The Kinkaid School Magazine - Fall 2012 by The Kinkaid School

Fall 2012 S PECIAL ED ITI O N

21ST CENTURY LEARNING

The New

Wave

Exploring technology in the classroom

Meet Dr. Andy Martire The next Head of School

Alumni Survey Results 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4 A Message from the Headmaster Kinkaid’s Headmaster addresses technology

in the world of education.

6 The New Wave Contributed by Charlie Scott, Upper School English Teacher

How technology is used in the classroom.

15 Technology in Action

10 Alumni Survey Results Kinkaid’s alumni have a powerful voice and a

valuable perspective about the School, its importance to them, and its continuing role in their lives.

Key Findings

Infograph of Alumni Surveyed

Opportunities to Strengthen

Ideas into Action

14 Meet Dr. Andy Martire Photos from Dr. Martire’s visit to Kinkaid The Kinkaid Magazine is a publication of the Advancement Office of The Kinkaid School.

Tom Moore Director of Advancement tom.moore@kinkaid.org

Andrea Ibarra Gift Records Manager andrea.ibarra@kinkaid.org

Emily Wynne Bolin ‘82 Annual Find Manager emily.bolin@kinkaid.org

Leslie Roemer Labanowski ‘02 Alumni Activities Manager leslie.labanowski@kinkaid.org

Jennifer Gould Parent Liaison & Volunteer Coordinator jennifer.gould@kinkaid.org

Jennifer Pardee Major Gifts Manager jen.pardee@kinkaid.org

Georgia Piazza Special Event and Electronic Communications Manager geogia.piazza@kinkaid.org Cindy Van Keppel Advancement Assistant cindy.vankeppel@kinkaid.org Photography contributed by David Shutts

Headmaster a message from the

It is an exciting time in the world of education. In my comments to Upper School students at the beginning of this school year I spoke about the three forces that are driving change in teaching and learning: the increasing globally connected world we live in, breakthrough discoveries in brain research, and exponential growth in information technology. Educators and parents must understand that none of these drivers should be autonomous in its impact on teaching and learning. Some schools, for example, moved quickly in recent years to embrace the latest in information technology not because they were certain of its educational value to their students, but because they believed it might serve to distinguish them from their competitors. Great schools think first about education and recognize that each of these drivers is a resource that can help prepare students to be productive, resilient, and responsible adults and citizens in the world they will enter as adults.

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The lead article in this edition of the Kinkaid magazine takes a look at the growing and exciting use of information technology in our classrooms. Written by Upper School English Teacher and Kinkaid parent Dr. Charlie Scott, this article reveals that our faculty are bringing information technology into their classrooms thoughtfully and impactfully.

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Some background. In the 1996-1997 school year, my first as headmaster at Kinkaid, the School had a significant number of computers, thanks largely to the special generosity of Bill and Jeanie Kilroy, but access to the Internet was limited to several dialup lines. Faculty who were eager to grow information technology (then Science Department Chair Deborah Veselka was among the leaders in this) rightly clamored for more lines and better access. In the spring of 1997 I convened a task force, under the leadership of trustee Chip Cureton, to look closely at the school’s current use of information and opportunities in the future. The task force met regularly for a year, reviewed what our peer schools were doing, and generated several strategic recommendations, which were approved by the Board of Trustees. Perhaps the most significant recommendations were the creation of an intranet, the establishment of a school website, and a connection to the Internet that would provide school wide access. The 1998 Auction generously supplied most of the funds for this project, and during that spring and summer the School purchased the necessary equipment. Kinkaid hired a project manager to oversee the installation, who began well but resigned part way through the work. There were two especially able Kinkaid students who were working with the project manager on this (one on his way to Stanford

and one a rising senior at Kinkaid), and soon after the project manager resigned, they asked for a meeting, told me told me they could complete the project themselves, and presented a proposal. I accepted the proposal, they did a fantastic job, and they completed the work before school started. When you read Dr. Scott’s article, you will get a sense of how much has changed since that humble beginning. Not long ago I sat in on a session a consultant was having with kindergarten teachers about how to use iPads to help students gain greater comprehension of class material. One comment: “Never underestimate the power of having just one iPad in a class.” Our kindergarten teachers (and the headmaster) were excited and fully engaged with the ideas and practical suggestions she generated, and several of these ideas will work their way into our kindergarten classes this year. By the way, the consultant met with our other Lower School grade level teachers during her visit as well.

