Tower Hill Bulletin Spring 2020
TOWER HILL 100 An investment in people, programs and partnerships
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE Teresa Messmore Director of Communications and Marketing Amy Wolf Assistant Director of Communications and Marketing Kirk Smith Marketing Specialist ADVANCEMENT OFFICE Kristin Mumford Director of Advancement and Enrollment Management Melissa Pizarro Associate Director of Advancement Matthew Twyman III ’88 Director of Alumni Relations and Associate Director of Admission Heather Weymouth Lowry ’97 Director of the Annual Fund Linda Palmer Administrative Assistant PHOTOGRAPHY Kirk Smith, Lead Photographer Erwin Chen ’20 Teresa Messmore Amy Wolf LAYOUT Amy Wolf The Tower Hill Bulletin magazine is published twice annually to share how alumni, faculty, staff and students embody the school’s motto Multa Bene Facta, Many Things Done Well. Send Class Notes to thsalumni@towerhill.org with a high-resolution photo. TOWER HILL SCHOOL 2813 W. 17th Street Wilmington, DE 19806 302-575-0550 | towerhill.org HEAD OF SCHOOL Elizabeth C. Speers 2019-2020 BOARD OF TRUSTEES Eric Johnson, M.D., Chair Benjamin du Pont ’82, Vice Chair Jack Flynn, M.D., ’81, Secretary Marna Whittington, Ph.D., Treasurer Kimberly Wright Cassidy, Ph.D. Régis de Ramel Robert DeSantis Charles Elson Heather Richards Evans ’80 W. Whitfield Gardner ’81 Laird Hayward ’02 Ellen Jamison Kullman ’74 Henry Mellon Catherine Miller David Nowland ’85 Lisa A. Olson ’76 Isabella Speakman Timon ’92 Carmen Wallace ’93 Gina Ward Earl Ball, Ed.D., Emeritus
Tower Hill School does not discriminate in its educational, admissions and personnel programs and policies or activities on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, age, religion or religious creed, sexual orientation, gender identity and/ or expression, disability or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state or local law.
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Tower Hill BULLETIN
SPRING 2020
IN THIS ISSUE 8 Foundation Support
TOWER HILL 100 CENTENNIAL CAMPAIGN RECEIVES THREE MAJOR GIFTS FROM FOUNDATIONS
12 Teaching Inclusion
FACULTY COORDINATORS GUIDE STUDENTS THROUGH DIVERSITY DISCUSSIONS SCHOOLWIDE
24 Healthy Hillers
HEALTH AND WELLNESS PROGRAM EXPANDS
38 Community Outreach
LEADING YOUTH THROUGH EMPOWERMENT (LYTE) TEAMS UP WITH TOWER HILL
On the Cover The Hiller Instinct robotics team hosted its first FTC robotics competition in January. Pictured are Malcolm Thomas ’22, Upper School physics teacher and robotics coach Jim Haine and Stanley Chen ’22. Photo by Kirk Smith Tower Hill Bulletin
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From the HEAD OF SCHOOL Dear Tower Hill families and friends, If you have ever been to a robotics competition, you have witnessed the power of iterative learning. The success of any robotics team depends on the degree to which students embrace trial and error, welcoming failure in order to achieve success. Imagine a robot programmed by a team of students performing specific timed tasks in what looks like a boxing ring for robots. Our Upper School robotics team, Hiller Instinct, is but one example of how Tower Hill students demonstrate full and creative engagement in a dynamic arena. It would be difficult to argue that our world is not dynamic, especially of late. The skills our students are learning in robotics and in so many other areas at Tower Hill are preparing them for a rapidly changing and global world. Tower Hill’s mission is more important than ever, as we continue to prepare students from diverse backgrounds for full and creative engagement with a dynamic world. Our students and school community are surely engaged in full and creative learning at Tower Hill. For example, in this issue of the Bulletin you will read about social innovator Hannah Pachalis ’21, virtual connections through language classrooms and our commitment to building an engaged and diverse community with the support of DISTINCT and PAATH parent groups. Tower Hill teachers deliver the school’s mission with great love and skill; they care about the whole child and know exactly when to challenge, cajole, hold firm, encourage and support. Within this Bulletin you will read about Middle School teacher Mrs. Zehner’s passion for teaching reading and Mr. Haine’s philosophy about raising the bar to help students achieve in physics. Educating the whole student has always been at the core of a Tower Hill education. You will read about our wellness curriculum, as well as how character education includes a global focus. Our academic programs are engaging both our students and our community partners in areas such as social justice, global initiatives, social entrepreneurship, leadership and academic technology. Our Wilmington community is taking notice, and we continue to see an increase in applications from prospective families, bringing more top talent to the school overall—a recent example being our historic state championship in girls’ swimming, to which students who were new to Tower Hill in 8th and 9th Grade contributed significantly! At our Centennial Gala in September, we announced the launch of our Tower Hill 100 Centennial Campaign—an investment in people, programs and partnerships. This issue of the Bulletin features ways that our school community is already benefiting from investments made in this campaign. Tower Hill is both traditional and innovative, and we are embracing a growth mindset—a critical skill in a dynamic world. Donors and foundations recognize the value of people, programs and partnerships and the value of a growth mindset at Tower Hill. You will read more within about how their contributions have brought us more than halfway toward meeting our Tower Hill 100 goal of $19.19 million. Tower Hill has such loyal and talented alumni around the country. We are eager to reconnect and partner with alumni, parents and friends to advance the work of Tower Hill and our community. It continues to be a privilege to witness Tower Hill’s many successes, big and small. I look forward to sharing many more in the days and years to come, and in the meantime, thank you for your ongoing support on behalf of our amazing students and faculty. Sincerely,
Elizabeth C. Speers Head of School 2
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What’s ONLINE twitter.com/ thsde
100TH BASKETBALL WIN 1,872 impressions, 13 likes Congratulations to Coach Amanda Blackstone on her 100th win as head coach of the girls’ varsity basketball team.
MIDDLE SCHOOL ROBOTICS 310 impressions, 4 likes Tower Hill’s two Middle School robotics teams competed in the FIRST LEGO League qualifier! Out of 20 teams competing, “Green Machine” won second place in the Robot Design judging, and “Hillers Robotics” received first place in the Core Values judging. Congratulations!
SNOW SQUALL 986 impressions, 4 likes Tower Tots had fun playing outside during the snow squall.
instagram.com/ towerhillschool
218 likes towerhillschool We expressed our gratitude to our kitchen staff, maintenance crew and security team—with a special thanks to Mr. Marvin Swanson—at our all school Thanksgiving assembly in November.
facebook.com/ thsde
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. DU PONT! 73 likes Tower Hill’s Centennial speaker, Mr. Irénée “Brip” du Pont, Jr. ’38, turned 100 in January!
RECYCLING 84 likes Thanks to Eco Plastic Products of Delaware and all who participated in the bag collection, we now have a new bench for the Lower School playground! We recycled 135 pounds of plastic bags to mold this bench. 189 likes towerhillschool Upper School dance students had a fun holiday light photo shoot.
399 likes towerhillschool Donoven Mack ’21 made an epic buzzer beater shot to beat St. Andrew’s 44-41. Awesome! #GoHillers
CANINE PARTNERS 80 likes First graders practiced reading aloud to some friendly listeners brought by Canine Partners for Life.
THS IN VIDEO...
12 ANGRY JURORS FALL PLAY 700 FACEBOOK VIEWS Theater teacher Tori Healy directed 12 Angry Jurors, a variation of 12 Angry Men, for the fall Upper School play.
SECOND GRADE HOEDOWN 696 FACEBOOK VIEWS Yeehaw! Second graders showed off their dance moves at the annual hoedown. The hoedown combines folk dance and singing, led by music teacher Sara Bush.
PUMPKIN STEAM ACTIVITIES 438 FACEBOOK VIEWS First graders spent a fall morning doing STEAM activities with pumpkins.
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Around SCHOOL STEM National Ranking
Tower Hill was named one of Newsweek’s Top STEM High Schools 2020! Newsweek partnered with STEM.org to identify which U.S. schools provide the best student experiences in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). One of only three Delaware schools listed in the top 500, Tower Hill was ranked #348 among good company of excellent independent, charter and public schools such as Charter School of Wilmington (#94), St. Andrew’s (#387) and The Episcopal Academy (#498).
Tower Hill students were recognized in November with a Youth in Philanthropy Award for collecting more than 6,000 books for the pediatric unit of Christiana Hospital.
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Upper School chemistry teacher Liz Brown, Ph.D., has been named Tower Hill’s director of STEM initiatives. This new position is responsible for advancing resources and cultivating activities within the K-12 program that increase access to a robust, interdisciplinary science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) curriculum. This will position Tower Hill as a leader in the community in student innovation, engagement, outcomes, teacher quality and expertise. Upcoming issues of the Bulletin will highlight new initiatives in this important academic area.
Career Day
Service
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New STEM Appointment
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Many Tower Hill alumni and parents shared their professional experiences with Upper School students on Nov. 15 for Career Day. Students had the opportunity to explore careers in law, engineering, entrepreneurship, fine arts, medicine, marketing, science and more at the annual event. Pictured is Hon. Natalie Haskins.
PAATH
Delaware State University President Tony Allen, Ph.D., spoke to 100 attendees at the annual Black History Dinner in February, held in celebration of Black History Month. The annual event was hosted by the Office of Social Justice, PAATH (Parents of African Americans at Tower Hill) and DISTINCT (Diversity and Inclusion at Tower Hill). Pictured are PAATH co-chair Toni Jackson, Allen, Director of Alumni Relations Matt Twyman ’88 and PAATH co-chair Yvonne Deadwyler.
Forum Speaker Series
Jason Flom of Lava Media and the Innocence Project spoke about criminal justice reform and the issues of mass incarceration on Nov. 25 as part of the Forum Speaker Series. Noura Jackson, who was wrongfully convicted and helped by the Innocence Project, joined the lecture to share her experiences. The theme for the 2019-2020 Forum is Personal Perspectives on Justice and Incarceration in America.
Environmental Initiatives
Students in all divisions collected 135 pounds of plastic bags in the fall that were later recycled by Eco Plastic Products of Delaware. The plastic bags were melted down and molded into a bench for the Lower School playground. In November, a group of Middle School students went to the facility to learn about the recycling process. Watch a video at towerhill.org/bulletin.
Global Partnership
Director of Social Justice Dyann Connor (pictured above at center) hosted teachers from Saudi Arabia for a one-day visit in October as part of the University of Delaware’s Khbrat Program, a one-year professional development opportunity for K-12 teachers. They visited Lower and Middle School science, technology, music, theater and art classrooms. Tower Hill Bulletin
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An Investment in People, Programs and Partnerships
Tower Hill 100 is the school’s first fundraising campaign in over a decade—and first-ever comprehensive campaign. A comprehensive campaign bundles an institution’s multi-year Annual Fund goals over all campaign years with identified fundraising needs, including endowment support and capital and program initiatives. The result is a single, integrated fundraising effort over multiple years that will strengthen and expand programs today and provide financial strength in the long term.
$19.19 MILLION GOAL
This issue of the Bulletin highlights ways this campaign is already making a positive impact on the people, programs and partnerships of Tower Hill School.
Annual Fund
Endowment Support for Faculty and Students
Capital and Program Initiatives
Tower Hill 100 provides a path forward to accomplishing goals identified in Tower Hill’s strategic plan. The campaign priorities are:
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Investing in Faculty Financial Aid and Affordability
PROGRAMS
Exhilarating Academic Program
PARTNERSHIPS
Building an Engaged and Diverse Community
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FOUNDATION SUPPORT
TOWER HILL 100 CAMPAIGN RECEIVES GRANTS FROM THREE FOUNDATIONS BY MELISSA PIZARRO, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF ADVANCEMENT
Centennial Gala attendees gathered in St. Amour Garden, renovated through previous support from Rosa Laird Hayward McDonald ’34, in September 2019. McDonald’s foundation recently made a gift to the Tower Hill 100 Centennial Campaign in her memory.
ELLICE AND ROSA MCDONALD FOUNDATION In November 2019, the Ellice and Rosa McDonald Foundation approved a leadership grant to establish the Rosa ’34 and Ellice McDonald Endowed Scholarship at Tower Hill School. This financial aid endowment—the foundation’s first grant to Tower Hill—expands Tower Hill’s ability to attract talented students and provide financial aid to top students who might otherwise not be able to attend the school. The fund is named in memory of Rosa Laird Hayward McDonald ’34, who cared deeply about Tower Hill and supported many mission-critical causes close to her heart. In the mid-1990s, McDonald made a generous donation during the Next Stage campaign at Tower Hill, which resulted in the building of the Pierre S. du Pont Theatre. Throughout the rest of her life, she continued to support her alma mater in countless ways through her quiet philanthropy, including restoring the sunken garden of the original St. Amour estate to its former glory. This beautiful space was showcased during Tower Hill’s Centennial Celebration, hosting over 1,300 guests in attendance for the Centennial Gala on Sept.
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21, 2019 (pictured above). Hayward House, the head of school’s residence and location of Graduation, alumni reunions and other school events, was named in her memory by the board of trustees in 2009. As one of the great matriarchs of the Laird and Hayward families, McDonald has an incredible legacy at Tower Hill. The Rosa ’34 and Ellice McDonald Endowed Scholarship is a true testament to this and ensures that generations of remarkable students will be able to attend Tower Hill now and in the future. “During her life, Rosa was devoted to her alma mater and to providing it with resources to succeed for both current and future generations of students and faculty,” Foundation Trustee Murray Sawyer said. “By establishing this endowed scholarship in the year celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the school’s founding, the Trustees of the Ellice and Rosa McDonald Foundation, of which I am one, honor and acknowledge her lifetime of commitment to Tower Hill.”
While the financial aid budget has increased more than 33% since 2016 to support Tower Hill’s mission to be more accessible and affordable to families who cannot afford to pay full tuition, there are still other costs that are very challenging for families receiving need-based aid to afford. Books, athletic gear and equipment, and technology needs—specifically personal computers that are required for seventh through 12th graders—can be prohibitively expensive. A leadership grant from the Laffey-McHugh Foundation, approved in December 2019 to establish the Student Assistance Endowment Fund, will have a transformative effect on Tower Hill’s ability to further support students with financial need when they arrive on campus. Restricted funding for these critical student needs will help to provide the full Tower Hill experience for these students, allowing them to participate in all aspects of student life. The fund also enables Tower Hill to make a more significant impact in advancing education in the Wilmington area, something about which our founders cared greatly. “This generous grant from the Laffey-McHugh Foundation will significantly enhance our existing efforts to remove financial barriers for our students, ensuring all students can realize their full potential and have access to everything Tower Hill has to offer,” Director of Alumni Relations and Associate Director of Admission Matt Twyman ’88 said.
The Laffey-McHugh Foundation has longstanding philanthropic ties with Tower Hill and has played a critical role in the development and modernization of the school’s campus. The foundation gave leadership grants in 1970, 1980 and 1993 for the library/science complex, the Carpenter Field House and the Pierre S. du Pont Theatre and Arts Center, respectively. In 2001-2002, the Laffey-McHugh Foundation provided a grant during The Campaign for Tower Hill that supported the reconfiguration of the Middle and Upper Schools and the renovation of just about every classroom in each division.
TOWER HILL 100
LAFFEY-MCHUGH FOUNDATION
“As a former director of the Laffey-McHugh Foundation beginning in 1967 and president from 1998 until his death in 2014, Arthur Connolly surely exemplified generosity, selflessness and kindness,” Head of School Bessie Speers said. “Tower Hill is proud to count his wife, Mrs. Joan McDowell Connolly ’55, as an alumna, as well as several of her relatives and descendants in the Connolly, Braun and McDowell families, all of whom are deeply woven into the fabric of Tower Hill and the city of Wilmington. We are so grateful to Mrs. Connolly and her family for the establishment of this Student Assistance Fund.” The Student Assistance Endowment Fund is open to additional contributions from any source. For more information on how to support this initiative, contact the Advancement Office at 302-657-8353.
MARMOT FOUNDATION The Marmot Foundation has played a critical role in the development and modernization of the Tower Hill campus. In 1999 the Marmot Foundation provided a leadership grant in support of The Campaign for Tower Hill. In 2006 the Marmot Foundation approved a grant in support of The Campaign for Athletics at Tower Hill. This grant supported the renovation of all existing athletic facilities and fields as well as the installation of synthetic field turf for the football and field hockey fields, stadium lighting and a 400-meter all-weather track. In 2013 the Marmot Foundation committed a third significant grant that enabled Tower Hill to complete the construction of the Math and Science Center, a major addition of academic and learning space. This project significantly enhanced the quality of mathematics and science curriculum and enabled the school to repurpose portions of the former Math and Science Department offices into various other learning spaces.
In June 2019, the Marmot Foundation became an early investor in the Tower Hill 100 Campaign by approving its latest leadership grant in support of Capital and Program Initiatives. Gifts to capital and program initiatives have an immediate impact and help enhance the school’s facilities to meet the evolving needs of teachers and students. “An investment in facilities directly impacts people and programs, and our students and teachers deserve teaching, learning and gathering spaces that inspire current academic pedagogy and innovation,” Head of School Bessie Speers said. “We are ever so grateful for the Marmot Foundation’s early investment in Tower Hill’s future.”
