A new addition has recently been made to the second floor of Padua Academy: a puzzle piece board. The board is part of an APS project for this school year.

The 2018-2019 APS theme is “Many Pieces at Peace.” Both the theme and idea of a puzzle board arose over the summer. The APS team including Mr. Sheehan, Mrs. Boyle, Mrs. Burris, Mrs. Szurkowski, and Mrs. Vavala sat down and asked themselves the question: “What kind of educational experiences do we want our students to have?”

While brainstorming, two topics repeatedly came up: encouraging students to be their best, authentic selves and the importance of perspective. Mr Sheehan said that teachers, “have to try to convince [their] kids that they are where they’re supposed to be right now.”

When the idea of “Many Pieces at Peace” was pitched, the APS team knew that it perfectly embodied the message that they wanted to spread. “Every single piece is individualistic…[and] without every single one, the picture would be incomplete.” It is important to Sheehan that the school community knows, “It’s not a individual, its not a couple of individuals, it’s not just the senior class, it’s not just the faculty, it’s not just the administration, it’s everybody moving forward collectively to accomplish the same mission.”

The mission is to empower students and allow their voices to be heard. Sheehan views it as important to “create space where kids feel like they have some ownership of our school.” Thus, the idea for a visual representation to display the theme was created, and the puzzle board was made a reality. Seeing both the physical and metaphorical pictures Sheehan said, “what we have here is special.”