State of the School 2020-2021

State of the School 2020-2021

An Update from Head of School Mark Stanek

Welcome To 2021 For many, 2020 will be a year to forget. One might even imagine that a confluence of unlikely events conspired against us—to test us, to see just what we’re made of, how we deal with adversity, and how we grapple with complex, uncomfortable situations. A pandemic, a national racial reckoning, a contentious election season…all presented new kinds of challenges while at the same time giving us new opportunities to create and innovate, to be courageous, patient, nimble and resilient.

This past year at Shady Hill is not one we are likely to forget, and I would suggest we shouldn’t try. As much as 2020 pushed us, it also forced us to show our true colors and subsequently be proud of our collective achievements. As we start this new year together, there is much to both celebrate and anticipate.

Thanks to our teachers, who have redefined what it means to support students’ growth; parents, who have patiently kept their physical distance while strengthening our partnerships; administrators, whose vision and tactical execution have kept our program and systems on track; and donors, who have generously contributed to our financial security, Shady Hill School is undeniably healthy and characteristically hopeful.

Warmly,

Pandemic Response: Staying Shady Hill

When the world went remote in March, there was a global reexamination of ‘how things get done.’ At Shady Hill, it meant immediately finding new ways to deliver our unique educational experience—keeping kids engaged academically and connected socially, enabling faculty to be accessible and parents informed, and continuing to build relationships and community. Our program has historically relied on daily, collaborative, hands-on work; in 2020 it turned on a dime— relying on digital platforms and teacher innovation to meet students’ needs. Tech became a more central component of our experience as faculty and students jumped online and discovered new ways to explore the curriculum. Robust planning and professional development during the spring and summer months ensured that we hit the ground running in September with a hybrid of on- and off-campus learning.

Safety was job #1. Staying true to our mission—whether in the classroom or at home—continued to be a constant. In the end, we demonstrated that as much as we cherish our campus and the vast opportunities it affords, it is the relationships between our teachers and their students that ultimately define us.

“We had to remake and recreate the curriculum,” said Lower School Head Shalini Rao. “And out of necessity, it happened incredibly fast.” By doubling the number of supplied devices (1:1 laptops or iPads), all students were up and connected quickly. Age appropriate platforms like Seesaw and Google Classroom gave everyone a place to gather and share work.

One challenge was to find the right balance between on-and off-screen time. We are constantly reevaluating our “less is best” policy because all the rules have changed. Frequent breaks, mixing up the workflow, and shorter online sessions all contribute to an essential healthy balance.

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Maintaining the play-based learning model presented a different kind of challenge—one that Lower School Science Teacher Tracy Polte embraced with enthusiasm. “We spread out, we stayed outdoors, kids enjoyed smaller classes and had their own turns at the “stream table” and the squid dissection table. We thought deeply about the essential skills and content we wanted students to master and created new kinds of physically distant activities. We confirmed that we can always come up with a project that is meaningful and fun—even when we can’t be in the lab.”

Finally, addressing the social-emotional needs of our students has been as important as meeting their academic needs. As such, special attention has been given to ways in which children can be with their friends. A morning Zoom meeting— every day for every class—means that whether students are on campus or at home, they can see each other and nourish important relationships; lower school grades read aloud during lunch, giving students a meaningful shared experience; and of course, recess at a distance is a joyful cacophony of togetherness.

Emotional Health: Keeping Kids Healthy is about More than Not Getting COVID

During these unusual times, we are particularly sensitive to our students’ increased emotional needs. Everyone reacts to the changes imposed by COVID differently and we have worked hard to customize our response. Feelings of isolation, a sense of loss from missing significant events, disorientation from changes in routines…these can affect a child’s wellbeing and the manifestations may not be immediately obvious. Just as we intentionally adapted our academic program to ensure each student’s continued intellectual growth, so, too, did we adapt how we support emotional health. Jamila Wilson, our newly hired middle school counselor, as well as the lower school psychologist, Mark Steward, are available by Zoom (for both students and parents) and a fortified TOAD (Talks on Adolescent Development) program focuses on the unique growing pains of our middle schoolers.

TOAD explores four topics in grades 5–8: Media and digital literacy, intimacy and healthy relationships, social and emotional learning/understanding conflict resolution, and diversity and identity. Reconfigured this past fall, the program now includes a topic of the week that is shared by all middle schoolers and lessons are taught by a team of four interdisciplinary administrators. With a combination of synchronous and asynchronous lessons, students benefit from a shared experience throughout the week while discussing the issues they are confronting now. An emphasis on mindfulness and values is animated through all our topics and the “My Life in Schools” software helps ensure that content is mastered consistently across all grades.

“Figuring out ways to stay connected and build community has been a challenge,” said Krista Demas, head of the Middle School. “But our Wednesday morning assemblies are super interactive and a real silver lining. We have always known that addressing the social and emotional health of our students needs to be both separate from and integrated with all other learning. This year, a purposeful review of how we deliver this part of our program has helped students manage the complexities of not just growing up, but also growing up in the time of COVID.

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Listening:

Hearing our Alumni and Families of Color Shady Hill teachers and staff have long understood their shared responsibility for embedding the practice of antiracism in our school and in our society. The work is central to our mission and we are compelled to constantly explore new ways to prevent and reverse the effects of personal and institutional bias. In August 2020, following the murder of George Floyd and the resulting national awakening, Head of School Mark Stanek and Director of Inclusion and Multicultural Practice Erica Pernell held listening sessions for members of our Black community— alumni, past and present employees, and parents and guardians of current Black students. We needed to provide a safe space for members of our Black community to share their Shady Hill experiences; we needed to understand and acknowledge our failures; we needed to use restorative practices to heal; and we needed to learn from those who bravely told their stories in order to implement a clearer path towards racial justice.

