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There is no such thing as bad press...

For the better part of the last two months, the independent schools in New England have been bracing for the release of a series of articles that are forthcoming from the Boston Globe Spotlight department. On the heels of an Academy award effort in exposing the tragic sins of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, private schools in New England appear to be the next topic. As the Head of such a school, and as a board member of our New England regional association, it is hard not to experience some anxiety about this news. I have spent the past week at a series of meetings with colleagues, and I have never seen such uniform concern about what could be headed our way as an industry.

While I continue to suspect that some of the more challenging stories might emerge from boarding schools, Berwick has certainly had to deal with employee misconduct in recent years. It is quite possible that we will be mentioned in some capacity given this reality. At recent meetings, I have heard Heads of School run the gamut in terms of their view of how we might respond. Some have suggested that we band together with a public expression of our collective integrity. Others have countered that we should embrace the power of investigative reporting to uncover critical truths – just as it did in the case of the Catholic Church. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle: important and needed changes will surely occur, but lots of papers will also be sold. Having sat with these possibilities for many weeks now, I am convinced that good will come from this. While employee misconduct can happen in all educational settings, our private schools are certainly not immune to this reality. Already this process has forced the industry to review its policies, protocols, and methods of reporting. The days of making problems quietly fade away are seemingly over, and the need for transparent and decisive action is now clear.


I do not know exactly what will emerge in these articles for our industry as a whole, but I am proud of the systems and processes that we have put in place to identify, investigate, and remediate issues that arise at Berwick. To some degree, they have already been tested.  Most importantly, this effort by the Globe has reaffirmed my personal conviction about protecting and serving children as an industry. As school leaders, we must always stand up for their physical and emotional safety, even when it is challenging to do so. I am lucky to work with a team of educators, and more importantly a Board of Trustees, who has not lost sight of this fact upon our organizational journey. With the undeniable swirling of legal and financial liabilities that exists for all of us, this is no small thing. I suspect that, in the coming weeks, our schools will be judged not by regrettable acts of the past, but rather by how we choose to respond in the future.

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