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SAVE THE DATE
Ribbon Cutting—May 1, 2020 Progress is being made on Kullman Commons, an expansion of the school’s current dining facilities to enclose the courtyard adjacent to the dining room. The space is named in honor of the Kullman family and in appreciation of their transformational leadership gift to Tower Hill 100 for faculty innovation and financial aid. Save the date for the ribbon cutting ceremony on May 1, 2020!
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TOWER TOWERHILL HILL100 100
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Equity and Inclusion Coordinator and Middle School
Carmen Martinez 12 Spanish Towerteacher Hill Bulletin Springleads 2020 a Lunch and Learn discussions with students.
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TEACHING INCLUSION
SOCIAL JUSTICE PROGRAM GROWS WITH ADDITION OF FACULTY COORDINATORS BY TERESA MESSMORE, DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING
TOWER HILL’S SOCIAL JUSTICE work can be traced back to the school’s early years, when founders deliberately sought socioeconomic diversity among students by providing financial aid to families. Over the course of a century, Tower Hill’s enrollment, curriculum and student life programs became increasingly diverse through the efforts of various teachers, administrators, students and parent volunteers. The introduction of a director of social justice position in 2015 provided the opportunity to better coordinate and enhance diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives taking place schoolwide. Dyann Connor’s leadership in that role has resulted in more cohesive programming and offerings in each division that build in a logical progression from Lower to Upper School. The addition of equity and inclusion coordinators in each division has helped. Two coordinators in each division assist Connor in implementing age-appropriate curriculum and serve as resources for colleagues. Today Tower Hill’s Social Justice Program covers many facets of diversity, including but not limited to gender, race, religion, ability, language, citizenship, sexual identity, age and socioeconomics. “When you begin looking at Tower Hill’s strategic plan and goals toward building and engaging a more inclusive community and then consider the programming and community life aspects that are needed, one quickly realizes that in order to complete our social justice work, we need a community of dedicated helpers,” Connor said. “By adding equity and inclusion coordinators to each division, the work that is currently done by our teachers is better supported.” In the Lower School, librarian Ann Sullivan focuses on the AMAZE anti-bias literature program. Meeting with kindergarten through fourth grade, she builds a curriculum around literature that includes reading books and discussing ways to be more inclusive and supportive of each other as individuals. Fourth grade teacher Anna Correa helps organize morning meetings and
announcements about diversity topics, and she coordinates with third and fourth grade teachers on DEI work that they can do as a team. Both of the Lower School coordinators also work in tandem with Connor to provide faculty professional development and training opportunities. In the Middle School, Spanish teacher Carmen Martinez offers “Lunch and Learns” each month led by eighth graders who prepare presentations on social justice issues. Participation, which is voluntary, has grown from 10 to 50 as more and more students become interested in hearing from their peers and taking part in the discussions. Martinez will be joined by English teacher Rachel Ashbrook next year to explore additional curricular and cross-divisional opportunities for students. Both Middle School coordinators also work with Connor to host the annual LEAD (Leaning into Equity, Awareness and Diversity) conference, which is a multi-school diversity conference for middle schoolers held at Tower Hill. LEAD is in its third year, with eight schools participating. “We are giving students tools to facilitate difficult conversations, to be able to be global citizens and to be able to interact with curiosity—instead of judgment and instead of prejudice,” Martinez said. “This comes so naturally for children. They are naturally curious. They want to learn, and whenever they have this opportunity to meet with someone who has had a different perspective culturally or religiously, or politically even at this age, their point of view is so open to learning. That’s amazing.” Upper School students are developmentally ready for higher-level discussion about complex issues in social justice and equity. The Upper School conversations invite broader perspectives and critical thinking, Connor said. French teacher Anna Miller, Ph.D., helps lead a group of faculty volunteers who assist in planning several Upper School “Community Conversations” with student facilitators. These events bring the Upper School community together to share ideas and opinions on a variety of social justice topics. Miller and Connor also formed a Religious and Cultural Committee to
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SOCIAL JUSTICE TEAM DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL JUSTICE Dyann Connor Strategic vision, program coordination EQUITY AND INCLUSION COORDINATORS Ann Sullivan Lower School Librarian AMAZE anti-bias literature Anna Correa Fourth Grade Teacher Morning meetings and announcements Carmen Martinez Middle School Spanish Lunch and Learns Rachel Ashbrook Middle School English Lunch and Learns Jessica Douglass Upper School Learning Specialist Curriculum analysis Anna Miller, Ph.D. Upper School French Community Conversations and Religious and Cultural Committee
honor the different holidays and celebrations in our school community. Learning specialist Jessica Douglass is supporting faculty who seek to bring more inclusive perspectives to topics studied. Douglass and Connor recently started the Student Diversity Leadership Committee at Tower Hill School, bringing together all students who have attended the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) Student Diversity Leadership Conference and training students to be conversation facilitators. Tower Hill has also been invited to participate in the Delaware chapter of Princeton Diversity Discussions, a monthly series of inclusive gatherings. “You can begin to see where one person trying to do all of these things just wouldn’t give us the robust programming that we have today,” Connor said. “With the additional help of coordinators in each division, we can support more offerings and grow.” All of the equity and inclusion coordinators regularly meet with Connor and engage in DEI professional development. Coordinators have been trained through Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity (SEED) and attend the annual Cheryl Irving Cultural Competency Institute at The Episcopal Academy. They also attend conferences such as the Race Institute for K-12 Educators, the NAIS People of Color Conference and the Delaware Diversity Practitioners meetings (which Tower Hill founded). Looking ahead, the coordinators will support Connor in evaluating the scope and sequence of social justice education in Tower Hill’s existing curriculum to see where content spirals and where there might be gaps or too much overlap. “Broadening the Social Justice Program team to include point people in each division serves our students and teachers well and aligns with our Strategic Plan,” Head of School Bessie Speers said. “We are grateful to Dyann Connor and our equity and inclusion coordinators for their initiative in supporting this important work.”
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Art Hall, pictured here serving as master of ceremonies at Founders’ Day 2019, has been named the next Head of Middle School.
LEADERSHIP
ART HALL APPOINTED NEW HEAD OF MIDDLE SCHOOL BY TERESA MESSMORE, DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING
ART HALL has been named Tower Hill’s new head of Middle School, following the announcement of Paul Capodanno’s departure at the end of the 2019-2020 school year. Hall joined Tower Hill in 2017 as assistant head of school and dean of student life, managing the hiring process for all faculty and administrators and overseeing programs in social justice, athletics, service learning, wellness and global initiatives. He has worked closely with all division heads and gained a strong working knowledge of the Middle School curriculum. As a member of the History Department, Hall brought a course on Modern Black America to the Upper School, and he also coached third team basketball. “Art’s fun loving and warm demeanor, along with his leadership experience both here at Tower Hill and his previous schools, make him a particularly logical selection as Head of our Middle School,” Head of School Bessie Speers said. “Art’s commitment to inclusivity and to building an engaged and diverse community—a core tenet of our strategic plan—will also benefit our Middle School’s continued success.” Hall previously served as the Upper School principal at Friends’ Central School in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, a PreK-12 Quaker school. There he was responsible for faculty hiring and evaluation, served as a liaison to parents, collaborated with administrators and ensured
the success of Upper School students. He previously served as director of equity and inclusion and global programs at Greenhill School in Dallas, Texas, where he worked from 2012-2014 to recruit teachers of color, enhance the curriculum and advance the school’s equity and inclusion program. From 2002-2012 he was the Upper School dean and director of student activities, providing college counseling, discipline management, life guidance and academic support. He also taught African-American and Chinese history, American literature and computer science at Greenhill School, and he was a computer specialist at HarvardWestlake School, a highly competitive school in Studio City, California. Hall earned a B.A. in political science and history from University of California, Los Angeles, and holds an M.Ed. with a specialization in gifted and talented learning from Southern Methodist University. His wife, Paula, teaches third grade in the Lower School, and his daughters, Mara ’27 and Kennedy ’26, both attend Tower Hill. “I am looking forward to working with the talented Middle School faculty,” Hall said. “The Middle School strives for excellence each day, motivating each student to be their very best. I want my leadership style to contribute to a culture where students and teachers learn and grow every day. It is vital that we continue to send the message to students that Tower Hill is a place of deep caring, respect and Many Things Done Well.” Tower Hill Bulletin
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FACULTY FOCUS: JIM HAINE
PHYSICS TEACHER HELPS BRING ROBOTICS AND TOWER TERM TO UPPER SCHOOL BY AMY WOLF, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING
JIM HAINE says all teachers have a memory of their first experience teaching. For him, he remembers how brilliant and helpful his professors at Lebanon Valley College were, but he didn’t always understand what they were talking about. During his second year, he became a peer tutor for first-year students and vividly remembers being proud when students understood the material. “I don’t think physics is supposed to be tricky,” said Haine, who currently teaches Upper School physics, sixth grade physical science, robotics and engineering. “I don’t think physics is only for special people and special intellectuals. I think physics is something that everybody should be able to do, and as a teacher I can help people see that. When students are proud of themselves, it feels good.”
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Haine started teaching in 1992 and spent most of his career teaching physics at Wissahickon High School in Pennsylvania. He has also taught graduate courses at Chestnut Hill College, where he earned a master’s degree in applied technology and education. An opening for a long term substitute position is what led Haine to Tower Hill in 2017, but what kept him here, he said, was the flexibility to try new things. “Of course I need to teach the material so that students are prepared for their finals and know all the material that that kind of class should include, but I can do that in a style where I know the students are involved and where the students participate and where we have the facilities that allow us to try new
Haine was recently honored for his innovative approach to education. In January, he was one of 13 educators in Delaware to be recognized by University of Delaware Horn Entrepreneurship with an Innovative Delaware Educator Award, which provides a grant of up to $500 to be used toward an innovative project at school. Haine said his favorite part about teaching science is that his students become more aware of what’s going on around them. They realize why they took a math class and where some of those numbers and formulas go, and it teaches problem solving. “I can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t teach physics—it’s really the only important thing to teach,” he said, laughing. “One of the coolest things about physics is that it can always be related to the world around you, and everyone can look at it a little differently. I can teach the exact same material to 40 kids each year, and they all get something a little different out of it. I don’t know how many of them are going to go on to be engineers or scientists, but I know they’re all going to be better thinkers when they’re done.”
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things,” Haine said. “We get to do what we know is right for the kids.”
Haine also spearheads Tower Term, a mini-semester at the end of the school year that allows students and teachers to explore learning together in an interdisciplinary, experiential way. “The kids get to learn new skills or see something they never would have in any other class,” Haine said. “Best of all, the class was their choice, so they instantly buy into it because they selected the course they wanted.” Between teaching classes in two divisions, coaching robotics and coordinating Tower Term, there’s not much downtime in Haine’s day, but that’s what he loves about Tower Hill. “The best part of my job is being tired and feeling good about it,” he said. “Being tired because there are so many things going on. Knowing that the teachers here put in that much effort to things like Tower Term and their curriculars and all the extra things that we do here. Waiting to get up in the morning and get here as fast as I can and staying late at night if that’s what it takes. I’ve been tired at other jobs before and felt like it wasn’t with a meaning or with a purpose. Being tired and happy about it is kind of a special thing.”
Haine is also the coach of the Hiller Instinct robotics team, which is now in its second year. He takes the lead on the build team, which creates and constructs the machine itself, while assistant coach Bill Soistmann of the Computer Science Department helps students use Java to program and operate the robot. “[Being the robotics coach] lets me work with the students in a whole different way,” Haine said. “It’s a competition where every student can win. Every student gets better. Every student gets smarter. The students are exposed to a world of engineering and science that they might not otherwise have seen.” In both the classroom and in the robotics field, Haine says his teaching philosophy is to raise the bar for students and then help them make those achievements.
Jim Haine coaches the robotics team at the First Tech Challenge robotics competition held at Tower Hill in January.
“I think every student needs to be pushed,” he said. “I think every student can, with a little extra help, reach higher goals.”
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FACULTY FOCUS: JILL ZEHNER MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER SHARES LOVE OF READING WITH STUDENTS BY AMY WOLF, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING
JILL ZEHNER’S number one passion is reading, and she’s happy to read as much as she can and pass that passion along to her students. In fact, Zehner, who has taught at Tower Hill for 10 years, has taught every subject—but her heart is in English and reading.
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admission, so she grew up on a school campus. Because of that, she never thought she would be a teacher. She studied political science at Trinity College and was on the path to go to law school, but between leaving college and studying for the LSAT, she taught nursery school and loved it.
“I’ve always loved reading and writing,” said Zehner, who currently teaches fifth and sixth grade reading. “That’s where I feel the most confident in my own life, so I think that resonates well with the students.”
During graduate school at Lesley College, Zehner taught third and fifth grade. She loved the fifth grade age and never thought she would teach older than sixth grade. When she arrived at Tower Hill, the only job available was seventh and eighth grade English, grades she had never taught before.
Zehner comes from a family of educators. Her dad was a headmaster at the Eagle Hill School in Connecticut and her mom was a director of
“I went for it and was definitely nervous about the age but absolutely ended up loving the seventh and eighth grade world,” she said. “I don’t know why I
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The difference, Zehner said, between fifth grade readers at the beginning of the year and sixth grade readers at the end of the year is remarkable.
One of Zehner’s favorite units is Fractured Fairy Tales in fifth grade, during which students learn the elements of a fairy tale, “fracture” the tale by manipulating characters, setting or the plot, and then adapt the narrative to a script format.
“I like watching the kids come from fifth grade to the end of sixth grade to see how much they truly change as readers,” she said. “Because there are kids who are coming in fifth grade who are still learning to read, and then by the time you send them to the ‘junior high’ they’re critically analyzing literature, and to me that’s pretty amazing to see over the span of two years.”
“It is the perfect project for that age group,” Zehner said. “It’s challenging. Everybody plays a role. They have to step out of their comfort zones and be on stage. We teach every aspect of what’s important when you’re developing a character and a problem, plus it’s within the content of fairy tales, and everyone loves that genre, so it’s a crowd pleaser.” Zehner said one of the best things about teaching Middle School at Tower Hill is the advisory period, during which teachers and their small group of students—usually around nine kids—work on character education. The advisory period, which meets twice throughout the 10-day cycle, is especially important in fifth grade when students are learning how to navigate school life in their first year without a homeroom teacher. Zehner relates her role as advisor to that of a “dorm mom” throughout the day.
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was drawn initially—it was probably the job that was available—but now I can’t see myself anywhere other than this demographic, which is a crazy one.”
In her classroom, Zehner wants her students to feel that they are in a position to give their absolute best every day. She firmly believes in challenging kids and pushing them beyond where they think they can go. “If I can truly create lessons and create an environment where each kid is coming in and being challenged enough to give their absolute best and grow each day, then I feel job well done,” she said. “I’m all for rigor, but I want it to be a lot of fun as well. I want them to come to school excited about it.”
“We try to make it a safe space where the kids have eight other peers and a teacher who really are a family throughout the year,” she said. “In Middle School we like to think that they’re really interested in the educational piece, but the biggest piece for them is the social-emotional. We spend a lot of time role modeling different situations and how the students would react to that.” Zehner also loves how in fifth and sixth grade at Tower Hill, students take both reading and English separately. “There’s still so much more skills work to do in fifth and sixth grade that in order to get the kids where they need to be by seventh grade—which is critically analyzing, orally and in writing—they just don’t have the foundation to do that properly,” Zehner said. “They really still need that skills repetition and structure in order to be ready to move on and think more abstractly, and this foundation that they’re given in fifth and sixth grade really does the trick. Plus it just gives you more opportunity to read. Who wouldn’t think that’s a success story?”
Fifth graders perform their Fractured Fairy Tales, a unit during which students learn the elements of a fairy tale, “fracture” the tale by manipulating characters, setting or the plot, and then adapt the narrative to a script format. The unit is one of Zehner’s favorite projects in fifth grade reading and English.
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STUDENT VOICE: CLAIRE DIGNAZIO ’21 Q&A WITH TERESA MESSMORE, DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING
Claire Dignazio ’21 developed her talents in academics, tennis and singing at Tower Hill, while also trying various clubs and activities in true Multa Bene Facta fashion. After considering other schools in eighth grade, the student-teacher connection found at Tower Hill and her friendships inspired her to remain a Hiller.
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Photo by Erwin Chen ’20
the same season. It gets to be a lot of work, but it’s still doable and you can get everything that you want to get out of high school.
Also, definitely the Vocal Ensemble with Ms. [Zerrin] Martin. It’s been really amazing, and every year we progress compared to last year. I really like the music we do, too.
What was it like when a new crop of students came in ninth grade? The first two weeks, it was so interesting seeing all the new faces at school. My closest friends now came in either eighth or ninth grade—and obviously I still have some who have been here. I really liked having more kids, honestly. I loved my grade, but then it was really nice to have new people come in and experience everyone’s different perspectives and everything from coming in.
