Head's Blog

Every few years, our school conducts a market research survey to better understand what parents seek in their selection of a school for their children. In each and every survey, “safety” appears near or at the top of the list. This is understandable, given all that we read about violence in schools – from bullying and harassment to school shootings. In the first two years of my tenure at SPS, I’ve paid a lot of attention to campus safety.

As parents, it’s natural for us to want to make things easy for our kids, and we frequently find ourselves “helping” by doing things for our children – things that they can, and should, do for themselves.

... In the mid-1990s, I had a conversation with a cousin of mine. Each of us had recently had our first child, and we started talking about the importance of saving for college. I remember her telling me that the current financial model wasn’t sustainable, and she predicted that college and the financing of college would be radically different when our sons were 18 years old...

This is the time of year during which I spend a lot of time on faculty recruitment. There’s no question that it’s the faculty, more than anything, that makes our school outstanding. But the selection of outstanding faculty members is a complex and difficult task.