Anna Tolstyko's Retirement

 

New school years always start with a welcome or a welcome back.  This year we are pleased to have many ‘welcomes’ as dozens of new families have joined us over the summer; and our ‘welcome backs’ are particularly sweet, directed as they are to students we haven’t seen in person since March.  Far too long.

However, one of the many ways this year has bucked a trend is that we must also begin with a goodbye.  Anna Tolstyko, ISA’s Head of Office, is retiring today.  She has been with us for 20 years in two different buildings, ably assisting four different Heads.  

For many of our teachers, Anna is the first face of ISA, helping them with all the paperwork of a new job and through the anxieties of settling into a new city and for many, a new country.  For them, it wasn’t the school’s building or its culture that made ISA welcoming and friendly, a home away from home - it was Anna, for whom, nothing was too much bother or the wrong time; who, whatever the stresses, always had a smile and a laugh.

When I arrived two years ago, I remember looking at Anna’s job description; I had never seen one so long. ‘You do all this?’ I asked, a little disbelievingly.  ‘Oh yes - I wrote it; it’s a description of what I do.’  And it really was, and not a full description at that.  Anna is frequently the first to arrive and the last to leave.  Apart from all her regular duties with HR, ISA publications and marketing, admissions, liaising with outside groups, the Board, organising events, overseeing the office staff (the list goes on), she would make sure that all the administrative jobs that didn’t quite fit into anyone else’s job description got done nevertheless.

Anna became the school’s institutional memory.  For me, still a relative newby, she was my ‘ISA Google’, providing all the answers to how things are done, and why they are done that way.  Nevertheless, Anna has been surprisingly flexible, helping us rapidly transform many of our working practices during lockdown.  She has always stood for the essence of ISA, ‘excellence in education in a safe and caring environment.’ 

I have no doubt that we will overcome the challenges of our current situation and have a great year of learning.  That we are ready to do so owes a large part to the work of Anna Tolstyko.  No one person can replace Anna, but in the last few months, she has been working with various others to take over the many parts of her incredible job description.  Fortunately, she is not moving away, and will continue to help with our Board meetings. Anna will always be part of the ISA family.