Which clubs and activities have you been involved with? I’m on the tennis team. I’ve been the first singles player since eighth grade, and that’s been a journey that’s had its ups and downs, but it’s really fun. I love tennis. I’m also a part of the Anthony Penna Charitable Fund with my friend Bella Mulford ’21, and then I’m in the Diversity Club and Young Democrats. I play field hockey in the fall, but my main sport is definitely tennis. That’s what takes up most of my time. And you’ve been in some plays? Oh, yeah! I’ve been in the shows every year since eighth grade. So Music Man, and then Little Shop, and last year I was in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. This year we’re doing Into the Woods, and I’m the Baker’s Wife. I love the music, and it’s really a great show—especially since I’m not, how do I say this, dance inclined. There’s not a lot of dancing in the show, which I love. Are there opportunities here at Tower Hill that you feel you might not have had at other schools? I really love the student-teacher connection I have at Tower Hill. Firstly, they’re so understanding if you do a lot of things. If you can’t take a test some day or something like that, it’s totally understood and you don’t fall behind. They’re very kind, and Dr. Brown always will video our classes if you’re sick so you can just catch right up that day. Also, I honestly feel so close with all my teachers. I’ve only been at Tower Hill, so I don’t know about the opportunities everywhere else, but I love that you can devote yourself to many things and do very well in all of them. It’s not like you only have the choice to be on a sports team and that takes up everything, you know? For example, the show and tennis season all happen in
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What have been some of your favorite classes at Tower Hill? I definitely have loved my calculus class with Mr. [Jack] Smith this year. He is such a good teacher, and he makes math fun. I really feel that I learn every day in that class something I hadn’t known the previous day. We were doing volumes of these crazy solids that I had no idea how to do, and then I walked out of class was like, “I’m a little more comfortable.” A lot of my classes are like that, really, such as chemistry. Dr. [Liz] Brown is amazing. In chemistry we’re using these formulas for integrated rate laws, and that came directly from calculus. We learned the calculus in our math class, and a month later I learned rate laws, and I thought, “Oh my gosh. It all makes sense!”
Sometimes eighth graders explore other high schools; why did you decide to stay? The community that I built from Middle School and the friends that I had were some of the determining factors. I love my friends, and I love the teachers, too. I shadowed Tower Hill’s Upper School, and I really liked that you had more freedom in high school. I toured some other schools, and they were good, but I just think that you can build really strong connections here at both the teacher and classmate level. And that’s what really got me to stay.
Have there been any surprises in your Tower Hill experience? Definitely the workload, in a good and bad way. I was expecting it to be difficult, and I remember eighth grade to ninth grade honestly wasn’t that hard of a transition, but I think that the high school workload and your own expectations grow exponentially. Being here, you just want to excel. So your workload will get heavier and bigger as you go on, but you learn to deal with it and you learn amazing study habits. You get through it, and then you’re a lot better because of it. Do you have any ideas about what you might be interested in doing after you graduate in terms of a college major or a career? I think I want to go into something with science, but I definitely want to continue learning musically and growing from that. I’m sure I could join an a cappella group or a choir in college, but then I want to pursue something in the sciences, whether it be medicine or chemistry. Is there anything else you would add? Honestly I would just say take any opportunities that are given to you. My freshman and sophomore years, I would be presented with something but I would be so nervous to do it—whether to go up and speak to the Upper School or sing the national anthem at one of our sports games. If you say yes and do it, you’ll be much better because of it. It helps making connections here, and it definitely enhances your experience. You have the ability to do so many things, so taking advantage of that is amazing here. Tower Hill Bulletin
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STUDENT VOICE: WES COLLEY ’21 Q&A WITH TERESA MESSMORE, DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING
Wes Colley ’21 joined Tower Hill as a freshman after excelling at Kuumba Academy Charter School. History, film production, public speaking and leadership are among his interests at Tower Hill, and he credits the school with broadening his academic and athletic horizons. What have been some of your favorite classes at Tower Hill? One of my favorites has to be my freshman year film class. I had always been into film and editing, so to then take that and be given the tools to do more with it—along with having actual time in a school class to do that—was something that was pretty fun. My favorite today would probably be the Modern Black America class with Mr. [Art] Hall. I went to a predominantly African American middle school, so coming here, there was definitely a culture change and a culture shock. I think getting that course this year allowed me to kind of live both sides of that culture shock again. I could relive what I learned about myself and loved about myself in middle school, and also build on what I have now in high school.
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Can you share a little bit more about your school experience before you were at Tower Hill, and what your transition was like? Fifth grade through eighth grade I went to Kuumba Academy, which is a predominantly black school. It focuses heavily on the seven principles of Kwanzaa— Umoja, Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba and Imani—which is funny that I still remember that. Someone else who went to Kuumba—Angel Pedraza ’23, who is a freshman—and I were laughing about how when we first got there, we never thought that we would memorize all of those, but now we know them like the back of our hand. I think going to a school like that is great for many different reasons. It exposes you to so many different people. People get bused in from all over the place—all over Delaware, all over Wilmington. Most of the people that I knew in fifth
When I came to Tower Hill, it was almost like a sense of pressure knowing that I was the only kid who had come from there. It kind of made me feel like, “OK, I have to do well because I did so well there,” and there’s that expectation of “Well, we’re sending you off. You need to represent.” That added a little more pressure to just the overall freshman year pressure. It makes you question yourself, you know: “Am I really what I think I am when it comes to intelligence?” Then you get to that sophomore year, and you get that reassurance of, “OK, this is starting to make sense.” And then now I’m in my junior year, and my grades are the highest they’ve been while I’ve been here. So it takes a while for you to get there, but once you get there you kind of start to understand, “OK, I understand why I’m here again.” It refreshes the excitement you got when you first came here. Once you arrived at Tower Hill, which clubs or activities did you gravitate toward? Freshman year soccer was so much fun. That’s something that I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere else because I wouldn’t have played a sport anywhere else, but the sports requirement here forced me to play it. I don’t play it now, but the experience helped me with that weird transition from middle school to high school. A lot of the seniors took me under their wing, especially Bo Anderson ’18. We talked last night—we still talk almost every day. So I think that it also builds partnerships that last a lifetime. It just makes it easier, that way the first day of school you do know people. It’s not like you’re just sitting in the corner wondering, “OK, who am I going to talk to?” You know people. Something else was the B+ Club, which is really close to me because my grandma passed from cancer. I know that the B+ Club focuses mainly on childhood cancer, but any way that I feel like I can help to prevent anyone from dealing with it, I feel like I’m helping. How did you get involved with the National Association of Independent Schools’ Student Leadership Diversity Conference (SDLC), and what was that experience like? I’ve always been a very talkative person. I always enjoyed public speaking back at Kuumba. Public speaking kind of became my thing. So then that translated over to [Tower Hill’s] Community Conversations. For me, it was a little bit easier to articulate what I wanted to say. Since freshman year, I
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grade, I knew in eighth grade. So you grow up with these people; you learn with these people.
think there’s been only one Community Conversation where I haven’t spoken at least once, so I guess that caught Ms. [Director of Social Justice Dyann] Connor’s attention. She asked me if I was interested in the SDLC, and I talked to some of the people who had done it in the past, and they said it was a really fun experience, so I said, “Yeah, I’ll go.” That was an eye opening experience. Some of the skills I learned I don’t think I would have learned had I not gone. I don’t know when I would have ever come into contact with some of that stuff. In what ways was it eye opening? Just to see how many people were comfortable with themselves. Like we did something called a silent movement, which is where all the students— over a thousand students—were in one room in a convention center. It was completely silent, and it was just, “Stand if you agree with whatever we say.” So, they went over different identifiers like sexual preference, how do you identify racially? To see how many people were comfortable with themselves was great. What I’ll give Tower Hill its props on is when my group came back, we met with Mrs. [Head of School Bessie] Speers and voiced our opinions and our ideas on what we could do. Tiffany Lynch-Faulkner ’21’s idea was, “What if we did a Delaware SDLC?” So that’s something that we’re trying to get into the works, and Tower Hill would maybe host it. What do you like to do outside of school? And what about after Tower Hill? I do Season of Service. So we go over to Eisenberg Elementary and help tutor the kids—fourth and fifth graders. That’s pretty fun, just to see and the relationships that you build with them. As you spend more time with them, the more they open up to you. Yet again that kind of gave me another tie back to Kuumba, because it’s a very similar school. So to be able to help them with what I’ve kind of already lived, if that makes sense, that was pretty fun. I’m also a big Marvel movie fan. I find myself helping people when they have video projects, so I could see myself going into editing or maybe even film production. But I also thought about going to college for business.
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HAPPY AND HEALTHY HILLERS LOWER SCHOOL EXPANDS HEALTH AND WELLNESS CURRICULUM
BY LOWER SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST AMY CUDDY, PH.D., AND SCHOOL NURSE LEXY HERBEIN, M.S.N., R.N., P.C.C.N.
AS THE LOWER SCHOOL psychologist and school nurse, we know it’s important for students as young as 3 to learn about the essential players in their Tower Hill wellness education. Be it the physical education teachers, athletic trainers, cafeteria staff or security personnel, our youngest students are learning about those individuals who take a role in providing daily support, safety and health education in various ways throughout the school. Through visual aids, role plays, scavenger hunts, activities and student contributions, the youngest Hillers are laying a foundation for their own health and well-being as the newest members of the Tower Hill community. These instructional moments also serve as the building blocks on which students will broaden their physical, emotional and social well-being as they progress through the Lower School program and beyond. Via intentional and direct classroom instruction, we are meeting with students in Tower Tots through fourth grade for trimester-based lessons focused on matters ranging from personal safety to healthy decision making. In the preschool, our focus is on expected and appropriate behavior within a school community and learning how to become a safe and healthy member of the class. Working in partnership
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with Nemours Children’s Health System, our oldest preschoolers will also expand their learning and decision making to the world outside the classroom. As we progress through the primary grades, students will be exposed to concepts centered on identification of healthy people and healthy behaviors, how to establish healthy habits for themselves and which factors could interfere with positive decision making. The culmination of these efforts will encourage our fourth graders to assume leadership and advocacy roles as they identify ways to promote prosocial behavior in their peers and their school community. These themes are also being reiterated during Lower School specials to further enhance students’ internalization and comprehension of concepts. Be it learning the names of various emotions in Spanish class, the function of different muscle groups in P.E. or the rehearsal of refusal behaviors in theater class, the faculty is engaged in cross-curricular collaboration to establish and practice health promoting behaviors for all. The expanded health curriculum is committed to developing core concepts as provided by the Delaware Department of Education that will set
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Left to right: School nurse Lexy Herbein uses a black light to show kindergartners the benefits of washing hands; Herbein and Lower School psychologist Amy Cuddy conduct an interactive lesson with third graders; Cuddy speaks to PreK students about wellness.
a foundation for promoting health enhancing behaviors among our students. It also helps students understand how to achieve and maintain a healthy lifestyle and fosters skills for self-efficacy to help students make informed decisions and avoid high risk behaviors. Health is an ever changing and evolving field that requires a dynamic curricular framework. At Tower Hill, we aim to provide a continuum of learning for our prekindergarten through 12th grade students. Standards of learning provide each division with a guide for creating structured learning experiences in health education. Our overall goals include the following: •
•
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Students will demonstrate the knowledge to make decisions that reduce health risks, increase health enhancing behaviors and learn skills to foster a positive self-concept. Students will develop attitudes, attributes and skills that foster effective responsibility and decision making for maintaining personal health and protection, as well as family and community health. Students will identify internal and external factors that influence health practices and behaviors, including personal values, beliefs and
perceived norms to recognize the impact of family, peers, culture, media and technology on their choices. The inaugural year of Lower School health is focused on providing baseline knowledge to promote healthy living in our youngest students, as we strive to advance our schoolwide commitment to educating the whole child. The demands of the 21st century require that schools take a new approach to preparing students for lifelong habits of self awareness and self care. By focusing on the whole child tenets advocated by the Association for Supervision in Curriculum Development, we can ensure that our students enter school feeling healthy and strong and that they establish a healthy lifestyle during their time at Tower Hill. We can guarantee that our students learn in an environment that is physically and emotionally safe for them and that they are then able to carry these lessons into the future as they become responsible citizens in their college careers and beyond.
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Juniors tour the University of Delaware as part of Winterim in January 2020.
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WINTERIM
“MINI TERM” OF THEMATIC PROGRAMMING NEW TO UPPER SCHOOL BY MEGAN COVER, HEAD OF UPPER SCHOOL
AS A SCHOOL, Tower Hill is committed to the development of the whole child in mind, body and spirit. We pride ourselves on rigorous academics, competitive athletics and creative arts while recognizing that student mental and physical well-being are an important part of Multa Bene Facta. In this vein, we have spent the past two years implementing a revised and enhanced health program in our freshman seminar, 10th grade health and peer leadership coupled with the addition of Winterim. Winterim is a dedicated period within our academic program that focuses thematically on the following areas: well-being, service, self advocacy, the college admission process and life skills. In these sessions, age-appropriate activities help students prepare for healthy, happy and successful lives while at Tower Hill and beyond.
WINTERIM COURSES: 2019-2020 9th Grade: Self Awareness and Self Care Students learned about the following topics: ethics, entrepreneurship, goal setting, disappointment and growth, the brain, affirmative consent, mental health and self care. They focused on the importance of movement through yoga and play. This session is aligned with the yearlong freshman seminar course. The purpose of the freshman seminar is to help ninth grade students understand Tower Hill’s mission and how it applies to each student as an individual; provide a forum to help students know themselves in order to grow as Upper School students and beyond; and provide students with a space in which to process their freshman year experiences as they occur. This course follows the Expectations of a Hiller: Be Proud, Be Present, Be Professional, Be Proactive. Topics include study skills, introduction to the college counseling process and preparing for college, body image, drug and alcohol education, decision education, stress and coping skills, mental health and wellness, and the brain. 10th Grade: Sophomore Service The Office of Service Learning provides 10th grade students with an introduction to the importance of community service in the Wilmington area. Throughout their experience, students discuss their goals and expectations. Small groups volunteered at one of the following community sites: Head Start, Ronald McDonald House of Delaware, Tick Tock Early Learning Center, Lutheran Community Services, Habitat for Humanity, Ingleside
Homes, Waggies by Maggie & Friends, West End Neighborhood House, Mom’s House and the Mary Campbell Center. Winterim is spent with nonprofits on projects that meet the needs of the particular agency, and all agencies provide an orientation to students. All students end each day to debrief collectively and reflect upon their experience. 11th Grade: Junior Kick Off to the College Admission Process The Office of College Counseling provides students with an overview of “The College Visit” process. They focus on how to approach the college information session and tour. The group discusses valuable questions to ask when visiting a college, what to observe on the tour and how to go “beyond admissions” to gain valuable insight into the personality of a campus. They put this training into action by visiting three college campuses representing three different “types” of schools. Following the visits, college counselors review what students learned and discuss how to apply this experience to their own college searches. 12th Grade: Life Skills The transition from senior year of high school to college and beyond is one marked by a number of new responsibilities and opportunities. One of the most challenging emotional shifts is that, for the first time for many, post high school life is driven by personal choice. Choices about what classes to take, when/where/how/if to do schoolwork, where to travel, what sort of employment to seek, what types of relationships to engage in, how to allocate budgets— and the list goes on. Because our seniors will be faced with a world of choices after leaving Tower Hill, the senior Winterim is based around individual choice in content that will arm them with tools to make sound decisions in the future. Seniors have chosen their favorites from a course catalog offered by faculty and visiting experts including “Fake News:” Being Savvy about Numbers, the Media and Psychological Manipulation; Cooking; Budget/Credit; Sexual Health and Wellness; Intuitive Eating; Goal Setting/Vision Boards; and others. All seniors are required to take three sessions: Consent, Mental Health and “Failure is Coming.” In addition to longer sessions, we will offer “mini sessions” for students to quickly learn skills like changing a tire, registering to vote and voting by absentee ballot, and mindfulness practice. Tower Hill Bulletin
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SOCIAL INNOVATORS
HANNAH PACHALIS ’21 LAUNCHES FOOD AND CLOTHING DRIVE THROUGH SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROGRAM AT TOWER HILL Q&A WITH AMY WOLF, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING
Hannah Pachalis ’21 created the Zancudo Project, a charitable organization that benefits families in Colombia, as part of the Social Innovators Program at Tower Hill. The social entrepreneurship class began in the fall of 2018 through a partnership with the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Schoolyard Ventures, an organization that develops university-level, real-world learning opportunities for high school students. What is the Zancudo Project? The Zancudo Project is a charitable organization that focuses on benefiting the lives of impoverished families in El Zancudo, Colombia. I created this organization through a social entrepreneurship program offered at Tower Hill, the Social Innovators Program. How did you come up with the idea for the Zancudo Project? My whole life my family has emphasized the importance of doing good for others. My mom is originally from Colombia, and she came to the U.S. by herself. We visit Colombia often to see family, and through these countless trips I’ve been exposed
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to the harsh realities of the lives of some of the people who live there. In Colombia the poverty rate is 13%, more than double the poverty rate in the United States. My grandmother began collecting donations from family a while ago and donated them to some of these poverty stricken communities. My grandmother’s work inspired me, and I wanted to follow my grandmother in her efforts to help these impoverished families. How did your Christmas collection drive go? How much did you collect? My drive was very successful thanks to the strong support given by the Wilmington community. I collected a little more than 675 pounds of clothing
Why did you decide to collect clothes and toys for the village of El Zancudo specifically? El Zancudo, Colombia, is a place that needs particular help. There is an isolated village in the mountains with a high concentration of these impoverished families. I found out about this community through a family friend who used to live in the village. How did the Social Innovators Program at Tower Hill help you with the project? During the Social Innovators Program, our instructors supported me in the process of creating the Zancudo Project. The program challenged me to grow my innovating skills, make decisions, test my ideas and to take on the responsibility of leading my own project. Throughout the 13-week program, I was guided by my instructors through the process of turning my idea into a reality. Do you plan to continue the project after the class is over? Graduation from the Social Innovators Program occurred on Nov. 24, 2019. Since the end of the program, I have brought in an additional 315 pounds of donations, and I’m excited to keep that number growing! What are some of your goals for expanding the Zancudo Project? I would love to have this organization grow to be able to help families in other impoverished areas in Colombia. My main goal is to focus more on fundraising in order to provide financial assistance for these families. What other service learning activities have you been a part of at Tower Hill? During both my freshman and sophomore years I was involved in Season of Service, an opportunity to give back to Wilmington nonprofits by tutoring and mentoring local children. In my freshman year I dedicated my time to Serviam Academy, an all-girls middle school, where I was given the opportunity to tutor the girls and create a Spanish program as an after school option. My sophomore year I committed my time to the Hope Educational Resource Center at Eisenberg Elementary, where I continued to tutor students after school. For my winter Tower Term in my sophomore year, I was given the opportunity to spend a week at Lutheran Community Services, a
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and toy donations and $1,675 to go toward shipping the donations down to Colombia.
nonprofit that serves low income families. My peers and I spent the week helping out in the food pantry, giving out clothing and starting a garden. Why do you think it’s important to give back, both locally and globally? The community service activities I’ve been involved with have enabled me to help others while simultaneously growing as a leader and as a person. I’ve learned that by giving back, one can create a positive impact on both the world and themselves. As best summarized by Tony Robbins, “The secret to living is giving.”