In thinking about information technology (as with everything else), Kinkaid will continue to place teaching and learning first, and our faculty will continue to think, not about what is the latest and greatest device, but about how the latest and greatest (or any other device) can enrich and strengthen teaching and learning. The magazine also features stories on the recent visit of Andy Martire, Kinkaid’s next head of school, and the valuable results from the recent survey of Kinkaid alumni that generated a high level of participation and some extremely positive and constructive responses to assist in developing future programs to meet the needs of our alumni. It is an exciting time for education indeed, and I hope you will enjoy reading this edition of the Kinkaid magazine. Sincerely,

Don North

The New Wave Exploring technology in the classroom Contributed by Charlie Scott, Upper School English Teacher

Let’s say you are a Kinkaid parent and you’re walking around the hallways of the Friedkin Family Lower School Building, perhaps for the very first time. You see and hear lots of familiar, heart-warming sounds and sights. Seedlings sprouting in paper cups in the science room, a choir of young voices practicing for the upcoming holiday concert, a glorious mélange of brightly colored art work adorning the walls, replete with tiny handprints as signatures. But then you stand at the threshold of Room One-Two-Eight. The sign over the door says “Mr. Pickett.” And you walk in to a sight that defies the familiar. Second graders bent over their flashing monitorscreens preparing Power-Point presentations (Power-Point!? Second graders?!). Pre-K’ers punching at keyboards in answer to mathematical problems. A teacher leading a writing workshop using something called a “Promethean” Board, which magically responds to the merest touch of her hand like a piece of paper typically responds to a pen. It’s at this moment that an unavoidable truth slaps you sharply in the face. This is not your father’s Kinkaid. Nor is it your mother’s. It’s not even yours. This is The Kinkaid School of the 21st century.

Though there is, no doubt, a good old overhead projector or box of chalk still to be found in some dusty back closet of one of Kinkaid’s storage areas, the day to day work of the School has largely been supplanted by instruments and activities with odd and perhaps even intimidating names. Moodle, iPads, QuadBlogging, Flipped Classrooms, Robotics, Skype, iMovie, the abovementioned Promethean Board, textbook Mash-ups, and the MOOC (pronounced “mook”). Peter Pickett, the “Mr. Pickett” of Lower School room 128, came to Kinkaid 33 years ago, ostensibly to teach 1st grade. This was before the “Computer Revolution.” In fact, before computers at all, at least at The Kinkaid School. At some point, by the time Pickett had moved to teaching Kindergarten, about 15 or so computers were brought into the Lower School. They were tucked into a small music room behind the library. “If I remember correctly they were Apple 2Es,“ he says. “And we didn’t really have computers in classrooms, we just had this one room, and I would take my class in to use it once a week with a group of volunteer parents I called ‘the computer moms.’” Basically the moms and Pickett would help each student run a small-scale, floppy-disk program that had him or her guiding a little electronic

turtle through a maze. According to Pickett, the idea, at the time, was simply to begin familiarizing students with the keyboard, the screen, the mouse, and the idea of fusing the three together to achieve some type of end product or goal. What a difference a mere three decades can make. For example, lower school teachers Christine Papadakes and CeCelia O’Connell have both discovered the power of on-line blogging, especially with regard to teaching writing and literature to their third graders. O’Connell utilizes a program called “QuadBlogging” that allows her students to correspond with students from all over the world on topics ranging from books they are studying to their personal thoughts and feelings. This past year, her class blog-site had more than 2900 visitors, representing all the major continents of the world (excluding Antarctica, where we will assume lower school classrooms and students are rather scarce). Meanwhile, Papadakes’ class was using its “Hideaway” blog-site to share commentary about the latest book that they were reading, Barbara O’Connor’s best-selling “How To Steal A Dog.” “We were in the computer lab, and we were looking at Barbara O’Connor’s author blog. It’s called ‘Greetings from Nowhere.’ And one of the students realized that Ms. O’Connor was actually on her blog live

