Learning, Exploring and Belonging

On the first Friday in May, we welcomed to campus nearly 100 alums, parents, past parents and trustees for a day of sharing aspirations about what might still be ahead for our school. We are now just four years away from celebrating our centennial year, and it is exciting to be focusing on next steps aimed at ensuring the school begins its second century stronger than ever. This Summit, as we referred to it, allowed us an opportunity to both note all that we have achieved over time and to test a framework and set of priorities we believe will position the school to continue building and strengthening its ability to deliver the most meaningful educational experience our students will have in their lives.

We are proud of a vitally important wave of work that we have nearly completed since wrapping up The Campaign for Brooks in 2018. This work included a new main entrance to campus, a completed center campus master plan that has pedestrianized and transformed how Main Street feels and functions, a beautiful new admission and head of school office building, the preservation of the head of school’s residence as a stand-alone home and facility all in one, an expanded Keating Room for all sorts of school function purposes, construction of a new and spectacular boathouse, and three new faculty homes.

This work, of course, comes on the heels of comparable efforts spanning 96 years — all of it fortifying the school and the experience our students have had and continue to have here.

This past summer, as John R. Barker ’87, P’21, P’23 took the helm as president of the board of trustees, we engaged in a lot of generative thinking about how we want to build on the progress we have made. This look at our strengths and how we might leverage them more effectively extended to additional consideration of the same questions at an administrative level, and ultimately led the board to a set of campaign pillars — a framework for what lies ahead. These pillars, immersive learning, culture of exploration and genuine belonging, are all strengths that have mattered to us over time. From here, what might we do to better ensure that a Brooks School education is one full of immersive learning opportunities, rich with scores of openings to explore passions and interests, and more successful than ever at ensuring all members of our increasingly diverse community feel and experience genuine belonging?

It was this question that we spent the day in early May contemplating, together with a theory that we can move to a more robust answer by addressing the quality and volume of campus housing for students and faculty, the state of our core academic building that has experienced very little improvement for a couple of generations, and the reality that our endowment lags in comparison to peers and is limited in its ability to ensure funding that gets more deeply at these campaign pillars. With these ends in mind, we are poised to build on the conversations we are having in ways that sharpen our plans and earn support from growing numbers.

To be clear, our current position of strength is due to the fact that so many have cared so much for Brooks School over all 96 of its years. As the school’s current stewards, we look to the future intent on doing our part to build on what has always been a culture of continuous improvement and to leverage this once-in-our-school’slifetime centennial year and celebration in ways that leave us as proud as we have ever been to be Brooksians. We look forward to being in touch and wish all of you a wonderful summer.

A Shinier Diamond

Through the generosity of a donor, Brooks made improvements to its softball diamond last fall that, head softball coach Andrea Heinze says, give the squad “the nicest clay infield and softball field in the Independent School League.” The school created a clay infield, upgraded the infield equipment, renovated the irrigation system and added a batting tunnel. Brooks also purchased infield grooming equipment.