NURTURING INNOVATION The Social Innovators Program at Tower Hill began in the fall of 2018 through a partnership with the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Schoolyard Ventures, an organization that develops university-level, real-world learning opportunities for high school students. The program guides students in launching ventures of their own that create value and positive impact on society. Upon completion of the course, which has both in-person and virtual components, students earn a Certificate in Social Entrepreneurship from the University of Pennsylvania. Other ventures created by Tower Hill students include a turban business for Sikh teens to find turbans that match their styles, a nonprofit business that pairs students with service organizations that match their interests, and a news site that compares articles from various news organizations.
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OF THE WORLD
KINDERGARTEN INVITES PARENTS TO SHARE GLOBAL EXPERIENCES BY DEB STUEBING, LOWER SCHOOL FACULTY
HOW DO the young minds of Tower Hill kindergartners “travel around the world” and gain a global appreciation for the world outside the walls of their classrooms? Our kindergarten program has had a longstanding tradition of studying not only modes of transportation, location and geography of each continent, but also different cultures by partnering with parents to deliver authentic learning experiences for our students.
incorporated more parent participation throughout the entire school year, dependent upon the holidays celebrated in our classrooms. Homa Sabet Tavangar and Becky Mladic-Morales, authors of The Global Education Toolkit for Elementary Learners, state, “Building intercultural skills does not happen in a vacuum of a single lesson or a single week but rather through meaningful exchanges and activities taking place throughout the academic year.”
Throughout the school year, we invite parents into the classroom to share presentations about their family’s culture, traditions and celebrations. This particular unit of study sparks excitement and curiosity for our children, as they have a genuine desire to learn about the world and how people from other countries live, speak, dress and play. Having direct dialogue in the classroom about their own cultural identity and that of others is pivotal in building the framework for kindergartners understanding that we are all different. It also teaches our students, at an impressionable young age, the valuable lessons of respect, inclusion and kindness toward others.
Our focus lies in recognizing the similarities and appreciating the differences within each of our students’ families. Learning about their traditions and customs affords our youngsters a much broader understanding of their community and the world around them. Kindergarten is also the year in which Lower School students officially begin the Passport Program, where students have the opportunity to focus on a different region of the world in each grade. Our area of focus is the Asia-Pacific region. The Passport Program dovetails perfectly with our travel study, as families have often shared their stories of origin and ties to this specific area. Additionally, we end each school year with a culminating World’s Fair Day, gathering as a Lower School to share our different countries through the activities and projects we have created.
As educators, we continually tweak our craft to enhance our teaching. In kindergarten, we have evolved into the 21st century with a strong growth mindset and 30
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Thanks to many of our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, we have “visited” a variety of countries, including Germany, Great Britain, Nepal, India, Morocco, Thailand, Egypt and Argentina, just to name a few. Having a grandparent in the room sharing stories and traditions brings another level of “wisdom” to our students. It is a proud moment for the child to witness both their parent and grandparent together offering a connection to their cultural heritage and family history in front of their classmates.
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In October, we gathered as a kindergarten to celebrate Diwali with Monica Patel and Krupa Joshi, whose daughters Diya Patel ’32 and Vinaya Joshi ’32 were excited to share the making of rangoli art, Bollywood dancing and eating shakarpara, a special homemade treat. It was such a wonderful experience for our students to see firsthand their peers having conversations about family traditions and customs that bring them joy each year. The personal sharing of cultural practices and stories are invaluable; it’s something we as teachers can’t read from a chapter book, nor capture from a video clip. Each family offers such a unique perspective and an authentic glimpse into their own heritage.
He created a challenging trivia game for students to learn about the pertinent areas of Germany. Mrs. Vargas dressed in her German Bavarian clothing and brought a variety of chocolates for Mia’s classmates to sample. We also traveled to India and Nepal with Aarav Parmar ’31’s mother and father as they shared a PowerPoint presentation with our students. Aarav’s father, Rishabh, was able to connect us with the Mind Tree School in India; the students sent us wonderful postcards sharing the various monuments and landscapes of India, while our students wrote back to them about prominent places in the United States. It was a fun way of connecting globally with others and integrating writing into our program. The partnership with our parents and families is the key to making the program work so well. What my kindergarten colleagues and I appreciate most is the way the program gives our young students exposure to the world around them, offering them a “personal connection” to their peers and family celebrations. This cultivates the foundation for a strong community: one of respect, inclusivity and understanding.
Brooke Vargas, the mother of Mia Vargas ’31, last year set up a Skype video chat with her brother living in Germany.
CELEBRATING DIWALI
“While growing up, we were lucky enough to celebrate our holidays and festivals and feel the excitement as if we were in India. We wanted our children to learn what we had been taught by our parents. What better way to do this than to teach them with their peers. We wanted them to feel comfortable and confident about our Indian heritage and embrace our background. If peers show excitement to learn, they will, in turn, feel the excitement to learn from us so they can share with their peers. By sharing with the kindergarten class the five days of Diwali, making rangolis, trying some homemade Indian sweets and learning a dance step or two, both Vinaya and Diya felt special in sharing something new.” —Monica Patel and Krupa Joshi
SKYPING IN GERMANY “Mia’s uncle was living in Germany and has many stories to share. Tower Hill was able to connect with him live from class and project him right on the SMART Board in class. He was able to teach them German words with laughter, show them culturally significant landmarks, food, clothes and most importantly, chocolate! Being able to connect such an important person in my daughter’s life outside of school to the children in class where they would not normally be able to connect was a blessing. We improvised where we could and had a wonderful interactive meet and greet with laughter, learning and memories.” —Brooke Vargas
EXPERIENCING MEXICAN CULTURE “The students’ curiosity and engagement through the handson presentation was very inspirational for me. It makes me feel really hopeful about the future of the U.S. to see kids having such an interest in diverse cultures. They were not just observers; they were actively experiencing Mexican culture. Each kid had a chance to make tortillas in the traditional Mexican way and utilize a “molcajete,” the traditional Mexican version of the mortar and pestle. My daughter was dressed in typical Mexican clothes and helping me facilitate. She was excited about sharing part of her cultural heritage.” —Nati Tello Bernabe
LEARNING ABOUT INDIA AND NEPAL “Last year my husband [Rishabh Parmar] and I were invited to give a presentation about our native countries, India and Nepal, respectively. We prepared a PowerPoint with pictures and also carried local currency for the class to touch and feel. Thanks to Mrs. Stuebing and Mrs. Gillerlain, we both felt it was a great initiative for kids to learn about new countries and cultures as it was a very interactive session with a lot of questions from the curious minds of kindergartners.” —Sirin Pandey
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PARENT AFFINITY GROUP SUPPORTS DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION AT TOWER HILL BY DYANN CONNOR, DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION, in all aspects of identity, broaden and enhance the educational experience. Varied perspectives are a source of strength, creativity, enrichment and renewal in the Tower Hill community. These values are found in both our mission statement and in our institutional goals. Tower Hill School embraces a broad definition of diversity that acknowledges the many ways each of us is unique, including—but not limited to—our various talents, perspectives, goals, ethnicities, identities and religions. With this broad definition in mind, we work collaboratively as a school community to ensure all of our students and families feel welcomed. A partner in this effort is Tower Hill’s Home and School Association, which oversees several parent committees.
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One of Tower Hill’s newest parent committees is DISTINCT (Diversity and Inclusion at Tower Hill), which was established in 2017 by co-chairs Suchi Iyengar and Julia Stone to “organize social and community-building activities to promote the fellowship of parents who advocate for the benefits of diversity in education at Tower Hill School.” DISTINCT’s membership has grown quickly to nearly 200 members today. Parent volunteers who are members of DISTINCT have been actively involved in a variety of ways to support schoolwide social justice events and programming. This year’s DISTINCT co-chairs, Nadia Belkadi and Suzanne Ashley, have worked to offer several educational activities and events for Tower Hill parents. One is a series of educational workshops about equity and inclusion called SEED (Seeking
PROGRAMS Clockwise from left: DISTINCT co-chair Suzanne Ashley, DISTINCT co-chair Nadia Belkadi, PAATH co-chair Yvonne Deadwyler and Director of Social Justice Dyann Connor; Connor and Ann Sullivan, Lower School librarian and equity and inclusion coordinator, lead a SEED (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) workshop for parent leaders; Rick Deadwyler, James Allen and Julia Stone; Head of School Bessie Speers speaks to parents at the PAATH and DISTINCT fall social at Hayward House.
Educational Equity and Diversity) for parents, similar to the annual SEED training that new Tower Hill teachers receive. The SEED sessions hosted over 15 parents in the 1919 Auditorium. In November, DISTINCT hosted a “Mindfulness and Social Justice” event for parents with topics on mindful listening and reconciliation in our communities and families, focusing on how mindful communication can promote greater inclusion at school. The mindfulness event was led by me as Director of Social Justice; Andrea Sarko, Middle School History teacher and Tower Hill parent; and Carmen Martinez, Middle School Spanish teacher and equity and inclusion coordinator.
Working together as a school community, DISTINCT has contributed to our mission as a school that “prepares students from diverse backgrounds for full and creative engagement with a dynamic world.”
DISTINCT has also worked collaboratively with the Social Justice Program and our Religious and Cultural Committee to celebrate diversity at Tower Hill. Members of both DISTINCT and PAATH (Parents of African Americans at Tower Hill) helped created Winter Holiday tables displaying Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa celebrations. They have also coordinated with PAATH and Tower Hill on our annual MLK Day of Service in January and the Black History Dinner and speaker event held every year in February.
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Barbara Oakley, Ph.D., spoke to faculty about the neuroscience of learning at THE Collaboratory in August.
THE COLLABORATORY THE MODEL FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT BY ANDREA GLOWATZ, DEAN OF TEACHING AND LEARNING
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Professional Development at Tower Hill School Many of us, myself included, would be disconcerted if we found out that our dentists, physicians, lawyers and accountants squandered opportunities to augment their skills and knowledge each year. An increasing number of professions rely on up-to-date training, and in schools the need for teachers to expand the breadth and depth of their skill sets is no different.
professional development, collaboration and clarity.” The noble commitment to ongoing professional development at Tower Hill, evinced by the countless hours of school supported training opportunities that educators seek out for themselves in their respective disciplines, is also endorsed by the founding of our Teaching and Learning Center (TLC) in 2016, and more recently, by the introduction of Tower Hill Educators’ (THE) Collaboratory in August 2019.
For educators, professional development (PD) is par for the course, not only to ensure quality instruction, but also to address the challenges that individual students face when they have difficulty responding to quality instruction. Tower Hill School is set apart from other institutions because professional growth permeates all initiatives embedded in our strategic plan: “We are committed to a positive, outwardfocused, growth mindset whereby professional conversation about teaching and learning is a priority and the norm in both informal and deliberate venues, and whereby there is a renewed investment in
THE Collaboratory’s Raison D’être The founding of THE Collaboratory came about as a response to teacher feedback over the preceding two years. Until its inception, professional development was certainly plentiful and accessible thanks to the work of the Faculty Development Committee, the department chairs and division heads who facilitated professional exchanges, and the administrators who arranged for speakers on in-service days, but there was no distinct, bespoke program to enthuse and infuse educators. We wanted to invite outsiders to share their wisdom with us, and at the same time,
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Designing THE Collaboratory: A Team Effort Planning for THE Collaboratory began in September 2018 with the Student Support Team, which included school psychologists Amy Cuddy, Ph.D., and Lauren Lineback, Psy.D., and teaching and learning specialists Samantha Spruance, Jessica Douglass, Mary Jane Martin and Kristin McKenney. When it was time for the team to aptly name this event, Cuddy suggested that we call it a “collaboratory” because, by definition, a collaboratory is a room without walls that enables dialogue between researchers who are known and unknown to each other. This event was designed to help us tear down any proverbial walls and see beyond the confines of our classrooms/offices into the teaching practices, beliefs and work of other colleagues at THS. Our Esteemed Guest Aug. 27, 2019, was a day of meaningful professional development for Tower Hill educators. It was our great privilege to welcome Barbara Oakley, Ph.D., as our keynote presenter. Oakley, a bestselling author, professor of engineering at Oakland University, Distinguished Scholar of Global Digital Learning at McMaster University and researcher of bioengineering with an emphasis on neuroscience and cognitive psychology, shared her unorthodox path to engineering, which included failing math classes all through elementary, middle and high school. Enrolling in a remedial algebra class after enlisting in the U.S. Army, learning Russian and serving as a Russian translator while stationed on the Bering Sea, was her first step toward a doctorate in engineering. At this pivotal time, Oakley realized that she could apply the same skills she used when learning Russian to her mathematics studies. Those skills, coupled with new discoveries in neuroscience, were the cornerstone of her keynote presentation—and unsurprisingly, they complemented each other. Oakley took us on an odyssey of information processing, highlighting “focused and diffuse modes
PROGRAMS
we wanted to tap our greatest resources: our own faculty members. We wanted a bridge to expertise beyond our walls, and we wanted to highlight the artful way in which Tower Hill School educators design and implement lessons. We wanted a collective understanding of the complexities of teaching and learning, and we wanted individual teachers to have an opportunity to explore specific topics—topics that are perhaps indigenous to their particular content areas, interests and/or levels. Thus, the convergence of in-house talent with the empirical knowledge of a special guest evolved as our template for this unique day of PD.
of thinking” and explaining why it is so important for educators to debrief and review, practices that are necessary for new information to leave the hippocampus and enter the neocortex of the brain. She delineated the difference between following content and understanding content and pointed out that “illusions of competence” are the chief reason why students think they’re ready for an assessment and then perform poorly on it. Oakley outlined the need to mute the music when doing math or studying because it taxes the working memory unnecessarily, and she emphasized that to date, the only known way to address working memory difficulties is to build one’s long-term memory. Perhaps the most validating jewel of the day was when Oakley lauded the THS program by reminding us that “true and deep understanding comes with the mastery gained through practice.”
Our Esteemed Educators Neuroscience may not get everyone’s dendrites in a tizzy, so THE Collaboratory offered 24 other workshops that afternoon, all facilitated by our own inspired faculty and staff members. Seminar topics included Socratic discussion techniques; traumainformed schools; differentiating for introversion, extroversion, shyness and anxiety; the Constitutional underpinnings for America’s political culture; collaboration in the digital age; PE without the gym; the Reggio-Emilia philosophy for young children; creating a democratic climate in the classroom; and executive functioning tools, to name just a few. A debt of gratitude goes to the Tower Hill educators who facilitated these afternoon seminars. Similarly, we appreciate the generous efforts of Cuddy and the Art Department for organizing a beautiful collaborative project to commemorate the Centennial. People, Programs and Partnerships The upshot of well-designed, deliberate PD for educators is an undeniable ripple effect that touches countless students in days and years to come, and the success of THE Collaboratory as a longstanding program hinges on people and partnerships. Our educators, truly outstanding individuals with regard to content knowledge and pedagogy, are the backbone of this initiative. Gifts allocated for faculty development, however, are the back brace that warmly supports tradition and innovation. Partnership with Tower Hill community members has an impact more far-reaching than we can imagine. I would venture to say that programs like THE Collaboratory are due to “verifiable competence,” and my gratitude on behalf of Tower Hill School students is simply boundless.
