GstaadLife

At a John F Kennedy School informational meeting this past Saturday June 11 2011 at the Hotel Landhaus in Saanen, Peter Livanos, school parent and Greek shipping tycoon, announced that directors Bill and Sandy Lovell are retiring after 40 years of service. Gareth Davies, a highly-experienced international educator and school director, has been appointed the new headmaster starting in August 2011. While rumors have been swirling in the community for some time of Livanos' impending "takeover" of the Saanenland's famous old English-speaking school, Livanos explained that he was acting merely as a facilitator for the school's transition from private to public ownership, convincingly dispelling rumors that he was buying the school. In fact the school is to be entirely owned by the John F Kennedy School Foundation, a partnership between the school and the commune of Saanen.  The foundation is a registered Swiss non-profit and tax-exempt organization (Reg. No. CH-092.7.014.596-3) that has been created to provide funding for building projects, new programs and scholarships. A nine-member board of trustees controls the foundation, and the management of the school has been turned over to a professional team. 

The Institut Le Rosey has been in search of a new area for its Gstaad campus for a while now, and believes it has found it in the form of Schönried Erli (above the village of Schönried on the Rellerli side). Pictured above is a mock-up of how the campus is expected to look, a project which will be a joint effort of architects Benz Hauswirth GmbH, Jaggi & Partner AG and Chaletbau Matti AG. They have conceived a campus that looks like a mini-village with numerous buildings in the local chalet style set around a village square. The village itself will include living quarters for about 450 students and 100 teachers as well as the classrooms, cafeteria, sports facilities, and a parking garage for about 75 cars. The only discussion point amongst locals is the Hubelstrasse which is simply too narrow at parts for the kind of traffic expected. More as we have it.

Unbelievable but true - it's been 40 years since Bill and Sandy Lovell started the JFK International School in Saanen. Last week the celebrations started and the Lovell's were surprised by a cook book created by the parent association. There is also some big renovation coming up in the old Saanen school house. Check out the foundations newsletter. Some more pics after the jump.

 
by Januaria Piromallo

Young students, aged 12, from the International School of JFK, have founded a new business. The Italian/German Kamalei von Meister and the Greek Kimon Papageorgiou (pictured above) have started a successful enterprise on the peak of the Wasserngrat. Named "Wax n'Win", every week when they are off school they install a table with all the professional equipment needed to wax the skis of clients before a race. Sometimes they are also up there during their lunch break. For SFr 10 they cover little scratches and make the ski ready to win the next competition. You can even buy a subscription of six and get one service for free. 

The building of the new Institute «Le Rosey» in Schönried has been delayed due to disagreements between the architect and the institute. Local architects are now being asked to submit alternative plans.

Now it is certain - the Institut «Le Rosey» is moving to Schönried. Le Rosey has bought the property of the Fraubrunnen Amt holiday home in Erli (see map below for location) for SFr 25 million. The school is planning to build 8 to 10 new builidngs and to move in winter 2011/2012. Construction cost is estimated at around SFr 45 million meaning the school will probably have to sell at least part of its property on Ried (above Gstaad). As the building permissions are not through yet, the holiday home will continue its work for the time being.

The John F Kennedy International School in Saanen, which every year holds summer camps during the school holidays, has reported seven children sick with swine flu symptoms. It has now been confirmed that the children were stricken with the influenza A (H1N1) virus, commonly known as swine flu. Altogether 85 kids are participating in the summer camp in the Mountain Lodge in Schönried. The children who got ill were isolated and received the necessary medical treatment. “In most cases the children were completely recovered by the time the test results are made available”, says headmaster Bill Lovell. At the time of the illnesses there was a deputy physician from Canton Bern present, who has assured that there is no danger and no reason for panic. So far there have been 210 cases of swine flu in Switzerland, 26 of them in the canton of Bern.

Interested in sending your kid to the local Rütti school in Gstaad? School adminstrators are planning to offer more "mother-friendly" hours and supervised afternoon hours. At least 10 students are needed in order to start the day school offer at the Rütti school in Gstaad from fall 2009 on. The program is meant for kindergarten children, school kids up till 6th form, and pupils for the special-needs classes. Planned are units of 90 minutes, lunch from 12h00 to 13h00, and supervised homework times in the afternoons according to the schedule of the students from 13h30 to 15h00,15h00 to 16h30 (including an afternoon snack), or 16h30 to 18h00. Registration needs to be done by May 15.

After a short suffering in a clinic, the long-standing director and owner of the Institut Le Rosey died on March 20 aged 90. On March 31 mourning friends and members of the international Rosey family attended a wonderfully arranged farewell ceremony. Dr. Rolf P Steiger wrote the orbituary in the print edition of our sister publication, the Anzeiger von Saanen. For those of you who speak German, click here.

“I came to Saanenland in 1970 to learn how to ski – and apparently, it has taken a lot of time as I am still here”, Bill Lovell explains with a happy laugh. This is a standard story of his, but his joke reveals a few things about him and his educational credo. The passionate teacher and director of the JFK International School (pictured above with wife Sandy) is certain that learning constitutes a lifelong process, and he tries to impress this upon his pupils. He would like to train critical thinkers, young people with an international perspective. “Empathy is a key value that the children learn here. Tolerance is one of the most important things that we teach”, says Lovell.