Message from the Head of School

“What was once perhaps taken for granted on some level was again part of our lives, and the joy we felt was palpable and pervasive.”

A MESSAGE FROM JOHN R. PACKARD JR. HEAD OF SCHOOL

Connecting & Continuing

Our campus was shuttered two springs ago when the COVID-19 pandemic began. Last year, we were just beginning to experience the safety and benefit of vaccines in April and May, as we slowly shed masks that had become part of our dress code. It was not until the spring of this year that we returned from our break in March without a need to administer COVID tests upon reentry, and with confidence that we could run our whole program. Our academic classes were entirely in person, our afternoon programs ran as scheduled, and our class of 2022 said their farewells to their peers and school in Ashburn Chapel with the whole student body and faculty able to be there. We experienced concerts and plays and athletic games in ways this year’s graduates had not experienced since their third-form year. There are so many joys involved in finding our way to familiar and cherished experiences that had been out of reach. A truth we have learned along the way, through one stark reminder after another, is that a video screen cannot possibly replicate the sorts of community experiences and celebrations that were designed to take place in person and all over our magnificent campus. What was once perhaps taken for granted on some level was again part of our lives, and the joy we felt was palpable and pervasive.

We were especially pleased to have a spring and finish to the school year that did not require us to make special arrangements and create altered schedules to appropriately celebrate the class of 2022. This group of 96 freshly minted alums was extraordinary in the way it forged ahead through previously unimaginable obstacles, and it felt so good to be able to honor the class in full. In many ways, they were the school’s institutional memory in 2021–2022, as the only students to know Brooks in a pre-pandemic year. It was both right and fun to send them off in style.

Less than two weeks later, we hosted our first Alumni Weekend on campus since 2019. To my knowledge, we have never before held reunions for so many classes at once, as we attempted to make up for lost time. It was a thrill to be able to enjoy conversation with so many Brooksians spanning the generations, a memorable Memorial Chapel, an overflow crowd at our Saturday evening event, and to have the privilege of bestowing honors to such impressive members of our community throughout the weekend. After having so few opportunities to gather in the ways that we did in early June, it felt good to see people and experience time together on our campus.

As a new school year gets underway — Brooks School’s 96th, if you are keeping track — we are poised to begin well, full of all the fresh perspective and enthusiasm that so many who are in new roles or are new to Brooks will provide. As John R. Barker ’87, P’21, P’23 begins as president of the board of trustees and a number of faculty members begin in leadership positions, we are certain to think anew about where we are headed and what we need to do to position the school to head into its second century full of confidence and capacity to go where it needs to go with our mission in mind. We will be into that second century just five years from now. What an opportunity we have between now and then to ensure the school’s second 100 years start well.

I hope you all have a wonderful start to your fall and I am hopeful that our paths will cross in person as this school year unfolds.