commenting right back to us as we typed.” What happened next is a great example of the kind of learning experience and synchronicity that can only come from a classroom fully linked into the realm of technology and the World Wide Web. The students then asked the author if she would be willing to “Skype” with them (i.e. do a “live” on-camera interview over the Internet). The author replied “absolutely” (provided the children had their teacher’s approval), and so Padadakes and her students got down to work – writing questions, re-reading the book, preparing notes. The next thing they all knew, the entire class was speaking literally face-to-face with the author of their book. Not only was this incredibly exciting to the students, but they also received valuable affirmation from O’Connor with regard to much of the focus of their own writing efforts in class: the importance of revision and imaginative free play, as well as the difficult task of character development in creating good stories. “We are in the midst of a unique, “Gutenburg”like revolution in terms of communication, education, and learning,” says Larry Kahn, who arrived in 2005 to serve as Kinkaid’s Chief Technology Officer. “We are no longer looking at an assembly-line approach to the classroom, but are veering more into individualized learning that emphasizes a vast array of skills, like creativity, connections, analysis and direct applications.” The old “take-meticulousnotes-and-then-memorizethem” model of learning is quickly becoming passé. Now students and teachers find themselves immersed in a more direct and “hands-on” learning experience. For example, Alan November, a national leader in educational technology and a recent guest speaker at Kinkaid, likes to tell the story of students in a U.S. classroom studying the American Revolution in tandem, via the Internet, with a class in Great Britain. In order to broaden everyone’s understanding, the U.S. students debated the pros and cons of the struggle from the British Empire’s point-of-view and the British students took that of the American Colonies. According to Kahn, this is the kind of dynamic, engrossing, and mind-broadening intellectual experience that The Kinkaid School is starting to offer again and again to its students. Moreover, these kinds of opportunities extend from the Blue, Green, and Red Doors of the Lower School’s Pre-K all the way through to the Upper School’s senior year. Middle school science instructors Jeff Gessell, Shari Hiltbrand, Laura Sinclair and Jessica Zenker are experimenting with the technique of the “flipped” classroom, which reverses the usual classwork vs. homework relationship. In a “flipped” classroom, the introduction of the subject

matter is accomplished via homework, and the review of that material transpires directly with the teacher in class. For Kahn this shift is not only ideal in terms of learning, but it is remarkably enriched through technology. He says, “The pedagogy in this learning situation, especially with the aid of technology, allows students the ability to re-visit subject area content, rewind it, reflect on it, and understand it at a much deeper, more long-lasting level.” Moving over to the Upper School, both the science and history departments are experimenting more and more with on-line research tools and models. In another new area of educational technology, History Department Head Ed Harris and Spanish teacher Vanessa Zamudio are using on-line texts, called Mash-ups, that allow them and their students to purchase particular chapters or sections of a given textbook and eschew other sections that are less helpful or germane to their courses. Moreover, the text highlighting and note-taking that individual students implement can be “shared” on-line amongst all the other students, as well as the teacher, making a given night’s reading assignment a class-wide interactive enterprise. The English Department’s Christa Forster and Casey Fleming both use blogs extensively, and two years ago, Forster was able to enhance her teaching of Shakespeare’s “Othello,” by Skyping with her actress/friend Charlesanne Rabensburg, who was playing the role of Othello’s wife Desdemona in a production at Ohio State University. Furthermore, the faculty at Kinkaid are not merely using all these technological resources for classroom activities with their students. Nowadays, the Internet and technology-based training are starting to influence and enhance their continued zeal for professional development. According to Kinkaid Dean of Faculty Jim Dunaway, about 32% of the School’s professional development funds go towards helping teachers and staff learn more about using technology in an educational setting. One of the most popular “professional development” offerings to date is what’s called the MOOC (Massive Open On-Line Course) – which offers teachers cutting-edge, graduate-level coursework in their particular field. For example, Upper School Principal Patrick Loach, who came to Kinkaid in 2011 from Richmond, Virginia’s Collegiate School, has a strong background in technology and its impact on education. He is currently enrolled in a MOOC World History course taught by the University of Virginia’s Philip Zelikow, the Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission. Forster enrolled in two MOOCs this past summer as part of her training in literature and writing. One was offered through Princeton

Visits 1,000 + 100 - 999 10 - 99 1-9

Kinkaid 3rd graders connect to other students and educators around the world via Ms. O’Connell’s quad-blogging site, totalling over 2,900 visits.

