Dear ASD Community,

Welcome Back

This week’s Sahifa caps the first week back following a well-deserved Fall Break. After seven weeks of routines, community-building, and deep learning, stepping away offers an essential balance.

Sustained development requires intentional pauses to rest and reflect. Healthy rhythms of work and recovery are foundational to not only academic achievement but also personal development.  Athletes and bodybuilders know that muscles don’t actually grow during the workout itself; they adapt and strengthen during periods of rest and recovery. The same principle holds true for the mind and spirit. Without intentional recovery, intense effort yields diminishing returns. 

For our students, time away allows ideas to settle and interest to recharge. For our faculty and staff, it offers the space to rejuvenate and return to their profession with renewed passion.

NEASC Accreditation Visit on Campus Next Week

Next week, we are excited to host the visiting team from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) for our scheduled accreditation visit. This week-long engagement marks an important moment for ASD, building upon a year’s worth of rigorous self-study and collaborative reflection across all four divisions.

During their time on campus, the visiting team will be in our classrooms and offices, meeting with students, faculty, staff, parents, and board leadership. Their visit offers external validation that our programs, operations, and experiences consistently meet the highest international benchmarks.

ASD intentionally aligns our long-term Strategic Plan with the priorities identified through our NEASC self-study process. The visiting team's formal findings and recommendations will provide additional input to help shape and finalize our strategic roadmap for 2027-2032.

We look forward to showcasing the exceptional teaching, vibrant campus life, and deep sense of community that make ASD unique. Barring any delays, I am optimistic that we will receive the visiting team’s report and findings in time to unpack them together at my Director’s Coffee on November 12.

The CAST Fall Carnival: One Week Away

We are just one week away from the tradition of the season: the Fall Carnival, proudly hosted by our Creative Arts Support Team (CAST).

Following last year’s successful reboot, the Fall Carnival returns for its second consecutive year. This year is sure to capture the spirit and fun that many of our long-standing families will remember. Designed specifically for our Elementary School students and their families, the evening will feature seasonal games, creative crafts, and age-appropriate activities to bring our community together in celebration.

Fall Carnival at a Glance

• Date: Thursday, October 22, 2026

• Time: 6:00 PM - 8:30 PM

• Audience: Current ASD Elementary School students and their parents

With capacity capped and high demand anticipated, we strongly encourage families to secure their spots early. Please visit the Ticket Booking Form to review complete details and reserve your tickets today.

A big thank-you goes out to the dedicated volunteers and parent leaders of CAST for their hard work in staging such a fun event for our ASD Community. 

Extending Our Diversity Through Inclusive Action

Gathering for festivals, performances, and campus events is one of the great aspects of the ASD Community. But the measure of our culture is not just how well we celebrate within our own walls; it’s how we extend joy, respect, and belonging to the wider world. 

True inclusion requires us to broaden our definition of diversity to ensure every individual, regardless of physical or intellectual ability, is welcomed and respected. Across our campus, inclusion isn’t aspirational; it is an active plan that invites the wider Doha community to experience our Core Values of Honesty, Respect, Responsibility, and Kindness in action.

For more than a decade, our partnership with Qatar Little League (QLL) Challenger Baseball has provided supportive opportunities for athletes with physical and cognitive challenges to play alongside our ASD students. That long-standing tradition has grown into a multi-sport network of adaptive programs. Today, ASD Dragons lead and participate across four distinct adaptive initiatives:

• Challengers for baseball

• Tracksters for track and running

• Hoopers for basketball

• Tappers for dance and movement

These programs help shift perspectives across our community. By serving as peer buddies, mentors, and teammates, our students come to see these young athletes not through the lens of disability, but as peers with diverse talents and passions. In turn, visiting families from across Qatar find a welcoming, barrier-free home at ASD, where their children are respected and included.

Building Purposeful Leadership: The Launch of IMPACT

Impactful inclusion involves thoughtful preparation, the development of cultural competence, and the strengthening of empathy as a psychological skill. To prepare our student volunteers for this deep responsibility, this month marked the official launch of IMPACT: Inclusion • Mentorship • Participation • Adaptation • Character • Teamwork.

Serving as the pre-season educational training program for all adaptive clubs at ASD, IMPACT equipped over 100 registered students with the skills, developmental understanding, and mindset to maximize their contributions to visiting athletes and their families. Held over three consecutive Fridays this past September, completion of IMPACT is mandatory for student leaders in Challengers, Tracksters, Hoopers, and Tappers, while also serving as a valuable CAS (Creativity, Activity, Service) experience for our IB Diploma candidates.

Our ASD Vision calls upon us to “Empower Learners to discover their passions, develop talents, and positively impact our world.” When our students dedicate their time to learning, coaching, dancing, running, and mentoring, they demonstrate the highest form of impact leadership. They also live our vision and show the true character of our ASD Community.