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HOW YOU LEAD MATTERS
ANDREA TRIPPITELLI VALENTINE ’89’S NONPROFIT DEVELOPING LEADERSHIP AT THS BY AMY WOLF, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING
WHEN YOU’RE the executive director of a nonprofit, there’s no such thing as a typical day. That statement stands true for Andrea Trippitelli Valentine ’89, the executive director of Strive: How You Lead Matters, an educational nonprofit that provides character-driven leadership development, social-emotional learning and culture building for Middle School through college students, educators and coaches.
once, she’s typically out visiting program sites, ensuring her team has everything it needs and troubleshooting any problems. In the fall and winter, her days are usually focused on reviewing the evaluation results from Strive’s spring and summer work, assessing the priorities for the coming year and meeting with partners—other nonprofits, funding organizations and private donors.
“Leading a small education nonprofit, you wear a lot of different hats,” Valentine said. “A lot of my work involves developing the staff and supporting their efforts as well as developing relationships in support of our programs throughout the community. I also make sure we have a good sense as to what some of the important issues are in the community so that we’re able to best support and meet the needs of the different people we serve.”
“We’re a small team, and we all have different priorities each day,” Valentine said. “I love being able to work with a team of people who are equally committed to our mission, who care deeply about not just what we do but the quality of what we do, and that we have the opportunity to share what we do with other people.”
Valentine said her schedule is different every day and is usually driven by the time of the year. In the spring and summer, when Strive has multiple programs running at
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Valentine hasn’t always worked in the nonprofit sector. She started her career at MBNA, where she worked for 13 years and was able to get handson experience in every area of an organization. It was there where she learned what it takes for an organization to grow and thrive, and she was also
When she learned about the opportunity to lead Strive, she had been on the nonprofit’s board for about a year. “I was and am very fortunate for my educational and professional experiences and knew they had played an important role in shaping who I am today,” said Valentine, who attended Haverford College. “Strive works with organizations and students to accomplish those same things. Working to find new and innovative ways to ensure all students have the opportunity to develop as leaders is very inspiring to me.” One of the primary issues Valentine and her team at Strive face is reducing teen violence in the community by partnering with other nonprofits in Wilmington such as The Teen Warehouse in Riverside—of which Strive is a founding partner—the Boys & Girls Club of Delaware, Dual School, Delaware Futures, LYTE and GameChangers. “Wilmington has one of the highest rates of teen violence in the country,” Valentine said. “There is a lot of work being done to reverse this trend. At Strive, in addition to the programs we run, we’re working with other youth serving organizations, foundations and employers in the community to better engage and connect teens to existing programs and services, as well as get the teens’ help in identifying gaps in services and programs.” Strive has also partnered with schools around the country, including Tower Hill, to bring characterdriven leadership skills to students in middle school through college.
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exposed to the role that culture plays in building a lasting organization. From there, she took that experience and spent about 10 years with Teaching Strategies, an early childhood education company in Washington, D.C.
Every day, Valentine works in some capacity to help students, and she does it because others have helped her throughout her entire educational and professional careers. “At every stage of my life, whether as a student or in the business world, there have been people who went out of their way to help me,” she said. “Sometimes it was seeing potential in me that I didn’t see in myself. Sometimes they were just naturally kind and made a habit of helping people like me navigate new challenges. In each case, I was grateful for the positive impact that person had on the trajectory of my career.” She also believes that leadership is a practice, and that with the right training and mentoring, anyone can become a better leader. “This is the work we do at Strive: We teach young people the skills they need to become better leaders as well as help adults create cultures in which leadership skills can develop,” she said. Many of Valentine’s leadership skills stemmed from her experiences as a student at Tower Hill, where she attended 10th through 12th grade. “I came into Tower Hill not believing that I was good at math and not ever having played field hockey before,” she said. “I didn’t see my potential, but I had teachers and coaches who saw my potential and believed in me in ways that I didn’t believe in myself at the time. I ended up playing field hockey in college, being an economics minor and pursuing business. If you’d told me in 10th grade that’s what I’d be doing, I wouldn’t have believed you. For me, my Tower Hill experience was really special, and in many ways it inspires me to do what I’m doing today.”
For the past two years, Tower Hill student athletes have attended Strive’s Sports Challenge program, a residential summer leadership academy for high school student athletes. This past year Strive also supported Tower Hill’s Winterim and Tower Term sessions, as well as the rising ninth grade Bridge Program. “Our work during these sessions ranges from helping to build community and a set of shared values within a particular grade to facilitating activities focused on helping students better understand what resilience looks like in their everyday life and how to strengthen team dynamics,” Valentine said.
A Strive: How You Lead Matters workshop facilitator leads an activity with rising freshmen as part of the ninth grade Bridge Program in June 2019.
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Ankur Arya, LYTE’s founder, and Destiny Smith ’20, a former LYTE Scholar who will attend Cornell University in the fall.
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PARTNERSHIPS
LYTE
LEADING YOUTH THROUGH EMPOWERMENT PARTNERS WITH TOWER HILL BY ALEXANDRA KARLESSES, ADMISSION ASSOCIATE
DESTINY SMITH ’20 didn’t know what four years at Tower Hill had in store for her. But her passion and foundation of commitment to education led her from being a ninth grader new to Tower Hill to a recently accepted student at Cornell University. Smith is a graduate of the Leading Youth Through Empowerment (LYTE) program, an organization to which Tower Hill is reaffirming its commitment in order to bridge a more permanent partnership between students and the independent school community. Established in 2013, LYTE’s mission is to help highachieving students from low-income neighborhoods successfully navigate the admissions processes of topperforming high schools and colleges. “The students here, they were all applying to the same schools,” said Ankur Arya, LYTE’s founder. “It wasn’t a lack of desire at all on the kids’ part. They just needed the tools to go on to these really academically challenging programs.” The mission is personal for Arya, who attended Episcopal Academy in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, on a scholarship and played tennis when Bessie Speers was coaching. When he returned to teach at Thomas Edison Charter School in Wilmington, he realized the growing problem. “I saw there was a huge disparity in the education I was receiving,” he said. The students participating in LYTE come from Title I schools, which usually see larger concentrations of students from low-income families. In addition to providing application assistance, the program also meets four days a week after school and provides coaching for the selected participants through the rigorous expectations of independent school testing. LYTE Scholars, as they are called, also stay in touch with their program after they are accepted to their high school, all the way through graduation. Program coordinators typically check in with their students every three weeks. “We have several students at Tower Hill who are members of this program, as well as several alumni,” Director of Alumni Relations Matthew Twyman ’88 said. “I think it’s very beneficial for the students and their families in terms of trying to understand the process. I think it just helps
level the playing field by offering information and insight in navigating that whole process.” Twyman recognizes the challenges that await these students who are not accustomed to the admission requirements. “It’s like speaking another language,” he said. “If you’ve never done it, you might have no idea where to start.” Tower Hill has been working with LYTE for approximately five years. “LYTE has a deep relationship with Tower Hill,” Arya said. “Tower Hill has more LYTE students than any other independent school, and we hope to add even more. This partnership has been amazing because it has allowed our students to access an incredible education. I believe it has also been incredibly beneficial to Tower Hill because schools grow when they increase and have students from a wider array of backgrounds.” LYTE staff members also have connections to Tower Hill. Andrue Smith ’09 and Justin Hicks ’09, LYTE’s current and former program directors, respectively, are Tower Hill alumni. Deanna Connor, the most recent addition to the program, is the daughter of Tower Hill’s director of social justice, Dyann Connor. Head of School Bessie Speers was the assistant head of school at Episcopal Academy when Arya was a student. Smith applied to Tower Hill as a LYTE Scholar and is now about to graduate as part of the 100th graduating class. “I’m excited for the future,” Smith said. “I am extremely grateful and happy with what I did with the opportunities that LYTE and Tower Hill gave me.” In total, there are currently 15 seniors and close to 70 eighth graders in the program. One hundred percent of middle school students from Title I schools were accepted into college. This past December, LYTE revealed that four of its students had been accepted to Swarthmore College, Denison University, Gettysburg College and now Cornell, thanks to the hard work of Smith. “I always love seeing acceptances and student and parent/guardian reactions,” Arya said. “The best is comparing reactions from when students get into high school to when they get into college.”
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Students connect with educators, experts and students around the world via Skype.
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PARTNERSHIPS
VIRTUAL CONNECTION
LANGUAGE CLASSES USE TECHNOLOGY TO CONNECT STUDENTS GLOBALLY BY PHOEBE HALL, UPPER SCHOOL HISTORY FACULTY AND GLOBAL STUDIES COORDINATOR
ONE OF THE PRIMARY GOALS of the Global Studies department is helping students become globally competent citizens. As educators, we strive to develop students who explore the world around them, recognize their own and others’ perspectives and communicate effectively with a variety of audiences. These competences are crucial in a connected, 21st century world. However, there is a common misconception that students need to travel abroad to experience cross cultural engagement. In reality, opportunities to develop these competences can happen anywhere—at a service learning site, at a museum or in a classroom discussion. Increasingly, Tower Hill’s Global Studies team is using the virtual world as a portal to global citizenship. Innovative use of technology encourages students to connect with young people and experts around the globe, strengthening their awareness of their place in the context of Wilmington and the World. In my role as Upper School Global Studies coordinator, I have focused on making global inquiry accessible and exhilarating through technology. This began with a virtual round table series, intended to connect students with professionals from around the world. Past presenters have included Bushra Ebadi, a UNESCO Youth Ambassador, and Gabriella Kallas, a policy officer at Asylum Access. Based in Canada and Mexico respectively, these speakers would otherwise be difficult for students to access. But through technology, students are able to explore potential careers and deepen their understanding of global issues, all without missing morning meeting. Technology can also be a conduit for cross cultural communication among students. Two years ago, I had the opportunity to facilitate workshops through a Moroccan organization called Companionship through Language, Language through Companionship. Inspired by the concept of using friendship as a tool for cross cultural learning, I collaborated with a team of Moroccan based educators to host a virtual conversation exchange. Armed with a few phrases in Darija and a brief introduction to Moroccan culture, Tower Hill students meet with young English learners from the Moroccan cities of Rabat and Sale. The conversations range from silly to serious—students have discussed
everything from K-pop music to personal values. However, the takeaway of these sessions is anything but trivial. Participants have expressed that the conversations sparked a desire to learn more about Maghreb region, challenged existing stereotypes and even encouraged deeper reflection about the power dynamics of such an exchange. One commonality was the excitement and significance of connecting with students an ocean away. Jessica Chen ’20 reflected that “despite the hundreds of miles between us, we share an hour of connection, existing in the same present.” That powerful feeling of connection doesn’t have to occur outside of class. During the past year, Lower School Global Studies Coordinator Natalie Moravek has spearheaded the adoption of PenPal Schools, a global project based learning community. PenPal Schools allows teachers and students to instantaneously connect with classrooms around the world, completing projects together. The program offers a variety of projects on critical topics such as world religions, fake news and the power of art. Though primarily an English language community, PenPal Schools also offers projects for speakers of Mandarin and Spanish. The core of this program is authenticity. Through project based learning students engage authentically with real life issues, sharing their work with an integrated community of globally competent youth. Because PenPal Schools manages the logistics of each interaction, teachers can seamlessly integrate global inquiry into their existing curriculum, enriching student learning in the process. Global competence, whether online or face to face, is essential for fulfilling Tower Hill’s mission of preparing students for full and creative engagement with a dynamic world. Participation in virtual learning inspires students’ curiosity and fosters meaningful connections with learners from various backgrounds and contexts. Perhaps most importantly, these opportunities underscore the reality that one can develop the skills of cross cultural communication and empathy in any time and place.
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MCRC@ADVIS
DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION CONFERENCE On Oct. 11, Tower Hill hosted the MCRC@ADVIS Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Conference. Over 800 faculty and administrators from across the country met at Tower Hill to attend the event, which included hosting over 60 workshop presenters and nationally known keynote speakers. Tower Hill faculty members participated in workshops that focused on educational strategies and classroom practices for building and supporting a welcoming and inclusive school community.
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PARTNERSHIPS PARTNERSHIPS
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SCHOOL GOVERNANCE GOOD GOVERNANCE: EDUCATING THE COMMUNITY BY BESSIE SPEERS, HEAD OF SCHOOL
Head of School Bessie Speers, far right, with members of Tower Hill’s Board of Trustees.
The following article originally appeared in the National Association of Independent Schools’ Independent Ideas blog on Feb. 17, 2020. OUR ECONOMICS TEACHER recently invited me to speak on the topic of governance, as the class was learning about corporate governance. There are indeed differences between school and corporate governance, but the basic tenets of strong governance are often new to high school students. I invited my school’s chief financial officer to join me, and talked about fiduciary responsibility, the link between financial and strategic planning, and misconceptions about the head’s and board’s respective roles. To make the conversation relevant to students, I suggested that they will likely lead for-profit or nonprofit organizations and serve on boards in the future. As we engaged, I realized our students were ready for real conversations about how our school works. For example, one student commented that the cannon shot off at Founders’ Day must have cost too much money. That led to a discussion about
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philanthropy, in-kind gifts (such as the cannon display) and the budget. Next time I speak about governance to a class, I could even invite my board chair to help our students see a “live” dialogue about what good governance is all about. There are important nuances, built on a foundation of trust, transparency, respect and clarity. It’s important for our students to see and feel the strong rapport between the head of school and the board chair and to understand that governance is not just a word or jargon we use. It’s based on open and honest human dialogue, and modeling this for them in class is the first step to their understanding. Over 13 years, I’ve served as head of school at two schools and have served on multiple boards, including my current college board position, and I consider myself a continuing scholar of strong governance.
Governance 101 There are small but impactful ways to expose students to what happens around a board table. By doing so, we give students the knowledge about how a governing body operates—which is key to the success of any organization in a variety of industries—and we begin to plant seeds. As we help our students grow into the world of tomorrow, it’s important to think about the tools they need. They’ll need to understand what makes a good leader, how to manage budgets, why to plan for the future and other abilities that come from practicing good governance. Parents also can benefit from refreshers about the role of trustees, board and head of school. A parent might think that speaking to a board member about a teacher they don’t like is the right thing to do; a teacher might think that complaining to a trustee about an administrative decision they don’t agree with is what governance is about. Trustees might think they are helping by listening to gripes from parents and teachers, and while these actions may seem natural because of close relationships over the years, they can backfire on a school, cause distraction and ultimately take away energy that deserves to go to students in any school community. Good governance is surely the backstop in a time of crisis, and it enables the business of the school to happen smoothly on a day-to-day basis. By having open communication about roles, functions and clear expectations, the full community can be aware of what is going on and feel confident that the school is in good hands. Most of this distraction happens when expectations for strong governance are not clear or when there’s not enough buy-in about what best practices in independent schools are and why they are critical to a strong school. In the Halls As part of my work to publicly practice good governance, I try to connect the community with trustees as often as possible. I make a point of explaining the role of trustees, sharing that they are my bosses, they come from near and far, they hold our school in trust and their role does not include selecting math books, hiring teachers or making
SCHOOL LIFE
It’s not always logical, as I explained to the students, and it takes thoughtful practice. Transparency with various constituencies, including students, faculty, parents and the broader school community, about the tenets of governance is the key to building strong practices.
lunch menu decisions. Rather, they are responsible for the long view. Trustees are fiduciaries of the school, and their job is to ensure the mission of the school is delivered, protected and enhanced over time. I explain that trustees are not paid to do what they do. Serving as a trustee is a labor of love, and they give of their time, talent and treasure. I remind our students to introduce themselves to our trustees on campus and to thank them for their service. One way I make the introduction is to invite our students to speak at each board meeting—sometimes about student government, an entrepreneurial project or a proposal for progress on an environmental stewardship initiative. When our students are able to see trustees around the table caring about school life, taking the time to come to meetings and serving as a collective group, there’s great opportunity to open doors. We arrange for students and trustees to eat meals together on campus, and after each board meeting, we typically have a reception to which all faculty and staff are invited.
“Trustees are fiduciaries of the school, and their job is to ensure the mission of the school is delivered, protected and enhanced over time.” I have observed that students, faculty and trustees are better able to appreciate their respective roles in a school community when we speak openly about the importance of each. Trustees enjoy a window into student life and issues, and they are impressed with the incredible dedication and caliber of our faculty. In turn, faculty members enjoy the chance to witness how much our trustees truly care, and our students’ understanding of what the role of a trustee is—and is not—is broadened. Staying Public Recognizing the need publicly for more practice— whether in letters to constituents; a governance nugget shared in student assemblies or faculty
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meetings; or a governance session for the board—is what I’ve found to be most important. There must be a willingness to debrief and analyze without blame, in order to determine how to do better when an issue arises. As long as there is a spirit of growth, and the success of the school remains front and center as everyone’s primary focus, heads and trustees together can show the community that they want to achieve amazing things for a school. School communities, probably more than many other organizations, pride themselves, and rightly so, on the strength of community. We know, respect and trust each other. And yet, this is exactly why strong school governance, if not practiced on a regular basis, can fall apart. Informality and the assumption that personal relationships can replace the need for clear expectations and accountability are often the beginning to a slippery slope. The very interwoven relationships that make us so successful as schools are sometimes the reason schools can get confused about governance. So it’s even more critical in schools that we hold ourselves accountable and keep our focus on what matters most: the students.