University and taught by Princeton professor Mitchell Duneier. Both were totally free of charge. For her, this type of opportunity inspires and fuels her passion for a lifetime of learning and helps her to instill such a passion in her students each and every year. But whether they are hard at work bettering themselves as professionals or inspiring their students in the classroom, the Kinkaid faculty is immersed in the rich and varied opportunities that the School provides them via technology. Loach says that back in 2005, Kinkaid, like most independent prep schools around the country, was a lonely shoreline holding a scant one or two “lighthouse” projects that used technology. Nowadays, that shoreline is getting more and more crowded and the “Lux per Scientiam” (Light through Knowledge) of Kinkaid’s motto is being provided by a finely-tuned network of such techno-lighthouses. Back in Lower School room 128, on the wall of Peter Pickett’s classroom, is one last replica of the 1980s: a poster of his hero – #33 of his beloved Boston Celtics, Larry Bird. In the poster, Bird is lining up one of his patented three-pointers, and the caption says in large white lettering, ”When I played, I played as hard as I could.” Some things never change, never should, never will. “No one here is trying to throw the baby out with the bath water,” echoes Kahn. Loach, Dunaway, Lower School Prinicipal Krista Babine and Middle School Principal Barry Spiers adamantly avow that the qualities they look for in potential faculty are the same that Kinkaid has always sought after. Educators with that rare combination of subject-area

mastery and knowledge, energy, curiosity, compassion, adaptability, a razor-sharp thirst for intellectual challenge, and, of course, an abiding love for young people and helping them to learn and grow. What is new is placing that rare professional who combines all those qualities into an environment richly endowed with technological possibilities and wonder. As a result, Kinkaid students are not only reading a given book, but Skyping with the book’s author from her home in Sri Lanka. Or they might be learning Chinese in partnership with a classroom of students in Hong Kong who are learning English. Margaret Kinkaid memorably extolled the importance of educating the “whole child.” In 2012, the “whole child” now includes a connecting wire to the Internet, complete with all its accompanying instrumentation. This may not be your Kinkaid or your mother’s and father’s. But this is a Kinkaid School that is resolved and working hard towards advancing into the 21st century ahead of the curve. And just like the old Kinkaid, it’s a school that can and will enrich the whole family, mom and pop included, and make them proud.

“ The term ‘21st-century skills’ is generally used to refer to certain core competencies such as collaboration, digital literacy, critical thinking, and problem-solving that advocates believe schools need to teach to help students thrive in today’s world. In a broader sense, however, the idea of what learning in the 21st-century should look like is open to interpretation – and controversy.” edweek.org At Kinkaid, technology and 21st-century skills are part of the every day curriculum. Below is a sampling of technology in action from the perspective of our students.

Technology in Action

Sam Sands is a Senior and the President of the Honor Council.

Hannah Jamail Herrick is a 2nd grader.

“Technology around campus and in the classroom is a great tool. Kinkaid has always been at the forefront, through class blogs, Promethean Boards, and now we even have a paperless debate team through iPads. Technology helps students in a variety of ways, from being able to look at class notes at our own pace, to taking advantage of the extra practice time provided by textbook websites, to just simply making day-to-day lessons more entertaining. Last year one of my teachers actually worked out homework problems step-by-step online, so that we could spend class time covering new material. It was a great tool because I could go back through the problems as slowly and as many times as I needed.”

“I like to work with a program called Mavis which teaches you how to type better. It trains my fingers how to move when I’m thinking and trying to type my thoughts with both hands. Also, there’s another game we use to educate our fingers. And then there is also the KidPix program. I really had fun using it to create the slide show that I made for science that showed the earth’s water cycle!”

