribbled the question: Does NS still need to exist? And then answered it simply: This year, we learned, YES.
So I invite you to grab a tall glass of water, open up this newsletter, and read the facts, figures, and stories of how we restored ecological balance. A strong foundation was built over the past four decades; this year, we brought NS into the future.
One more anecdote from the past few weeks: I had the opportunity to join a few NS alumni on a zoom call with Robin Wall Kimmerer. She remembered meeting us a couple years ago, and we all wanted to catch up. My heart fluttered as she said to us, “Your school sounds like an incredible place.” We asked her how she was finding inspiration in these tumultuous times, and she responded, “I take care of my pond… Right before this call, I was out there, enjoying a cool dip.”
On behalf of the NS staff,
Lisa Nam
Level Three Teacher & Learning and Teaching Leader
Illustrations created by B Ervin, Level Three Teacher