On the cover

PRINCIPAL THOUGHTS

A CONVERSATION WITH SPA’S THREE

From left: Beth Nelson, Virginia Andres, and Theresa Collins.

THREE PRINCIPALS

BY AMI BERGER | PHOTOGRAPHS BY SCOTT STREBLE

SSt. Paul Academy and Summit School’s three-woman team of division Principals has taken on the 2021-22 school year. SPA Magazine sat down with Beth Nelson (Lower School Principal), Virginia Andres (Middle School Principal) and Theresa Collins (Upper School Principal) for a conversation about the role of a division Principal, learning from COVID, and what the future holds for each division at SPA.

A FAMILIAR FACE WITH A NEW ROLE IN THE LOWER SCHOOL:

BETH MELIN NELSON

BBeth Nelson began her tenure as Lower School Principal in fall 2021, but she has been a part of the SPA community since joining the Lower School faculty as a music and movement teacher in 1998. In addition to her classroom teaching, she has served as the Lower School’s Assistant Principal since 2006. Nelson also serves as an adjunct faculty member in the graduate music education program at the University of St. Thomas and is a member of the Orff faculty at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. She has presented and performed at national, international, regional conferences and workshops as a member of the American Orff Schulwerk Association. Nelson completed her M.A. in music education with a concentration in Orff Schulwerk at the University of St. Thomas and earned a B.S in music education from the University of Minnesota.

SPA Magazine: You’re moving this fall from a classroom-based role into a full-time administrative role. What has that journey been like for you?

Beth Nelson: It feels like a very natural journey, really. I’ve always had a toe in the water of administrative work–I’ve been the Assistant Principal at the Lower School since 2006, and I’ve also been a course director at the University of St. Thomas, where I teach graduate courses. Even before SPA, I was on the executive leadership team at MacPhail [Center for Music in St. Paul]. But when I joined the Lower School faculty in 1998, I was a young teacher and really wanted to focus on my pedagogy and growth as an educator. I loved my time as a teacher so much–SPA has allowed me to really dig deeply into my practice in the classroom with students, and my teaching colleagues are the best in the world. But the attraction of an administrative role has never left me!

When I was considering the Principal role, it felt to me like an opportune time for someone else to receive the gift of teaching in the Lower School’s incredible music and movement program. And it’s time for me, after 31 years in education, to take the threads of knowledge and skills that I have acquired over the years and weave them together here to support the community I care about. SPA: What will be the biggest differences between your work as a teacher and your role as a principal?

Nelson: As a principal, you have to have the aerial view. Instead of being on the ground, working with students on a daily basis, you need to fly above everything and have that broad picture view that includes all of our constituents, from our students to our faculty and staff and our families. You have to be mindful of all the points of connection, and be able to understand when things are functioning well and why, and also ask the right questions when things don’t function as well. What are the gaps here? Where do we need additional support or innovation? How can we create the pathways to make that happen in the right way at the right time?

The other big change this year is our new administrative team in the Lower School, which is such a strong and talented group. Jake Ban is our new Assistant Principal, and we have a new Lower School Learning Specialist, Tristan Gavin–Jake and Tristan are both amazing additions to our admin team and student-support program. Ally Youderian is part of that team as well–she joined us last year as our Lower School Counselor. I am really excited about working with the three of them, and with the K-12 leadership team as well. I learned a great deal last year about the way that K-12 leadership team functions, and I deeply appreciated how thoughtful, reflective, and supportive the leadership team is–I wasn’t surprised, but just very reassured that the place I have chosen to dig my roots deep for my career is the place that I’ve always believed it to be and one that cares deeply about people’s success.

SPA: What are a few of your initial goals for the start of the 2021-22 school year?

