Director's Wave | Volume 6 Edition 34

Vol 6 Ed 34 2025-2026 SY 12 June 2026 JU

12 June 2026

Dear CIS Community,

Something to Ponder

“You should sit in meditation twenty minutes every day - unless you are too busy; then you should sit in meditation for an hour.” - Zen Adage

Learning celebrations, PBLs, moving up ceremonies, concerts, performances, exams and more - whilst the 2025 - 2026 school year is nearing its denouement for students, planning for the future continues. This is the time of year when families, parents, faculty and staff, and students may feel even busier than usual (thus the inclusion of the Zen adage above as a reminder to take pause, breathe and be present - even amid busy schedules, transitions, moving and change in general). As the student school year nears its closing, it can also be a time of deeper reflection, revisiting recent history, wondering about the future, all whilst working to stay in the moment. The death of Ms. Cybel, makes this especially so, as the CIS Team and broader community experiences an array of emotions and reactions in honouring our dear friend and colleague. Ms. Cybel had a positive impact on countless people, young and old, throughout her life and ten years with CIS.

One of MS. Cybel’s many super powers were celebrating the successes of others and putting in hard work behind the scenes so others may flourish. Indira Gandhi noted that there are two types of people in the world - those who take all the credit and those who do all the work. Ms. Cybel was most definitely in the second group.

At this time, we continue to collectively respect the privacy of Ms. Cybel’s family as various celebrations of life and supports are being arranged. The community’s understanding, care and support thus far exemplifies the CIS community principles of kindness.

The hard work of honouring the past, future and present is also the essence of what students do in creating a school yearbook. Next week, the CIS Yearbook is distributed to students. Imagine having the mandate to chronicle over 1,500,000 hours of student learning, more than 300,000 hours of staff engagement and over 160,000 hours of after school sports, arts, service, and activities - this is what the 2025-2026 Yearbook Team accomplished with patience and care in creating this year’s yearbook, which is distributed next week. Much gratitude and congratulations to them and all who contributed with their creativity, organization, sweat, tears, and laughter.

School yearbooks tend to have multiple lifetimes because people of all ages share and revisit school memories at different times from various perspectives. There is something special about the tangible experience of flipping through a book. While phones and other platforms store countless photos and videos that might be edited, become gossip fodder, or might simply be forgotten in the ubiquity of cloud storage, the hard-copy experience tends to endure over virtual reality. Case in point: the Epic of Gilgamesh still endures today, 4,500ish years after it was written on clay tablets. Indeed, yearbooks might be described as “real reality.”

Please be reminded that Monday 15 June 2026 is a national holiday in the Cayman Islands. There is still 1.1% remaining in the student school year. In World Cup terms there is still lots of time - about one minute left for that equalizer or go ahead goal. Please note that the last student day of the 2025-2026 school year is Wednesday 17 June 2026.

Sincerely,

Jim

Jim Urquhart

Director - Cayman International School