Trustees Catherine Miller, Heather Richards Evans ’80, Isabella Speakman Timon ’92 and Gina Ward attended the National Association of Independent Schools Annual Conference in Philadelphia in February.
NAIS Board of Trustees Principles of Good Practice 1. The Board adopts a clear statement of the School's mission, vision and strategic goals and establishes policies and plans consistent with this statement. 2. The Board reviews and maintains appropriate bylaws that conform to legal requirements, including duties of loyalty, obedience and care. 3. The Board assures that the School and the Board operate in compliance with applicable laws and regulations, minimizing exposure to legal action. The Board creates a conflict of interest policy that is reviewed with, and signed by, individual Trustees annually. 4. The Board accepts accountability for both the financial stability and the financial future of the institution, engaging in strategic financial planning, assuming primary responsibility for the preservation of capital assets and endowments, overseeing operating budgets and participating actively in fundraising. 5. The Board selects, supports, nurtures, evaluates and sets appropriate compensation for the head of school. 6. The Board recognizes that its primary work and focus are long-range and strategic. 7. The Board undertakes formal strategic planning on a periodic basis, sets annual goals related to the plan and conducts annual written evaluations for the School, the Head of School and the Board itself. 8. The Board keeps full and accurate records of its meetings, committees and policies and communicates its decisions widely, while keeping its deliberations confidential. 9. Board composition reflects the strategic expertise, resources and perspectives (past, present, future) needed to achieve the mission and strategic objectives of the School. 10. The Board works to ensure all its members are actively involved in the work of the Board and its committees. As leader of the School community, the Board engages proactively with the Head of School in cultivating and maintaining good relations with school constituents as well as the broader community and exhibits best practices relevant to equity and justice. 46
11. The Board is committed to a program of professional development that includes annual new trustee and evaluation, and board leadership succession planning.
orientation, ongoingSpring trustee Tower Hill Bulletin 2020education
SCHOOL LIFE
LEADERSHIP
BESSIE SPEERS NAMED PRESIDENT OF THE HEADMASTERS ASSOCIATION Head of School Bessie Speers has been named president of The Headmasters Association, a 127-year-old organization that promotes collaboration among the heads of highly regarded independent and public secondary schools. The association meets annually and hosts distinguished speakers that have included U.S. presidents, senators, admirals, education commissioners, authors, university presidents and journalists. Meeting themes are as varied as Leadership in Times of Dramatic Change and The Shift in World Power to Unsung Heroes: People Who Make a Difference and The Arts in Our Schools. The mission of the organization is “to increase the opportunities for mutual acquaintance among headmasters, and for the interchange of views on matters of common interest to secondary schools.” Active members include heads from Trinity School, Brooklyn Tech, Polytechnic School, Roxbury Latin, Harvard-Westlake, Deerfield Academy, Latin School of Chicago, Pembroke Academy, Penn Charter, Brearley, Chapin, Collegiate, Miss Porter’s, Episcopal Academy, St. Albans and many more. “The Headmasters Association has long been a source of inspiration for me as a school leader, and Tower Hill is in excellent company in being represented among this group of esteemed schools,” Speers said. “I am honored to lead this organization in support of advancing educational innovation in the United States.”
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MEASURABLE PROGRESS
PARENT SURVEY REVEALS HIGHER SATISFACTION WITH STUDENT EXPERIENCE BY TERESA MESSMORE, DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING
Tower Hill partnered with the Art & Science Group for a comprehensive research study in 2016 to understand perceptions about the school and identify key strengths and opportunities. The Baltimore based firm specializes in connecting strategic planning with the positioning of institutions in their markets using data driven research. The findings informed Tower Hill’s Strategic Plan, and a recent follow-up survey of current parents found significant gains in multiple areas, from overall satisfaction and college placement to teaching and academic quality.
Significantly higher ratings in
ACADEMIC QUALITY COLLEGE PLACEMENT AFFORDABILITY CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT ATHLETICS compared to 2016 parent cohort
353
RESEARCH GOALS
surveys completed
• Measure parent satisfaction
292
• Gauge impact of changes since 2016
families represented
• Identify future strategic priorities
Previous Art & Science Clients Include
8.3
Rated Tower Hill as having
EXCEPTIONAL TEACHERS
among the best anywhere at 7.5 in 2016 vs. 8.2 in 2019 48
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Overall satisfaction jumped from
8.0
to
on a 10 point scale— a statistically significant difference Spring 2020
Columbia Cornell Harvard University of Chicago University of Michigan UNC Chapel Hill Wake Forest Kent School George School Gilman School Harker School Lovett School Trinity School Wesley School
EDUCAT ION A L EXPER IENC ES: CURRION EN TA LPERC EPTI ON ES: AN D EDUCAT EXPER IENC CURR EN T PERC EPTI ON AN D IDEAL IDEAL Serves all Tower Hill students well
Innovative
Values many Serves all Tower Hilldifferent strengths equally Flexiblewell students Innovative
Relaxed academic environment Flexible
Values many different strengths equally
Tower Hill moved significantly closer to parents’ ideal in terms of being
WHAT MATTERS MOST? Positive School Culture
INNOVATIVE and 2019 FLEXIBLE 2016
Character Development 2019
Exceptional Teachers Affordability Serves only star Traditional students and athletes well
Relaxed academic environment
2016 Ideal
Structured Values only Serves only star Traditional students and academic strengths athletes well
High-pressure Structured academic environment
SCHOOL LIFE
C U R R E N T FA M I L I E S B Y F I E L D I N G P H A S E C U R R E N T FA M I L I E S B Y F I E L D I N G P H A S E
Ideal
Values only academic strengths
High-pressure academic environment
Q6A Note: Points shown are mean placement on continuum; icons indicate significant phases;Filled Yellow Q6AFilled Note: Points shown are meandifferences placementbetween on continuum; icons indicate significant differences between phases; Yellow “X” shows the ideal placement on continua in 2019 study. “X” shows the ideal placement on continua in 2019 study.
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“Tower Hill should celebrate its successes and continue to move decisively 13 and energetically toward greater successes to come.”
Confidential: This document and itsConfidential: contents are This not to be revealed or not organizations document andto itsindividuals contents are to be revealed to individuals or organizations outside of Tower Hill School withoutoutside the permission THSwithout and Art the & Science Group. of Towerof Hillboth School permission of both THS and Art & Science Group. —Current Parents Survey Executive Summary by Art & Science
MOVING FORWARD
Parents are interested in Tower Hill doing more to meet students where they are: Serve All Students Well | Flexibility | Value Many Different Strengths Equally
CONTINUED GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES INCLUDE
STEAM
Integrate science, math, engineering, technology and the arts, challenging students to think, learn and solve problems from an interdisciplinary perspective, while continuing to emphasize literature, writing, languages and other humanities courses.
HEALTH AND WELLNESS
DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION
INNOVATION Tower Hill Bulletin
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ACADEMICS INTERNET SAFETY In January, the seventh grade Digital Citizenship classes created digital internet safety books and shared them with the third grade classes. The student-created books included many themes for internet safety and digital citizenship.
NATIONAL CHEMISTRY WEEK Eleventh graders helped out at National Chemistry Week at The Independence School in November, presenting demos on magnetism in everyday life including discovering the iron content in breakfast cereal, the magnetic quality of money, making magnetic slime and drawing magnetic field lines on a bat magnet.
CENTER OF GRAVITY Sixth graders learned about the center of gravity by performing a set of seemingly simple experiments, like the Chair Challenge, in science class. Watch a video at towerhill.org/bulletin.
MANDARIN Eighth graders wrote stories in Mandarin and presented them to kindergarten students. The Middle Schoolers also taught the Lower Schoolers how to count to 10 in Mandarin!
ROBOTICS The Hiller Instinct robotics team hosted a First Tech Challenge robotics competition in the Field House in January. The competition was an opportunity for the team to work on perfecting its machine before the State Championship in March. 50
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SCHOOL LIFE
NATIONAL MERIT QUALIFIERS In September, the National Merit Corporation released the list of this year’s National Merit Scholarship Qualifiers. Students were selected as qualifiers based on the results of the PSAT taken in the fall of their junior year. Qualifiers represent students who scored roughly in the top 1 percent of test-takers in the nation. Of the roughly 1.6 million students who took the PSAT last fall, approximately 50,000 were selected as qualifiers. From the 50,000 qualifiers, approximately 16,000 were named semifinalists. The semifinalists will have the opportunity to compete for scholarships and recognition by colleges and universities during the admissions process. Umar Aulia ’20, Erwin Chen ’20, Jessica Chen ’20, Jennifer Cleary ’20, Katy Craft ’20, Veronica Dougherty ’20, Ben du Pont ’20 (semifinalist), Dylan Evans ’20, Baily Faller ’20, Anna Paisley Gray ’20 (not pictured), Kirit Minhas ’20, Emma Peddrick ’20, Yash Prashar ’20 (semifinalist), Isabel Shepherd ’20, Peter Timon ’20, Joseph Zakielarz ’20 and Austin Zhou ’20 represent 23% of the senior class, the largest percentage in recent history.
U.S. PRESIDENTIAL SCHOLARS Peter Timon ’20, Ben du Pont ’20, Dylan Evans ’20, Jessica Chen ’20, Noah Wang ’20 and Umar Aulia ’20 (not pictured) were named candidates for the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program. Selected by the White House Commission on Presidential Scholars, these students are among the 4,000 candidates selected from the 3.6 million students graduating from U.S. high schools this year. Congratulations!
PENDULUMS Sixth graders studied periodic movement and striking motion by experimenting with various pendulums, including creating pendulum waves, swinging a pumpkin from the underpass and making pendulum games and paintings. Watch a video at towerhill.org/bulletin.
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CLASSROOM ECONOMY This year fourth graders are participating in a classroom economy. In the fall, they held a sale day as part of the financial literacy unit. Watch a video at towerhill.org/bulletin.
WRITING SHARE Using a large screen and document camera, second graders made sharing narrative writing fun—while also practicing public speaking, editing, technology use and providing peer feedback. Watch a video at towerhill.org/bulletin. SHAKESPEARE SOLILOQUIES Each semester students in an Upper School Shakespeare class perform a soliloquy from one of the four plays studied in the course: Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Twelfth Night and Hamlet. They rehearse for about a week and then perform for each other. Students also turn in two other written elements of this assignment: a critical analysis of the soliloquy and an actor’s journal, which includes notes about discoveries and challenges during the rehearsal process. At the end of the semester, students worked with David Stradley, director of Delaware Shakespeare, as he performed and discussed dramaturgy and theatrical craft. MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION Seventh graders visited the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia in December, where they went on a guided tour of the galleries and studied artifacts and documents.
STAR LAB In November, Lower Schoolers had fun visiting the Star Lab, a portable planetarium that allows students to learn about the stars and the night sky during the day.
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SCHOOL LIFE
INCLUSION AND ADVOCACY On Jan. 17, Sen. Chris Coons ’81 and Lucy Meyer, spokesperson for the Special Olympics - UNICEF Partnership for children with disabilities, spoke with students in every division about acceptance, inclusion and advocacy. Meyer is a five-time Special Olympics gold medalist in swimming.
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STATE CHAMPS The girls’ swim team won the DIAA State Championship for the first time in Hiller history. The title came down to the final race—the 400yard freestyle relay—in which Brooke Griffin ’23, Sydney DeBaecke ’22, Kayley Knackstedt ’22 and Lainey Mullins ’23 came out on top. The Hillers set two state records at the championship meet. Griffin, DeBaecke, Mullins and Grace Gilbert ’24 set a new state record in the 200-yard free relay with a time of 1:37.18, breaking a 10-year-old mark of 1:38.10. Mullins also set a new state record in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:48.32, earning the individual title in that race. DeBaecke also earned a first place finish in the 100-yard backstroke. The boys’ team placed third in the state championship, the highest showing in Hiller history. Congratulations to Coach Sharon Reynolds, Coach James Erhardt and the entire swim team!
Front row: Bo Gravuer ’22, Yaseen Belkadi ’22 and Kieran Petrunich ’21; back row: Coach James Erhardt, Jake Frietze ’22, Tom Conaty ’23, Matthew Spruance ’21, William Zakielarz ’22 and Coach Sharon Reynolds
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Front row: Coach Sharon Reynolds, Brooke Griffin ’23, Lindsay Kalish ’22, Grace Gilbert ’24, Sydney DeBaecke ’22, Kayley Knackstedt ’22, Julianna Malick ’23, Caroline Deyrup ’21 and Coach James Erhardt; back row: Katie Sullivan ’21, Lauren Gilbert ’22, Lainey Mullins ’23, Maggie Coulter ’20 and Anna Paisley Gray ’20 Tower Hill Bulletin
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ATHLETICS
FALL AND WINTER SPORTS HIGHLIGHTS FIELD HOCKEY The field hockey team defeated St. Mark’s 6-0 in the first round of the DIAA state tournament. The team lost to Lake Forest High School in the second round of the tournament but ended its regular season with a winning record of 9-5-1.
BOYS’ SOCCER The boys’ soccer team defeated Dickinson High School 3-0 in the first round of the DIAA state tournament. The team lost to Newark High School in the second round of the tournament but ended its season with a winning record of 12-2-1.
FOOTBALL The football team competed in the first round of the DIAA state tournament and ended its regular season with a winning 8-1 record.
COLLEGE ATHLETICS Congratulations to our student-athletes who decided to continue their athletic careers in college! Emma Peddrick ’20 - Davidson College (soccer) Grace Diehl ’20 - University of Delaware (crew) Jennifer Cleary ’20 - University of Virginia (golf)
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Isaiah Brown ’20 - Franklin & Marshall College (football) Ben Schiltz ’20 - Haverford College (squash)
SCHOOL LIFE
HOLIDAY BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT Both the boys’ and girls’ basketball teams won the Tower Hill Holiday Tournament held over winter break. The boys’ team defeated Red Lion 74-39 in the first round and Concord High School 60-51 in the championship. The girls’ team defeated Brandywine High School 60-31 in the first round and Concord High School 27-22 in the championship. Donoven Mack ’21, Ricky Deadwyler ’21, Reese Mullins ’21 and Caitlin Smith ’23 were named to the all-tournament teams.
WRESTLING Ky Jacobs ’20 earned his 100th win in his wrestling career in February! The team won the DISC (Delaware Independent School Conference) Championship for the third consecutive year. Three wrestlers competed in the State Championship. Richie Pierce ’20 came in sixth place in the 220-pound bracket, Jacobs came in fourth place in the 145-pound bracket and Drew Pratt ’23 came in sixth place in the 106-pound bracket, becoming the first freshman in Tower Hill history to place at the state tournament. Great job, Hillers!
SQUASH SPEERS CUP The squash team defeated St. Andrew’s School 7-2 on Jan. 17 to win the Speers Cup for the second straight season. The annual match was named the Speers Cup last year in honor of Head of School Bessie Speers and her brother-in-law Will Speers, associate head of school at St. Andrew’s. The team finished its season playing in the 2020 National High School Championship, placing 11th out of 16 teams. The team played in Division 3, the highest they have competed in the program’s history.
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TREE TRIM
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4 1. Lifers help Lower and Middle School students trim the tree. 2. A Lower Schooler hangs his ornament on the tree. 3. Director of Alumni Relations Matt Twyman ’88 shares what it means to be a Hiller. 4. Members of the vocal ensemble sing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” 5. Lifer Richard Pierce ’20 helps a Lower Schooler hang his ornament on the tree. 6. The Upper School band accompanies the singa-long. 7. Dallas Crowley ’20 and Ky Jacobs ’20 pose for a photo with their PreK buddies.
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THS IN PHOTOS
CASINO NIGHT
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1-4. The Carpenter Field House transformed into a casino for the Green & White Club’s annual Casino Night athletics fundraiser, with a silent auction, raffle, dinner and lots of fun. Proceeds supported the enhancement of athletic programs at Tower Hill School. 1. Monica Peddrick and Green & White Club President Paul Peddrick ’84. 5. Atef Friji, Carmen Martinez and Marina Attix. 6. Lauren Kushkin and Athletic Director Seth Kushkin. 7. Gordon and Julia Stone, Robert DeSantis and Michelle Shepherd.
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the ARTS 2
3
1
5
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1. Sixth graders install a series of ephemeral land art displays using found materials and representing various communities. 2. In January, Tower Hill hosted the Tri-School Choral Concert with Sanford School and Wilmington Friends School. Paul D. Head, D.M.A., director of choral studies at the University of Delaware, led an all-day workshop with students prior to the concert. 3. Fourth graders perform their annual musical, Destination: America! 4. Second graders show off their dance moves at the annual hoedown, which combines folk dance and singing, led by music teacher Sara Bush. 5. Seventh graders create “100” paintings to celebrate the school’s Centennial. Artwork by Tessa Mullins ’25 and Bryce Twyman ’25.