Nelson: We need to reflect on what has transpired over the last year and a half, to process as a community, and to identify some of the valuable learnings. Just as an example: our facility with technology is at a completely different place than it was before the pandemic. Our fluency with remote learning platforms, with video production, with a wide range of apps increased exponentially last year. That’s true for our students, their parents, and their teachers–we’re just all in a completely different place. What’s exciting about

“As a principal, you have to have the aerial view. Instead of being on the ground, working with students on a daily basis, you need to fly above everything and have that broad picture view that includes all of our constituents, from our students to our faculty and staff and our families.”

that this year is that we don’t need to rely on that technology as a sole mode of instruction in the way we did when we were in Distance Learning. We can find the places where it can really have a more meaningful impact in our classroom, to enrich things that we’re already doing. We can look at all those tools and say, “how can that online platform or tool help us go where we want to go next in our classrooms?”

Another issue on the front burner is how we come back together as a community. We spent last year moving between very different modalities of delivering instruction: we went from in-person to hybrid to remote and then back again, and we had some students learning from home all year. We navigated a couple of different schedule changes and had a few grade-level cohorts in quarantine at various times. Now that we’re back in person, what does that look like? Many of our students don’t even remember what it feels like to be back in school every day! We can’t just assume that things will feel the same as they did in 2019. I see us as a faculty and an adult community focusing first and foremost on our relationships: rebuilding the foundation of our very connected, very engaged school community so that our students are ready and available to do deep learning.

LOOKING AHEAD IN THE MIDDLE SCHOOL:

VIRGINIA ANDRES

PPrior to joining SPA in the fall of 2019 as Middle School Principal, Virginia Andres served as the Principal of the Middle School and Chair of the PK-12 Art Department at O’Neal School in Southern Pines, North Carolina and as the Middle School Dean of Students at the Norwood School, a K-8 independent school in Bethesda, Maryland, of which she is also an alumna. Andres’ administrative career is also informed by her experience as a classroom teacher; she has taught Middle School English and drama in addition to Lower School math and reading. Andres holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Carnegie Mellon University and a Master of Science degree in educational supervision and administration from Johns Hopkins University. She is an alumna of National Cathedral School, an independent school in Washington D.C.

SPA Magazine: You began your tenure as Middle School principal in the fall of 2019, before the onset of COVID in the spring of 2020. What was the first part of that year like?

Virginia Andres: I think of that first year in terms of “before” and “after,” for sure. When the year began, I’d just come from being a principal in North Carolina, and I was so looking forward to joining the Middle School team here. I was impressed by how studentcentered the faculty are in their teaching practice: they are always thinking about what is best for student learning, how they can help each of their students progress, move to the next step, meet them where they are and move to the next step.

One of the first things that the MS faculty really dove into during the fall of 2019 was our advisory program, which is at the heart of the entire Middle School experience. We took some time as a faculty that fall to examine those practices and how they relate to both the student experience and the faculty experience–what we wanted the entire MS community to look like for both children and adults. I felt very honored to be working with such a thoughtful, fun-loving group of teachers. They embraced the reflective process: they came up with some wonderful faculty norms, in the same way that they would then lead their students in creating their own grade-level norms. It was a great practice at the time, and in retrospect it was also something that we were then able to use when we encountered the pandemic. Some of those norms were incredibly helpful: “breathe and let go,” “find and foster joy,” “clear is kind” are a few that come to mind.

SPA: You mentioned the Middle School advisory program–can you give us an overview of how that advisory program works in grades 6-8?

Andres: Yes, our Middle School advisory curriculum centers around social-emotional learning and development. Every student in Middle School is part of a small-group advisory of 8-10 students in their grade, with an advisor who is part of that grade’s teaching team–it’s a student’s “home base” at school, so to speak. Advisories meet every morning and are often together at other points in the day, so advisories grow very close with each other and the advisor over the course of the year.

The advisory curriculum is based on a pedagogical approach called Developmental Designs, and it’s specifically tailored for young adolescents. It focuses on establishing community so you can create a space where everybody feels like they belong. It’s an inclusive curriculum: the students have a voice in what they want their community to look like, and responsibility in how they help maintain that atmosphere of inclusion and belonging for all students so that all voices can be heard. We use the practices in our academic classes as well as our advisory program, because it gives us a common language as a community. It permeates everything we do in the Middle School, and I know it will be incredibly helpful this year as we come back together in a more “normal” way and reconnect with each other.

