Board of Trustees

David Hookom, chair Nicole DeLeon (Hoover), vice chair Scott Ault, secretary Alex Young, treasurer John Aquino Brendon Blincoe Elena Blue-Blum Beth Fulton Marcus Grant Noreen Halpern Robert Ivison Lisa Katz Gary Kirkpatrick Jackie Lay David Monahan Bertha Muñoz Michelle Sacchetto Mason Thune Erin Underhill Paolo Velasco Alain Yotnegparian Norman Kelsey, church delegate

John Aquino Brendon Blincoe Elena Blue-Blum Beth Fulton Marcus Grant Noreen Halpern Lisa Katz Gary Kirkpatrick Jackie Lay David Monahan Bertha Muñoz Michelle Sacchetto Mason Thune Paolo Velasco Alain Yotnegparian Norman Kelsey, church delegate

2020-21 board of trustees

David Hookom, chair Nicole DeLeon (Hoover), vice chair Scott Ault, secretary Alex Young, treasurer

Running toward the roar...

Early in his tenure as Board Chair, David Hookom asked The Board of Trustees to ‘run to the roar.’ Behind that phrase is a simple blueprint for facing adversity. When a trial or obstacle presents itself, we often hear the roar of that challenge, are gripped with fear, and run the other way. It’s an instinctual, fight-or-flight panic response. However, when we run from things that scare us, we actually move toward danger, not away from it. David challenged the Trustees to fight that instinct and consider new paths for our school and be courageous in our strategic thinking.

Little did we know how loud that roar was going to be…

The challenges the Wesley community has grappled with over the last two school years have been formidable: the tragic loss of our Head of School, a global pandemic which forced an abrupt pivot to distance learning, interrupted lives and livelihoods, exhausted faculty and administrators, a close community unable to gather. Any one of these factors or events, alone, could have pushed the school to its breaking point. Instead, we became stronger. With flexibility and imagination, our faculty, administration, and staff skillfully and quickly migrated in-person education to a remote model that kept our children curious and engaged while also reinventing Wesley’s treasured traditions for a virtual community, holding us together.

Back on campus again, through the creativity and commitment of our faculty, the initiative and innovation of our administration, the resiliency and compassion of our community, and the dedication and stewardship of our Board of Trustees, we can finally see light at the end of the tunnel. The hardest times reveal the true character of a place, and we will all be able to look back and know our hearts and values led us forward. We learned that to be brave isn’t the absence of fear: it is facing our challenges no matter how overwhelming and moving towards them… running toward the roar. After all, we are the Wesley Lions.

With gratitude… the wesley board of trustees