TX Harris is a 7th Grader. “Last year was the first year of the Middle School Robotics Club. Basically, when we get together we learn (with our science teachers) about robots and different computer programs. This year there are about three times as many kids in the club, and we are actually building and programming robots. The flipped classroom in my science class is awesome! I like watching the videos in the evening and then having more time to work in the lab during class time. I especially liked the video about mitosis. I was able to watch it at home a couple of times. Then we did a lab in class with onion tips under a microscope, and we looked at the cells that were dividing and we identified what stages of division each cell was undergoing. In every class my teachers use Promethean Boards. It really helps because it is so easy to see clearly what the teacher is doing on them, and all my teachers use them in so many different ways.”

Reed Sellers is a Senior and served as the Varsity Tennis Team’s Manager in the Spring of 2012. “Last year, while serving as Team Manager, I used an iPhone application that I just happened across called Tennis Trakker. It allowed me to track everything from a player’s first serve percentage, to points won, to unforced errors. I would monitor our top players matches and email the stats afterwards to the players or share them with our coach, Josh Rodriguez. For example, at one point during the season, I pointed out to then junior Blake Wilde that he had won the majority of the points where he got his first serve in and lost the majority of his second serve points. Blake really started focusing in his matches on getting his first serve in as consistently as possible. The Boys’ Team went on last year to capture the SPC Championship Trophy, and Blake (with his double’s partner, Greg Labanowski) won the deciding match.”

Graph 1: Experience As Alumni

Alumni Survey Results

Before creating the survey, the Office of Advancement, working closely with the Kinkaid Alumni Board, studied best practices and results from other peer institutions. This process helped to refine the parameters of the survey and set the expectation for survey participation rates as well as the potential for negativity that a number of leading schools have experienced.

Excellent Very Good Good Fair Poor 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

Kinkaid’s alumni have a powerful voice and a useful perspective about the School, its

Percentage of Alumni Surveyed

importance to them, and its continuing role in their lives. In the recent alumni survey, launched in June 2012, The Kinkaid School hoped to learn about alumni attitudes relating to a number of key areas that impact both the School and its alumni. “The survey was designed to get an in-depth understanding of the attitudes and perceptions of our alumni,” explained Tom Moore, Director of Advancement, the office that oversees alumni activities. “Our alumni not only are our past, but represent so much of our future. We have a duty and deep desire to listen and understand where they are

Graph 2: Areas of Importance to Alumni Academics Relationship with the faculty

today and how we as a school community can not only serve, but support them.”

Participation in athletics

Although the responses to surveys from alumni of peer institutions are typically modest,

Participation in the arts

the School received an extraordinary volume of responses from its alumni. The overall

College preparations

response rate of 22% was almost double what the School expected to receive and

Traditions or values

is a great indication of alumni interest in their alma mater. Over 3,000 email-based surveys were sent to alumni in the classes of 1963-2011, of which 715 surveys were fully

The survey asked a variety of open-ended questions as well as questions answerable on a numerical rating scale. From a historical perspective, the survey helped to establish how alumni feel about their own Kinkaid experience and the continuing value of the School in their lives. Additionally, the survey helped to identify opportunities for improving alumni support and communication. Both the participation rate and the quality of input from the alumni far exceeded the School’s planning expectations. “We are extremely pleased with the level of participation, but more so with the incredibly positive, highly constructive responses we received,” shared Stephen Dyer ‘85, chair of the Alumni Association Board. “As our research partner described the results, it became clear that not only are our results ‘much more positive than that of our peer institutions,’ but we also have an interested, informed, and highly engaged base of alums that we can serve and continue to support.”