SPA: Speaking of reconnecting: what does that process look like for the Middle School?

Andres: We have always known how important community is at SPA, but last year really brought it home. In a normal year, we are so intentional about building relationships–whether that’s in the classroom, our advisories, in assemblies, on field trips, and all the other ways in which we usually come together. Not being able to

“I see my role as making sure that we have an engaging vision in place and that we’re all headed in the same direction, and it’s my responsibility to make sure that the teachers have what they need to do the best job for their students.”

do that last year left teachers, students, parents, and families feeling somewhat disconnected. So the fall is all about reconnecting: we created day-long orientations for each grade in the Middle School so students and teachers could spend some real time together even before our academic program began. The purpose of those orientations was to remember and celebrate how we support each other academically and socially, now that our five-day in-person schedule is back. That theme will carry through the entire year, both in our classrooms and in our co-curricular programs–sports teams and plays and clubs and music ensembles.

It’s vital for our students and our teachers to get back to having some fun! Last year was very serious–appropriately so. Obviously we’re still taking our health and safety seriously, but we’re also going to remind ourselves that we have to find and foster joy.

SPA: Overall, how do you see your role as the Principal of the division?

Andres: I love being a principal because I do a little bit of everything. I try to look at the division from whatever thousand-foot height, and think “Okay, what is the arc of these three years for our students, and how do we successfully transition them into the arc of the Upper School?” I get to think about the big questions that define life at school, and then collaborate with our teachers and our student support teams on bringing those ideas to life.

I see my role as making sure that we have an engaging vision in place and that we’re all headed in the same direction, and it’s my responsibility to make sure that the teachers have what they need to do the best job for their students. That might be support or mentoring from me, or professional development, or additional resources in a specific area. It’s similar to how we approach classroom teaching: we’re no longer the “sage on the stage,” we’re the “guide on the side.” I see myself in the same role with the faculty. I want to help them problemsolve, to be able to take several steps back and put all of the pieces together for a successful outcome, which is ultimately the growth of our students. That role extends to our families too–part of my role is making sure that the connection between the school and the home is maintained, and that we’re building a partnership with our families. Early adolescence can be as challenging for parents as it is for students, and since I work with so many students every day I have a wide perspective on the challenges and opportunities of this developmental stage. That broad lens can help in supporting parents; during difficult moments I can say “here’s the long view, maybe we’ve hit a bump in the road here, but this is why this will help further down the road.”

A NEW LEADER FOR THE UPPER SCHOOL:

THERESA SQUIRES COLLINS

TThe newest member of the team is Theresa Squires Collins, who joined SPA as Upper School Principal in July 2021. Collins came to SPA from Francis W. Parker School, a K-12 independent school in Chicago’s Lincoln Park, where she served as an Upper School English teacher beginning in 2006. During her tenure at Parker, Collins was a faculty leader and served as Chair of the Upper School English Department for five years. As Chair, she supervised, mentored, and evaluated teachers, supported their professional development and selfevaluation, collaborated with faculty on course offerings, and led individual and departmental goal-setting. She is a leader in the Progressive Education Network (PEN), and has served as the organization’s Board President and as the Director of the PEN National Institute. She is also a dedicated classroom educator, teaching World and American Literature in addition to elective courses on African American Literature, Identity Development in Contemporary Culture, and Issues of Race, Class, Gender & Sexual Orientation. She holds a B.S. in Secondary English Education from Miami University (Ohio); a M.A. in Humanities from Northwestern University (IL); and a Certificate in Advanced Educational Leadership from Harvard University.

SPA Magazine: What drew you to SPA, and to the Upper School Principal position?

