A Letter from the Chair of the Board of Trustees ear Friends, Welcome to St. Andrew’s Spring 2022 Magazine. I am particularly excited for this opportunity to share the many ways in which St. Andrew’s is living its commitment to being a community that celebrates and affirms all students, in service to our mission to know and inspire each child in an inclusive community. Building a diverse student body was one of the driving values of our founding Board when they came together to launch a new co-educational Episcopal high school in 1978. Their commitment established a foundational value that has driven our growth and development over the past 44 years. At the same time that St. Andrew’s was being launched in Bethesda, I was a high school student at an independent school down the road in Baltimore. For me, the opportunity to receive a world-class education came with the experience of being the only AfricanAmerican student in a class of 35. It was often isolating and lonely. I was grateful for the handful of African-American girls who became my sisters at an institution which had generously invited us in, but which had not spent much time thinking about the daily lives of its Black and Brown students once they were enrolled. When I became a parent, I was unwilling to ask my own children to make the same tradeoff I had made 30 years prior – choosing between being part of a community in which I belonged or receiving an excellent education. I instinctively understood that learning to navigate diversity in all forms was essential preparation for life in a richly diverse world. When we discovered St. Andrew’s in 2009 I knew we had found our place. St. Andrew’s offered my children the opportunity to engage 4
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