Berwick Academy Head of School

            Recently I cruised through an Upper School ninth grade history class where students were grappling with the history of the human race. It looked quite different than the Western Civilization classes I had visited in the same classrooms just a few years ago. In this class, we started with essential questions – the why behind the exercise of the class. We were being asked to consider whether or not people ultimately made their way to the Americas by one method or many methods – apparently a historical debate that has raged for quite sometime. It was a question without a clear answer, even in the world of our adult scholarship, but our ninth graders were going to take it on in a 45 minute period one Wednesday morning in History class.             The kids were paired off – with one computer a piece – to consider eight different archaeological findings including names like Kennewick M...

As a community we should fully appreciate the remarkable campus our students enjoy on this Hilltop in comparison to the K-12 day schools across the country. In our national INDEX comparison group, there are many metrics in which we hope to improve, but one area in which we perennially lead the pack is “square footage per student.” It always strikes me that in October, when the leaves finally pop into electric shades of orange and yellow, our campus is at its best. In particular, the early sunsets light this place up in particular hues that strike me as other-worldly.             Over the past few years, the Board of Trustees has certainly placed an emphasis on improving the curb appeal of this Hilltop. While we have always enjoyed a beautiful quad during my tenure, the gateways and entrances to campus have perhaps been a bit rough around the edges. With the support of BPC, our donors, and the hiring of new Director of Faciliti...

            One of our Board President’s favorite mantras is that Berwick stands for something.   Often he is in the foxhole with me sorting through particularly challenging ethical dilemmas associated with school leadership. My hope is that our community takes pride in knowing that our children, in this way, will always be a part of something bigger than themselves. To some degree, our core values articulate what we stand for, and I would draw our attention most specifically to our commitment to integrity today. Having engaged our student community in a conversation about values when I first arrived here, this was their greatest source of institutional pride: there were lots of great schools, but our students knew that Berwick tried to do things the right way.             Standing for something is often quite painful as a Head of School when dealing with unhappy stude...

            I was making my way past a crowded beverage station in the Commons last week when I heard something go cascading to the floor, like someone had dropped a pair of cymbals in the band room. It was not a tray filled with plates of food, but an entire container of clean spoons that metallically sprayed everywhere, dancing on the linoleum floor in a congested area of Middle and Upper School students filling soup bowls, grabbing silverware, and looking for tables. The culprit was not a student – nor even a teacher. It was one of our custodians.   We actually outsource our custodial work at Berwick, so this person was not technically even a Berwick employee.             As I looked for a place to put my tray to help out the rapidly blushing victim, little bodies dropped to the floor everywhere. I have to say that the vast majority of the kids in this case were M...

As my career steam rolls on, I am amazed at how frequently my job forces me to confront the gap between intent and impact. Certainly as adults, we have all heard some version of this as it relates to issues like harassment in the work place. Probably even more so, we have all experienced having a joke misunderstood, a comment taken out of context, or an email’s tone come back to haunt us. As Head of School, I confront this gap not only in the world of human resources with well over 100 employees, but also in terms of student discipline. How much does it matter whether or not the student intended to cheat? Does it matter that a student did not intend for their comment to be racially offensive? Are we responding to the behavior or the intention? Far more compelling that any of this complexity is my emerging realization of this gap for me as a leader. Sitting in my pristine perch in Burleigh Davidson, surely I know that I operate with the best of intentions, right? Whether it is c...