Theresa Collins: I’ve known about SPA for some time, in part because I have family in St. Paul, and also just from being a part of the independent school landscape for many years. When I began looking around for principal roles, I had several colleagues who told me I should take a look at SPA. That included my good friend Joe Ruggiero, who is currently the Upper School principal at Blake–Joe said “well, if you’re not going to come work for me, you should check out SPA.” He was right! When I started doing the deeper dive into the school, and taking a good look at the Upper School program in particular, there were so many elements that were really, really appealing to me as an educator and as an administrator. I loved the focus on inquiry and the discussion-based learning model, and the really high value placed on teaching and developing excellent teachers.

SPA: What was it like to interview during a pandemic?

Collins: I was so grateful that I could actually visit SPA last spring–being able to walk around the school, talk to people, and check out classrooms in person really sealed the deal for me. There is such a sense of community here, and the work that I saw going on in the Upper School classrooms–even in the midst of COVID–just blew my mind. The teachers were passionate about their work and their students, and I had a great conversation about student wellness with Susanna [Short] and Emily [Barbee, the Upper School counselors]. It was evident from every adult I talked to that this is a place that views education as an ongoing process of what it means to be human–that comes out in so many different ways. And the students! Wow, I just loved my conversation with the student group–I took so many notes. There were about a dozen Upper school students in the group that met with me. I asked them how they were feeling about school and the pandemic, and every single one of them had nothing but praise for their teachers and the level of support they were feeling. They were just so grateful and very open about the premium they place on the relationships that they have with their teachers. I just can’t say enough about how genuine and thoughtful the students were. And they had so many good questions–SPA students definitely aren’t shy about asking questions. They clearly want to be a part of their own educational experience, they want to have a voice in shaping it, they want to be part of those conversations. It was wonderful to meet with them, and I only wished I had had more time. One of the things I’m looking forward to is getting to know the students and figuring out ways to stay engaged with them over the course of the year.

SPA: What else is on your agenda for this school year?

Collins: Well, I’ll need to first get a really good sense of what life at SPA is like on the ground, and Tom [Anderson, Upper School Academic Dean] and Chantal [Thornberry, Upper School Dean of Students] were so helpful over the summer in getting me prepared for that. As a team, one of our top priorities this year is re-establishing the Upper School’s sense of community and connection. That will be especially important

“SPA students definitely aren’t shy about asking questions. They clearly want to be a part of their own educational experience, they want to have a voice in shaping it, they want to be part of those conversations.”

for me as a brand-new member of the community, but I think it will be important for everyone after the year-plus we’ve just been through. We need opportunities to reflect on what’s happened, and find some intentional ways to connect as a community. That’s made easier, I think, by the fact that we have this absolutely amazing Upper School facility–I’ve just been walking around the building with my jaw on the floor over how beautiful these spaces are. I’m envisioning using those spaces in some different ways this year, maybe finding ways to get faculty out of their individual departmental areas and spend more time together in different ways and places. Our teachers have so much expertise in their content areas but they are also experts at building relationships and connecting with their students, and both those areas are so important to grow and foster, especially at this particular moment in time.

On the academic side, I’m really enjoying immersing myself in the Upper School curriculum and especially the six-day block schedule. I taught in a sort of modified block schedule [at Francis Parker], but we did not have the big blocks of 75-minute time for every class like SPA does, which is such a gift. I’m excited to see what teaching and learning looks like in a true block schedule, and also just getting the flow of the year–Homecoming and watching the games and going to plays and concerts.

SPA: What’s a lesson from last year that you’ve taken with you into this year?

Collins: I think it’s the symbiotic relationship between delivering academic content and connecting with the students themselves. Last year when I was teaching, I found myself seeking ways to connect with my students not just on what we were doing in class but on how they were doing: have you eaten today? Are you sleeping okay? The sleep was such a huge issue for students–many of them developed such crazy sleep schedules during COVID. That was really eye-opening for me as a teacher and also as the parent of a high-school senior, because sleep is such a critical component of health and having the clarity of mind to be present in your learning. I learned what wellness looks like, and how you can be intentional as an educator about supporting the cultivation of healthy habits among your students. That is definitely top-of-mind for me this year.