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THS IN PHOTOS
the ARTS
6 7
8
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10 6. Kindergarteners perform their annual winter play, Snow in Sunnytown. 7. Middle Schoolers perform at the winter orchestra concert. 8. Former faculty member Kirby Smith, whose recent work is primarily large oil paintings and drawings, was the featured artist in the Founders’ Gallery for the month of December. 9. Upper Schoolers perform in the jazz band. 10. Eighth graders perform in the original musical Haunted Hillers.
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GLOBAL
1 2
3 4
6 1. and 2. Middle and Upper School students hold assemblies to celebrate the Lunar New Year. 3. Seventh and eighth graders visited Quebec in January. Their first stop was Montreal’s Marché Jean-Talon for lunch. 4. In October the Upper School welcomed exchange students from Dollar Academy in Stirling, Scotland. Students stay with families, attend school, participate in athletic contests and experience life in Wilmington, Delaware. 5. The student-led Global Initiatives Board hosted an international dinner in November with food and fun from around the world. 6. StartUp Africa—which empowers African youth to build and sustain businesses, create jobs and add value to the economy—visited Tower Hill in December with a group of students and faculty from Kenya to learn and engage with the Tower Hill community.
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THS IN PHOTOS
SERVICE
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4 1. Third graders make jars of dried bean soup for Lutheran Community Services. 2. Priya Raju ’25 and Georgia Sarko ’25 organized a blanket drive for Ministry of Caring in November. 3. Steven Wolhar ’23 volunteers at Kaleidoscope for Season of Service. 4. Mirel Margolin ’26 organized a Middle School bake sale and patriotic dress down day in honor of Veterans Day. Funds were donated to the Gary Sinise Foundation, which supports veterans, first responders and Gold Star Families. 5. Upper School students bake cookies for families at Ronald McDonald House of Delaware. 6. Ninth graders organize donations collected during Hiller Harvest. 7. Students and parents make no-sew fleece blankets for Fleece for Keeps during the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service.
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Photo credit: Erin Ingraffia Photography
KIRSTEN OLSON ’89
ALUMNA FINDS CAREER BUILDING STRONG FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES Q&A WITH AMY WOLF, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING
In December, Kirsten Olson ’89 was named CEO of Children & Families First (CFF), a nonprofit human services agency operating in Delaware since 1884 with a mission to help children facing adversity on their journey to adulthood. She had previously served as the nonprofit’s chief strategy officer. What does Children & Families First do? We focus on helping children in Delaware who are experiencing adversity or challenges get the support they need to be successful. We believe that the best way to do this is by strengthening families. Our work all comes down to building resilience—for children, families and communities. The science tells us that there are three key ingredients in helping folks be healthy and resilient: building and supporting healthy relationships, reducing sources of stress and helping children and adults build emotional regulation and executive functioning skills. We do our work across Delaware in a wide variety of ways, in three broad categories: prevention— working with children and families early on so they have what they need at the very beginning;
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intervention—working with children and families who are experiencing a current challenge; and healing—ensuring that children and families can recover from the challenges they’ve faced. Our services include home visits to pregnant and parenting women (prevention), foster care and adoption (intervention) and family therapy (healing)—and so much more! What does your role at Children & Families First entail, both currently and going into 2020? My previous role as chief strategy officer focused on helping the agency make strategic decisions related to program development and implementation, seeking grants and contracts from federal and state government and private foundations, and promoting quality through data collection and evaluation. As of Jan. 1, 2020, I was selected to serve as the new CEO, which is
What led you to a career in nonprofits? You could probably say that social work runs in my blood: My mother spent her whole career in the social services sector and actually ended up retiring from Children & Families First after many years in our Foster Care & Adoption unit. My mom worked at CFF before I did! As a teenager, I had the opportunity to participate in mission trips, working with Appalachian Service Project in Kentucky, Habitat for Humanity in Michigan and more. When I started college, I thought I’d be a French major (thanks to my incredible teachers at Tower Hill: Colette Cotter and Bernadette Richardson), but my freshman seminar about complex social problems changed all that. I ended up majoring in sociology with a minor in progressive American social movements. From the very beginning of my career, I was interested in working with children and families to make our communities better. I’ve had the opportunity to work in a variety of focus areas, including homelessness, HIV/AIDS, behavioral health and child welfare. I truly enjoy not only working with people from all walks of life but also trying to address complex challenges to make our communities stronger and healthier. What are some of your goals for your first year as CEO of Children & Families First? Our former CEO was an incredible leader who left CFF on very strong footing. This means that I have the opportunity to really be thoughtful about our next steps as an agency. So for me, 2020 will be a year of listening and learning—meeting with our staff, board and stakeholders to hear their perspectives on how we can make the organization even better at serving the needs of children and families in Delaware.
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an incredible honor. As CEO, I am tasked with ensuring the continued health and success of the organization, in partnership with our board, staff, funders and stakeholders, which includes the children and families we serve.
What are you passionate about at work? Over the past several years, we have expanded our understanding of the science of adversity and resilience and how these concepts impact the children and families we serve. This has become foundational to all the work that we do, and I love not only how meaningful it is to our staff and the people we serve, but also how it helps weave all our services together toward a common goal of building strong children, families and communities. What is your favorite part about your job? I love the people I get to work with every day. We have amazing staff that is committed to making a difference in the lives of children and families and a board that supports our work in a myriad of ways. And we have incredible partners in our work, from state agencies to federal funders, from local foundations to community advocates. It’s energizing to spend so much time surrounded by people who are trying to solve some of our most challenging problems while making sure that children and families have what they need to be successful. What was your experience like at Tower Hill? I started at Tower Hill in fourth grade and quickly found my footing. I appreciated the rigor of the work and the high expectations set by teachers. I enjoyed the opportunity to participate in non-academic activities, including theater and volleyball. I built great friendships that continue to this day. Every day we were challenged to learn and grow. How do you feel that Tower Hill influenced your life and career? I think it all comes back to Multa Bene Facta— Many Things Done Well. I have an incredibly satisfying life and career, with the opportunity to engage a wide variety of interests, skills, opportunities and relationships. I began to learn to balance all aspects of a meaningful life at Tower Hill.
Why do you do what you do? The work I do is meaningful and satisfying, and I can’t imagine doing anything else.
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Attorney Tony Garcia ’87 spoke at Tower Hill’s Career Day in 2019.
TONY GARCIA ’87
BALTIMORE ATTORNEY FINDS SUCCESS WITH MULTIFACETED NATURE OF THE LEGAL FIELD BY TERESA MESSMORE, DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING
TONY GARCIA ’87 grew up dreaming of being an attorney, inspired by shows like L.A. Law that depicted the glamorous side of working in a prosperous legal practice. His real-life experience ended up being closer to the gritty Baltimorecentered show The Wire, but he would not have it any other way. “Being a state’s attorney was the best job I ever had,” said Garcia, who worked for the Office of the State’s Attorney for Baltimore City before establishing his own practice. “There’s nothing more rewarding than helping people. There’s nothing more rewarding than seeking justice.” Garcia prosecuted one of Baltimore’s longest running high-profile cases, a triple homicide of three children that attracted national media
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attention. The initial trial ended with a hung jury, but Garcia’s perseverance contributed to the second trial landing the suspects in prison for good. The criminal case is one of thousands Garcia has handled in court. He started out prosecuting juvenile and traffic cases before working his way up to felony narcotics and homicide. The multifaceted nature of investigative work and trying cases appealed to him, from riding in a helicopter to survey crime scenes to watching an entomologist determine the approximate time of death of a victim. “I enjoyed the science of it,” Garcia said. “I enjoyed the running down of witnesses, going out to crime scenes and figuring things out. There’s nothing more fulfilling than prosecuting a person who
And sometimes, unnerving. Garcia and his colleagues received threats during the triple homicide case shortly before closing arguments. The intimidation could have been rattling, but his years of experience helped him remain focused during the biggest case of his career. Afterward, having reached the pinnacle of prosecution with that conviction, Garcia decided he was ready for a change and transitioned to private practice. “When I won that I realized, ‘You know what? I can stay here for good as a career, or I can say I’ve reached the top, and now I want to do something else to move on to another part of my life,’” he said. “And that’s what I did.” He joined friends to establish Bates & Garcia P.C., and he found continued success on the other side of the courtroom as defense counsel. He also became a property investor and incorporated real estate law into his practice, eventually teaching courses at the Investors United School of Real Estate Investing. Although Garcia was interested in law since his youth, his path to law school was not direct. In high school he considered becoming an astronomer, and he took physics during his senior year even though a fourth science class was not required. The associated math, it turned out, was not for him. In college at Hampton University, he began as an accounting major, worried that he would not be able to get into law school. He switched to history—a subject he loved at Tower Hill thanks to faculty members Harry Baetjer, Steve Hyde and others—and his grades skyrocketed. He was admitted to the University of Maryland School of Law and graduated in 1994. “I was initially very terrified that I wasn’t going to get into law school, but changing to history changed my whole existence,” he said. “I put the chips behind my dreams instead of hedging my bets, and it really worked out for me.” A natural storyteller and people person, Garcia knows how to connect with a jury on serious matters, but outside of the courtroom likes to go for the laugh—which would come as no surprise to his former classmates at Tower Hill. In an Upper
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you’re very confident did the crime, or talking to the family of a victim and giving some small BandAid to the pain that they might be experiencing. It was very fulfilling.”
School biology class, he recalled, he played with a leech using two straws as makeshift tongs when his teacher left the classroom. The leech fell on a table and started squirming around, right when the class heard the teacher’s footsteps heading back toward the room. Garcia quickly grabbed the leech, scared that it might suck his blood, and tossed it back in a jar. “The whole class was laughing, and of course when the teacher walked in, everybody had to stop and sit up straight,” he said. “So that was one of my funnier moments at school.” He also fondly remembers meeting then U.S. Senator Joe Biden after he spoke at Tower Hill, and then being assigned to take Biden with him to several classes. He was honored, humbled even, to be chosen as a student host and appreciated the senator’s sense of humor.
“I put the chips behind my dreams instead of hedging my bets, and it really worked out for me.”
Looking back on his career, Garcia credits Tower Hill with preparing him to look at a problem from multiple angles. The school teaches students how to think and be creative, or as he puts it, “to not look at a problem one way, but to turn it upside down, to turn it sideways, to shake it, to stomp on it, to lift it, to throw it—to look at the problem in many different ways to solve it. “The best gift that Tower Hill gave me is my ability to not just look at things one way—or even two ways or three ways—but to try all different angles to solve a problem or to get what your client wants or to solve the riddle,” he said. “I think that’s very, very important, and Tower Hill was very instrumental in that.”
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TRACK HALL OF FAME JOHN DAVID CARROLL ’81 INDUCTED INTO DELAWARE TRACK AND FIELD HALL OF FAME BY CHUCK DURANTE ’69
John David Carroll ’81, the most prodigious high jumper in Tower Hill history—and 39 years after his graduation, still the best ever among Delaware high school athletes—was inducted into the Delaware Track and Field Hall of Fame in November 2019. In a blizzard of record-setting performances in his senior year, Carroll became the most dominant high jumper in Delaware high school history and set a state record that has lasted longer than any other record in any event. He later became one of the leading high jumpers ever at the University of Delaware. Carroll, who became an assistant district attorney in New York, died of cancer in 2009. He was introduced as the 10th Tower Hill inductee at the Track Hall’s 26th banquet by former coach Bob Behr, who drove with his wife, Carolyn, from Williamstown, Massaschusetts, to Cavaliers Country Club on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Carroll’s Hall of Fame plaque was accepted by his widow, Lauren Macauley. “John was a very independent person; he preferred to coach himself,” Behr told the crowd. “I was able to convince him to invest in some spiked jumping shoes, and I was able to sneak a few hints to him through another jumper [John Simeral].” Carroll jumped 6’11¼” at the Division II state championship meet in 1981, breaking the standard of 6’10¾” set at the 1976 Penn Relays by Guy Ramsey of Dover Air Base High School, to set a state record that has endured since. Over six weeks in 1981, Carroll set meet records in every major Delaware event: 6’9” at the Howard Relays, 6’10” at the Dover Relays, 6’8¾” at the New Castle County Meet, 6’8¼” at the Independent Conference championship, the record setting 6’11¼” at the Division II championship and 6’10” at the state Meet of Champions. After setting his record, he tried for seven feet as the crowd at Dover High School lingered to encourage him. “I almost had it,” Carroll told The Philadelphia Inquirer, “but I just got the bar.” He capped his season as the Greater Philadelphia champion, topping jumpers from 13 counties at Franklin Field. A capable jumper as a junior, when he was sixth man on Tower Hill’s Independent Conference basketball
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The 1981 track and field team; John David Carroll ’81 is pictured at far right in the light sweatshirt.
champions, “he found the spring in his legs had increased,” Behr recalled. “But he was jumping in flat, spikeless shoes.” He dramatically improved his vertical range as a senior, a first-team all-conference basketball player who could dunk though standing just 6 feet 3 inches. “In track season, his added spring, a year’s maturity and a pair of spiked jumping shoes produced higher jumps,” Behr said. Carroll leapt 6’6” and 6’8” regularly in dual meets, while also scoring in the hurdles and long jump, before embarking on his championship whirlwind, when he exceeded 6’8” five times. In Delaware high school annals, only seven other jumpers have done so even once. Following Paul Carroll ’71, Chris Carroll-White ’75 and Denise Carroll Schwandt ’78 to Tower Hill (oldest brother Charles graduated from Archmere in 1969), John David was frequently addressed by his first and middle names to distinguish him from his father, John H. Carroll, who headed the legal department at Atlas Chemical and its successor, ICI America. Carroll had success at University of Delaware, reaching 6’9¾” as a senior indoors at the Princeton Relays in 1986. He joins coach Behr, Chuck Hobbs ’65, Ginger Smith ’66, Jeff Brokaw ’69, Ed Mongan ’69, Chuck Durante ’69, Ken Williams ’76, Ty Roberts ’79 and Mike Roberts ’98 as Hillers in the Delaware Track and Field Hall of Fame.
ALUMNI
ALUMNI EVENTS
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1. On Nov. 21, alumni, faculty and friends gathered at the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C., hosted by Lisa Olson ’76. Pictured are Linda Ogden, Pam Jennings Norton ’01, Laird Hayward ’02, Lucy Nutting ’10, Maria Rocca ’11, Maggie Kullman ’08, Sarah Kreshtool ’08, William Spruance ’14, Caitlin Van Sickle ’08 and David Kullman ’12. 2. Bessie Speers, Richie Stetson ’81 and Lisa Olson ’76. 3. Matthew Twyman ’88, Taylor Hewes ’09 and William Spruance ’14. 4. Richie Stetson ’81, Luisa Sawyer, Jack Morton ’85 and Tom Swartz ’68. 5. Jack Morton ’85, Kim Jones ’94 and Layton Skelly Griffin ’95.
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ALUMNI EVENTS
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On Jan. 21, alumni and friends gathered at the Olympic Club in San Francisco thanks to our hosts Doug and Caroline Gee Prezzano ’97, Laird Hayward ’02 and Andrew Fong ’99. 1. Laird Hayward ’02, Lucy Nutting ’10, Andrew Fong ’99, Blaise Taylor ’10, Maggie Kullman ’08, Ashley Gahagan ’08, Ellie Smith ’11 and Peter Smith ’14. 2. E.G. Crichton ’65, Ellen Jamison Kullman ’74 and Katie Applegate ’10. 3. Ellie Smith ’11, Peter Smith ’14, Katie Applegate ’10 and Alex Fortunato ’05. 4. Laird Hayward ’02, Caroline Gee Prezzano ’97 and Andrew Fong ’99.
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5. THS grandparents Ambassador Edward Elson and Susie Elson hosted an alumni gathering in Palm Beach in February. Pictured are Matt Gehrke ’94, Carmen Gehrke, Susan Casscells, Beth Colaiuta ’77, Sasha Piluiko and Susie Elson. 6. Mary Lou Golding and former headmaster Tim Golding. 7. Ambassador Elson and Rev. Tom Speers. Spring 2020
ALUMNI
CLASS NOTES ’30s
1938 Irénée “Brip” du Pont, Jr., Tower Hill’s Centennial speaker, turned 100 years old on Jan. 8!
’40s
1947 Heather Weymouth Lowry ’97, Director of the Annual Fund, visited with Barbara Johnston Woodhouse at Barbara’s home in Maine last July. Heather visited Barbara to thank her for her 30-plus years of loyal giving to the Annual Fund. Barbara reports that she still walks or hikes each day and had a recent visit from her three children and her two grandchildren. Barbara shared that she is still incredibly appreciative of her time at the school and the positive impact that faculty such as Mr. Guernsey had on her life.