Three key themes emerged during the sessions that informed the School’s resulting action plan.

1. Expanding demographic diversity to include more Black students and faculty 2. Identifying racial bias among faculty, students, and parents, and instituting restorative remedies and continued education 3. Implementing specific curricular programs that advance a culture and practice of anti-racism The plan (see details at https://tinyurl.com/SHS-racial-equity-response) aims to specifically address the findings from our listening sessions, while also reinforcing our culture of inclusivity and our practice of turning thought into action.

Financial Health:

FY21 Budgeted Revenue ($25.5M)

Coming from a Position of Strength

Auxiliary Other Annual 7% 1% Giving 6%

COVID—and the adaptations to SHS facilities and program it necessitated—put unusual demands on our budget in 2020. A combination of strong enrollment and increased charitable giving prepared us to meet the need. An understanding of the importance of giving, coupled with widespread confidence in the educational experience we provide, translated to healthy admissions and enthusiastic donors. These continuing trends are helping us manage 2021’s unique circumstances. We have reached our original budgeted goal of $1.675 million for this year’s Shady Hill Fund. Given the increased costs, we actually must exceed goal this year, so we are not stopping here.

Endowment Spending 8%

Tuition 78%

FY21 Budgeted Revenue ($25.5M)

Financial Aid 12% Debt Service 5% Plant 10% Instructional, Admin. & Other 11%

As the charts to the right show, extra expenses this year are extensive. Although there have been some expense trade-offs (the cost of added personnel and tech have been somewhat offset by the reduction in field trips and travel), the school is operating this year on a deficit. Previous savings and careful management of both revenue and expenses have kept us fiscally strong and we will continue to rely on the generosity of donors to support both programmatic and safety initiatives.

Salaries & Benefits 62%

Additional COVID Expenses ($3.9M) COVID Testing $1.2M Campus Prep $1.3M Extra Personnel $1.2M Increase Financial Aid $300,000

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Moving the Needle:

Update from the AISNE Report When the visiting committee from the Association of Independent Schools of New England (AISNE) reviewed our reaccreditation self-study in 2019, they helped us chart a course for future growth and sustainability. They were resoundingly complimentary of how we live our mission, our culture of constant improvement, how we implement our educational philosophy, and how we act on our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). They also left us with some recommendations for continued work that motivated us to take both concrete and evaluative steps. Several working groups and task forces are developing strategies around enrollment practices, staff evaluations, professional development, the TTC, Board governance, and our mission statement.

To ensure that we provide effective support for students with a range of developmental readiness, learning styles, and abilities, the faculty and staff have engaged in a year-long professional development focus on neurodiversity. The hiring of a new middle school counselor was accelerated as a result of the AISNE recommendation to more broadly support students who experience social and emotional challenges. (The timing couldn’t have been better.) Finally, the recommendation for more focused curriculum oversight resulted in the current search for a new assistant head of school for academics (see more below). The SHS community fully embraced both the process and results of the self-study and we are now moving forward with purpose and resolve.

Administrative Priorities: Academic Strength and Consistency

One of the key recommendations from the AISNE visiting committee was to establish a formal structure for curriculum review and oversight in order to ensure consistent, sequential mastery of content and skills. We have long recognized the need for objective standards and programmatic review, and we are engaged in a search for the position of assistant head of school for academics.

The person in this newly created role will work closely with the head of school and as a collaborative leader with academic and other senior administrators. Establishing consistent standards and benchmarks across grade levels and conducting regular curriculum reviews will be among the position’s key responsibilities.

This new position will be a critical link between mission, pedagogy, and the classroom experience. As we work together to constantly refine the SHS program, teachers will be supported, and students will be well served.

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Mission Review:

What we do vs. how we talk about it We don’t need to change the SHS mission; we just need to better articulate what our mission is. This charge resulted from one of the key recommendations in the AISNE reaccreditation report—advising us to conduct a full review of our mission statement. The visiting team identified the need to better communicate our purpose, as well as our distinctive program, pedagogy, and culture.

The School’s current mission was last reviewed and ratified by the Board in 2009 and best practices suggest that a mission should be reviewed annually and scrutinized every five to ten years. A task force that included board members, parents, alumni, and faculty/staff, was convened last year to workshop conceptual content and test some new language.

A smaller drafting group worked on language that would not redirect the school but rather more readily represent why the school is essential. We look forward to the Board adopting a new mission statement in 2021—giving us a bold and meaningful document that both guides us and represents us.

Thank you to the members of the task force, who thought deeply about Shady Hill’s true essence. Their persistent and collaborative work is an important reflective process that will pilot the School’s path going forward.

Task Force Members: Holly Ambler ’80, Kip Brown ’84, Pam Dickinson, Kafi Garrus, Keri Hughes, Hilary Johnston, Betsy Leahy, Fran Rosenzweig, Mark Stanek, Sarina Tcherepnin ’83 and Robin Walker

As always, we welcome feedback from our community on this report. We will print selected letters in the upcoming Shady Hill magazine. Please send comments to Editor@shs.org.

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