Opportunity to interact with alumni

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

completed online. In addition, for alumni in the classes of 1929-1962, the School mailed

Percentage of Alumni Surveyed

over 500 paper surveys, with 54 surveys completed and returned. Not at all important

Unimportant

Neutral

Important

Extremely important

Graph 3: Performance in Areas of Importance Academics Relationship with the faculty Participation in athletics

College preparations Traditions or values Opportunity to interact with alumni

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Percentage of Alumni Surveyed Poor

Key Findings The responses showed great consistency in regard to the School’s core characteristics and unique attributes, as well as alumni’s valued experiences. What made the responses more impressive was the consistency of the response regardless of the year of graduation. The very things on which Kinkaid prides itself -- educating the whole child, providing a quality education, having superior faculty and creating a strong community – were also cited by alumni as being central to the School’s identity and how it operates. According to the survey results, these areas are what make the School unique. The School performed very well on questions rating the alumni experience and alumni services. Eighty-eight percent of respondents rated their overall experience as a member of the Kinkaid alumni community as positive (see Graph 1). This represents extraordinarily satisfactory attitudes toward performance and positively reflects the meaningful connection that the School maintains with its alumni.

Participation in the arts

“As our research partner described the results, it became clear that not only are our results ‘much more positive than that of our peer institutions,’ but we also have an interested, informed, and highly engaged base of alums that we can serve and continue to support.”

Fair

Neutral

Good

Excellent

Respondents were also asked to rate the importance of various areas and programs at the School, as well as how the School has performed in relation to each. The majority of respondents rated Kinkaid’s performance positively. The one area that received a lower rating, both in importance and in performance, was the “opportunity to interact with alumni” (Graphs 2 & 3 ).

Where Kinkaid Alumni Live All Kinkaid Alumni

1,118 (22% of all alumni) live outside of TX in 49 States

3,985 (77% of all alumni) live in Texas

64%

Dallas/Fort Worth

Austin

San Antonio

13%

Houston

478 alumni are concentrated in 4 urban areas: 162 alumni live in the New York City area (includes part of NJ & CT) 111 alumni live in the Los Angeles area 106 alumni live in the Washington, DC area (includes part of VA & MD) 99 alumni live in the Northern California/San Francisco area

Boston Chicago San Francisco

New York City

Denver

Philadelphia Washington, D.C. Nashville

Los Angeles

Atlanta

San Diego

Other alumni cities: 30 in Atlanta 13 in Nashville 45 in Boston 15 in Philadelphia 14 in Chicago 11 in San Diego 14 in Denver 12 in Seattle

Houston

38 (1% of all alumni) live outside of the USA in 13 different countries Current countries include:

22% 1%

5,901 living alumni from the classes of 1928-2012

(including 336 non-graduates) 5,141 with confirmed mailing addresses*

*Statistics taken from all alumni with confirmed mailing addresses.

The Alumni Board already has begun to act on the results of the survey. The board will focus its efforts first on social and business networking, and formalized mentoring programs for Kinkaid alums.

Seattle

(South Dakota is the only state without a Kinkaid alumnus)

3,301 (83% of TX alumni) live in the Houston area (60 mile radius) 286 (7% of TX alumni) live in the Austin area (40 mile radius) 217 (5% of TX alumni) live in the Dallas/Fort Worth area (100 mile radius)

• Australia • Bahrain • Canada • Ecuador • France • Hong Kong • India

• Ireland • Italy • The Netherlands • Sweden • Switzerland • The United Kingdom

96 (2% of TX alumni) live in the San Antonio area (60 mile radius)

Because Kinkaid’s alumni are spread across the United States and the world, the School’s communications function becomes increasingly more important to inform, engage and remain connected with its alumni base. The survey provided opportunity for meaningful feedback and direction on how the School can better communicate and engage with alumni. As expected, most alumni said they value the Kinkaid Magazine and read it at least once a year, with the majority reading it multiple times per year. And, with the continued evolution of e-mail, online tools and social media, most alumni indicated that they read e-mails sent from the alumni office multiple times per year. These two methods of communication are among the most widely utilized and are where the School continues to focus resources. Additionally, the survey provided perspective on the perceived quantity and quality of information that alumni receive from the School. Alumni overall feel that they receive the right amount of information and the information they receive is of high quality. “While the information validates much of what we believed, it has provided great perspective around a number of issues,” continued Moore. “It also has challenged our thinking and how we need to better communicate, better serve, and better connect alumni with each other and with the School. The insight we have gained will only help to strengthen the bond between our alumni and Kinkaid.”