’50s
1956 Carol Ann McGrew Getty is teaching a Peak at the Criminal Justice system course in the Senior Peers Actively Renewing Knowledge (SPARK) at the University of Missouri Kansas City. Before retiring, she worked in the justice system for over 30 years including serving Presidential appointments as a commissioner and chair of the U.S. Parole Commission (12 years) and teaching criminal justice at Park University (14 years), retiring as an emeritus professor.
to Ilwaco, Washington (on the Columbia River, near the Pacific Ocean). Cundiff continues to serve as the AMA Delegate for the American Association of Public Health Physicians (AAPHP). 1971 Spencer Rumsey’s article “Murder + Lies,” which is about the death of aspiring graffiti artist Michael Stewart at the hands of MTA transit cops in 1983 in Manhattan, was on display last summer and fall at the Guggenheim Museum as part of its special exhibit, Basquiat’s “Defacement: The Untold Story.” Rumsey was the city editor of the East Village Eye at the time. Stewart hung out with Jean Michael Basquiat and Keith Haring, and his death after 13 days in a coma sparked outrage among artists and local activists. 1972 Last fall Gary Lickle flew his plane on a four-hour full reconnaissance of conditions
in the Bahamas, taking hundreds of photographs of airports, homes and public facilities following Hurricane Dorian. 1973 Head of School Bessie Speers and Rev. Tom Speers stopped by Pixar Animation Studios for a visit with the studio’s president, Jim Morris. 1975 Jim Ehret is enjoying his passion: helping golf and country clubs plan and build their facilities. Ehret is now managing the $30 million restoration of the old Cobbs Creek Golf Course plus four clubs in southeast Florida, where he will be residing part time. Michael Kelly stepped down as the chairman of McCarter & English after 10 years in the role. Kelly is also the co-owner of Kelly’s Logan House in Trolley Square.
’60s
1963 Peyton Bird Sise, Justine Neff Hawley and Patricia Gallagher Gastaud gathered last summer in Duxbury, Massachusetts, with their husbands to celebrate their beloved school during this Centennial year. Tillie Page Laird plans to visit Australia in 2020. This will complete her visits to all seven continents. 1966, 1970 and 1975 Carter Coates Donovan ’66, Judy Coates ’70 and Malcolm Coates, Jr. ’75 visited Tower Hill on Jan. 27. They toured the facility and had a great time looking at yearbooks and varsity sports pictures on the walls.
’70s
1970 Dave Cundiff recently moved from Olympia
Clockwise from top left: Heather Weymouth Lowry ’97, Director of the Annual Fund, and Barbara Johnston Woodhouse ’47 at Barbara’s home in Maine this past July. Gerard Gastaud, Justine Neff Hawley ’63, Jim Hawley, Peyton Bird Sise ’63, Patricia Gallagher Gastaud ’63, John Sise and, center stage, the 1963 Evergreen yearbook. Jim Morris ’73, Head of School Bessie Speers and Rev. Tom Speers at Pixar Animation Studios. Malcolm Coates, Jr. ’75, Carter Coates Donovan ’66 and Judy Coates ’70.
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Clockwise from top left: Ben Leroy & Friends singing “Walking in Memphis” at Pizza by Elizabeths in Wilmington. Pictured are Betsy LeRoy, Ben LeRoy ’81, Pete LeRoy ’75 and Laura LeRoy Travis ’85. Bob Byrne ’79 was in Rehoboth and found a wallet that happened to belong to Fin Maroney ’23. Earlier this year, pediatrician and teen health expert Anisha Abraham, M.D., ’86 visited campus. She is pictured with Director of Alumni Relations Matt Twyman ’88 and Head of School Bessie Speers. Jea Street ’95 performs at the all school opening assembly. David Pragoff ’95 leads a tour at the DuPont Environmental Education Center.
Head at The Agnes Irwin School. 1989 Lt. Col. Michal Carlson, USMC is in the Marine Corps, now a lieutenant colonel in charge of about 300 Marines. He is part of one of two battalions that provide air defense. Orin Kerr is now a tenured professor of law at the University of California Berkeley School of Law. He moved to Berkeley from Los Angeles, where he has been a law professor at the University of Southern California since 2017.
’90s
1995 Lindsay Phelps Hobbs Acevedo was appointed to the role of director of college counseling at Tower Hill School. Tower Hill seventh graders visited the DuPont Environmental Education Center in September and had a great time learning about watersheds and wetlands. Alumnus David Pragoff, school and group programs team leader for the Delaware Nature Society, led some of the tours. Jea Street kicked off both the opening faculty/staff meeting and first day of school with awesome music! Street is a singer/ songwriter and music educator who helps Head Start teachers integrate music into their teaching.
1975, 1981 and 1985 Ben LeRoy ’81, Pete LeRoy ’75 and Laura LeRoy Travis ’85, members of the band Ben Leroy & Friends, performed at Pizza by Elizabeths in Wilmington. 1976 Lisa Olson joined the Tower Hill Board of Trustees this year. She is senior trial counsel with the U.S. Department of Justice, representing the United States in complex civil litigation issues under the Constitution and federal laws. On Oct. 24, Gov. John Carney announced a plan to appoint Justice Collins J. Seitz, Jr., as the new chief justice of the Delaware Supreme Court—a position that oversees the state’s entire judicial system, including its nationally influential business court. 1979 Bob Byrne was in Rehoboth and found a wallet that happened to belong to Fin Maroney ’23. Fin, Bob and Whit Maroney ’87, Fin’s dad, connected to reunite the wallet to Fin. The wallet was not only filled with Fin’s money he had earned over the summer, but is also a family heirloom.
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’80s
1980 Heather Richards Evans joined the Tower Hill Board of Trustees this year. She is founder and president of Yaverland Foundation, which supports education, watershed protection and the arts with a focus on programs benefiting underserved populations and children with learning differences. 1981 John David Carroll was inducted posthumously into the Delaware Track and Field Hall of Fame on Nov. 26. He was represented by family members and Bob Behr, a former Tower Hill faculty member, coach and HOF inductee. (See p. 68) 1986 Earlier this year, pediatrician and teen health expert Anisha Abraham, M.D., visited campus. Abraham is also an accomplished writer and has a book that will be released this spring. Although she currently resides outside of the United States, when she returns she often pays a visit to the Tower Hill campus, where she has many fond memories. 1988 Sally Bugbee Keidel was named the next
1996 Jesse Ehrenfeld, M.D., M.P.H., has been appointed by The Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) the director of the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin (AHW) Endowment and senior associate dean at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) School of Medicine. Ehrenfeld will lead strategy and operations of the AHW Endowment toward its goal of improving the health of Wisconsin residents. 1997 Elizabeth Jennings was recognized by The Coca-Cola Company in April 2019 during Volunteer Appreciation Week as one of the top volunteers in Coca-Coca North America based on total number of service hours for the previous year. She currently volunteers at The Fox Theatre, Atlanta Symphony Hall, the Junior League of Atlanta, the Tour Championship and various other community service projects through The Coca-Cola Company. She also recently volunteered with Team ATL for Super Bowl LIII in Atlanta, Georgia. Jennings has been an employee of The Coca-Cola Company since 2001 and celebrated her 18th year with the company in December 2019. 1999 Bill Rappolt was named partner at his law firm, Sheppard Mullin.
ALUMNI
Charlie Quimby ’17 and Harry Quimby ’17, pictured with Head of School Bessie Speers, returned to campus for a visit in January. Morgan Rollins ’17, a bioengineering major at Temple University, builds prosthetic and orthotic devices. Maggie Kullman ’08 graduated with a Master’s of Business Administration from Kellogg School of Management in June. Pictured are Michael Kullman, David Kullman ’12, Maggie Kullman ’08, Stephen Kullman ’12 and Ellen Jamison Kullman ’74. Joseph Pinto ’19 and Head of School Bessie Speers. Mauri Liberati ’05 received her Ph.D. in natural resources and the environment from the University of Connecticut.
’00s
2002 Tyler Akin, the restaurateur behind Philadelphia restaurants Stock and Res Ipsa Café, will return to Wilmington to open a “progressive” French brasserie in the space of the Hotel du Pont’s iconic Green Room.
2007 Ross Liberati is now the head coach of the men’s soccer program at Widener University. Liberati has nearly a decade of collegiate coaching experience, including work at the Division I level.
2003 Kristen Cecala, a professor of biology at University of the South, was featured in The Sewanee Purple studentnewspaper. Cecala is notorious for infecting students with an unexpected love for the slimy, squirmy and scaly critters.
2008 Maggie Kullman graduated with a Master’s of Business Administration from Kellogg School of Management in June.
2005 Mauri Liberati received her Ph.D. in natural resources and the environment from the University of Connecticut. She is now the inaugural Bailey Conservation Fellow with The Nature Conservancy in Lansing, Michigan. Kiley Trott, M.D., attended Stanford University, graduating with a degree in biological sciences. He received his M.D. from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University in New York City. He then completed his residency training in Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, followed by a fellowship in Pediatric Otolaryngology at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin. He is now an assistant professor of Pediatric Otolaryngology at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital in the Department of Surgery.
’10s
2011 Margie Mays Saunders, who competed on American Idol in 2019, performed at a charity golf tournament in July. Saunders was a judge for Delaware Teen Idol in early August and returned to American Idol for the 2020 season. 2017 Andrew Cercena, a junior at the University of Delaware, created a platform that allows high school students to “snoop” around colleges by connecting with real college students with similar interests. Charlie Quimby and Harry Quimby returned to campus for a visit in January. Morgan Rollins, a bioengineering major at Temple University, is merging the lessons she learned from her own injuries with the
education she’s getting at school to build prosthetic and orthotic devices. In the fall she wrote an op-ed for The Philadelphia Inquirer! 2018 Isabelle Pilson, a sophomore at Stanford University, spent three weeks last summer teaching in Vietnam as part of the StudentAthlete Civic Engagement (ACE) program, a program in which Duke and Stanford student-athletes participate in three-week, immersive summer service experiences with an international community partner. Allison P. Smith was named to the United States under-21 field hockey team for the 2020 season. Last fall she completed her sophomore season as a second-year starter at Columbia, where she had eight goals and three assists in 2019. 2019 Daeja Gonzalez was featured in Town Square Delaware as one of the first students to become a part of the Leading Youth Through Empowerment program, a nonprofit that helps Middle School students meet the qualifications for admission to topperforming Delaware high schools. Gonzalez is now attending Bryn Mawr College. Head of School Bessie Speers was recently in Chicago and had the opportunity to visit Joseph Pinto at the University of Chicago.
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IN MEMORIAM ALISON COLLINS MCKENNA ’57
Alison Collins McKenna ’57, a beloved former member of the school’s alumni relations and development office, passed away on Nov. 17. As an alumna, employee and parent, McKenna’s talent and commitment brought the Tower Hill community together and significantly enhanced the school’s philanthropic support. McKenna enrolled at Tower Hill in fifth grade and became active in school government, the Dial and sports, going on to earn both academic and athletic honors. She attended Hollins College and worked at the DuPont Company before returning to Tower Hill in 1973 to develop an alumni relations program. Over three decades, her responsibilities gradually expanded to encompass fundraising, archival research, editing, public relations, special events and administration. McKenna’s tenure spanned 10 board chairs, five headmasters and four capital campaigns. She developed the Tower Hill Bulletin magazine, initiated the first Grandparents’ Day in this area, organized regional alumni gatherings around the country and expanded Homecoming to include a 5K run and class reunion parties. She bolstered the Alumni Council’s golf outing and developed the annual giving program. She spearheaded the yearlong 75th anniversary celebration, culminating in a dinner for 800 at the Bob Carpenter Center and the publication of Forever Green: A Commemorative History of Tower Hill School. Upon McKenna’s retirement in 2005, former Headmaster Tim Golding called her an “institutional treasure and keeper of the Tower Hill memory for over 30 years.” 16th Street beside the Timothy B. Golding Alumni House was renamed “McKenna Way” in her honor, and she was a 2009 recipient of the prestigious Founders’ Achievement Award. McKenna’s husband, Jack, predeceased her, and she is survived by her children Sean McKenna ’78 and Jennifer McKenna. The Tower Hill community extends our deepest condolences to the McKenna Family.
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McKenna pictured in the 1992-1993 Bulletin.
ALUMNI
WEDDINGS 2002 Molly Wilcox married Ernest Roy Taylor III on Oct. 26, 2019. Pictured at top to the right are Susan D’Alonzo ’02, Patrick Kaiser ’02, Taylor Patterson ’02, Tom Villalon ’02, Molly Wilcox ’02, Tyler Akin ’02, Kathryn Fortunato ’02, Sarah Kalamchi ’02 and Elizabeth Fortunato ’02. 2006 and 2008 Greg Mackenzie ’06 and Meghan Graham MacKenzie ’08 were married in August 2019. 2009 Max Timmons married Katie Buck Marshall on Aug. 31, 2019, at the Chesapeake Bay Beach Club in Stevensonville, Maryland (pictured at bottom to the right). Katie, a Georgetown Law magna cum laude graduate, is an attorney at Venable, LLC, and Max is an asset management associate at Pembroke/Fidelity and an M.S. business analytics candidate at UVA Darden. The couple will reside in Washington, D.C. Many members of the Class of 2009 were in attendance, including best man Tim Saunders, groomsmen Tyler Trerotola and Jon Gabriel, and guests Kyle Anderson, Evan DeDominicis, Merritt Cooch McDonnell, Justin Hicks, Nate McDonald, Charlie Glick, A.J.R. Carter and Tyler Hobbs.
BIRTHS Bryan Hobbs ’92 and his wife, Kelly, welcomed Cleo Estelle in September 2019. Ryan Schultz ’97 and Lauren Golt ’03 welcomed Walker James in August 2019. Carolina Robinson Heinle ’98 welcomed Ema Claire Heinle in October 2019. Stuart MacKenzie ’99 welcomed Cora MacKenzie in November 2019. Nick Casscells ’04 and his wife, Ashley, welcomed a baby boy, Tucker James Casscells, in November 2019. Peter Fulweiler ’06 and his wife, Bernadette, welcomed Peter Fulweiler in November 2019. He is the first grandchild of Peter and Kimmie Kitchel Fulweiler ’72. Clockwise from top left: Cleo Estelle, daughter of Bryan Hobbs ’92. Walker James, son of Ryan Schultz ’97 and Lauren Golt ’03 (picture by Carly Abbott ’97). Ava Macey, daughter of Chrissy Palmer Holubinka ’09. Sulmona Mae, daughter of Cammie Taylor Pandolfo ’09.
CONDOLENCES 1939 The Honorable Harry G. Haskell on Jan. 16, 2020
Chrissy Palmer Holubinka ’09 and her husband, Adam, welcomed Ava Macey in September 2019. Cammie Taylor Pandolfo ’09 and her husband, Peter Pandolfo, welcomed a baby girl, Sulmona Mae Pandolfo, in May 2019. She is the first grandchild of Susan and John Taylor ’76.
1940 Carol Wolff Rendall on Oct. 20, 2019
1952 P. Gerald White on Aug. 18, 2019 1956 Donald B. Hanson in June 2019
1941 Anne “Nancy” Jessup Edgar Wells on Oct. 22, 2019
1956 Henry I. "Jerry" Brown III on Nov. 21, 2019
1943 Anne Carpenter Waugh on March 29, 2019
1957 Alison Collins McKenna on Nov. 17, 2019
1943 Elizabeth P. Van Leeuwen on Dec. 25, 2019
1958 Richard C. Rust on Sept. 23, 2019
1945 Carolyn Denning Calvin on Jan. 4, 2020
1959 Keith Taylor Tulloch on Nov. 12, 2019
1946 Marguerite “Daisy” Gubelmann Simonton on Feb. 6, 2020
1961 John B. Charamella on Dec. 16, 2019
1948 Katharine “Kitty” Evans May on Sept. 15, 2019
1966 Joseph E. Sandberg on Sept. 8, 2019 1967 Charles R. Monet on Sept. 11, 2019
1950 Nancy Ritter Raftery on Dec. 13, 2019 1952 Arthur H. Hyde on April 27, 2019
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LEADERSHIP DONOR RECEPTION
On Nov. 6, 2019, Ben du Pont ’82 hosted a reception at Brantwyn Estate for Tower Hill leadership supporters who gave $1,000 or more to the 2018-2019 Annual Fund.
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1. Ben du Pont ’82 and Ben du Pont ’20. 2. Laura de Ramel, Patricia Crouch and Vivian and David Gaz. 3. Chris Casscells ’71 and Susan Casscells. 4. Jane and Jeff Rutledge. 5. June Wang and Jinsong Zhang. 6. Funke and David Soleye. 7. Wes Schwandt ’86, Michelle Schwandt, Laura du Pont and Ben du Pont ’82. 8. Leif and Erika Bohman and Alexis and Peter Bradshaw. 9. Kristin Mumford and Gary and Dana Nitsche.
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Make a Gift. Make an Impact. Your gift of any size makes a direct impact on today’s students and teachers. Annual Fund dollars provide support for technology, financial aid, faculty professional development, athletics, arts and so much more.
towerhill.org/makeagift Tower Hill Bulletin
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Tower Hill School 2813 West 17th Street Wilmington, DE 19806
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