Opportunities to Strengthen The survey gave alumni the opportunity to voice their perspectives on the School and the Alumni Association through several open-ended questions. In more than 1,000 pages of written responses (our alums know how to write!), alumni identified issues, opportunities and programmatic ideas for the School to consider. Each response has been reviewed and considered carefully by the alumni office. The majority of respondents rated Kinkaid’s performance positively.

Four key themes surfaced from the responses 1 Social and business networking assistance 2 Creation of a formalized mentoring program 3 More meetings and activities for all alumni, especially for those who live outside of Houston 4 Improved events

Ideas Into Action The Alumni Board already has begun to act on the results of the survey. The board will focus its efforts first on social and business networking, and formalized mentoring programs for Kinkaid alums. Additionally, the Alumni Activities staff has started to explore additional meeting opportunities and gatherings in other alumnidense communities. In the coming months, the School will share progress on these issues. “The goal of the School and its Alumni Association has always been to provide our alumni with the services, connections and communications that they want and need,” said Dyer. “We could not be more grateful for the feedback and direction that so many of our alumni provided. We continue to learn about and improve upon our alumni interaction. Doing it right requires changing with the times and listening to the needs of our alums. We are excited for all that is ahead of us.” The alumni office and alumni board, along with the headmaster, administrative team and board of trustees, have seen the extraordinary input and results of the survey. Each group will use the survey results to further Kinkaid’s commitment to improving its performance so that the School not only continues to serve its alumni, but remains a model for other leading educational institutions. While there remains much to do to support the School’s storied alumni community, the respect that Kinkaid has for its alumni is reciprocated by the respect that its alumni show towards the School. When asked how likely alumni are to recommend Kinkaid to a friend or colleague, more than 75% of the respondents gave the School a response of ‘8’ or higher (on a 10 point scale). As the research firm validated, the affinity and regard for the School are extraordinarily high. Moore concluded, “There are few relationships more important or more lasting for a school than its alumni. We are honored by the support of our alumni and humbled by the responsibility that comes with it.”

Dr. Andy Martire The Next Head of School Making his first visit to Kinkaid since being named its next head of school, Dr. Andy Martire had the opportunity to visit with faculty and staff, the administration, parents as well as the board of trustees. Upon arriving at the School on October 3, Dr. Martire met first with faculty and staff, who attended a welcome reception in his honor. The following morning, Dr. Martire was introduced to a wide array of parents, who attended an early morning presentation and reception, where he engaged the audience with stories of his family, his current school and his excitement for the future. However, at Dr. Martireâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s request, most of his schedule while at the School was devoted to spending time in the classrooms - observing the learning and teaching while having the opportunity to interact with students in the lower, middle and upper schools. Faculty, staff, students, and parents alike were energized by his visit and genuinely excited for Dr. Martire to join the Kinkaid family next summer.

Meeting Faculty, Staff and Parents

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201 K i n k a id S c ho ol D r ive Hou s t on, T X 770 24 Parents or Alumni: If this publication is addressed to your child who no longer maintains a permanent address at your home, please notify the Alumni Office of the new permanent mailing address.

Be part of Kinkaidâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first

for Alumni, Parents of Alumni, Grandparents and Friends! Both trips will be hosted by Retired Faculty John and Caro Ann Germann GET READY TO BE TRANSPORTED BACK TO THE HEYDAY OF LAS VEGAS!

Join fellow adventurers on these fantastic travel opportunities

the cl ash of the blue and the gr ay a civil war history tour April 6 - 13, 2013

from the walls of troy to the canals of venice l andmarks of mediterr anean civilizations September 13 - 24, 2013 To download travel brochures, www.kinkaid.org/travel

THE KINKAID SCHOOL SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2013 6:30 PM TO MIDNIGHT JOIN US AS AN AUC TION UNDERWRITER TO HELP R AISE VALUABLE FUNDING FOR KINK AID SCHOL ARSHIPS, FACULT Y DE VELOPMENT, COMMUNIT Y OUTRE ACH AND THE L ATEST IN EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY

For more information, contact Georgia Piazza at 713-243-5078 or georgia.piazza@kinkaid.org. 20