Head of School

‘Whatever it Takes’ has always been a part of who we are at WMA

At WMA in the spring of 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the phrase “Whatever it Takes” went from catchy slogan to a campus way of life— a community ethos.

At first it was simply an unspoken necessity. The faculty and administration needed to rapidly transform our entire curriculum into an e ective online platform to serve our students as well as we could for the unplanned fully remote spring trimester. They accomplished that monumental feat in about three weeks. It was truly amazing to witness, and the e orts of the whole community paid o with what was unquestionably a remarkably successful spring trimester.

That was hard work, but at least the task was exceptionally clear. After that, however, we needed to begin planning for all of the uncertainty and anxiety of the forthcoming 2020–21 school year. It was then that “Whatever it Takes” became more intentional and a lodestar for our navigation through uncharted waters.

Early in that time, in conversation with Chair of the Board Scott Jacobs ’75, we determined that the single most important priority for WMA was to safely open the school for full-time in-person learning—no matter what. One might wonder why this was the priority, given the complicated nature of the circumstances and the proliferation of remote learning across the country. The answer was quite simple: Our students and their families deserved the WMA experience they had been promised. It was from this mindset that the slogan “Whatever it Takes” was more outwardly adopted.

Planning for a future scenario that was still developing and so uncertain was challenging, for sure, and much more complicated than the initial shift to all-online. Both instances demanded and facilitated a di erent kind of decision making style that is not common in schools—but which was critical to our success.

Academic institutions like WMA are filled with students, families and sta , who are not only highly intelligent and creative, but also fully committed to the school community. They are uniquely engaged in the life of the school. The result is that it’s more than just a school ... it’s a communal endeavor. For this reason, and rightly so, most decision making in a setting like ours is reliant on sharing of ideas and options, discussion, healthy debate and consensus building—all of which are central to creating a shared sense of community. This sort of decision-making process, however, takes time and face-to-face opportunities, neither of which were abundant during the spring and summer of 2020.

At times like this, when decisions need to be made quickly and definitively, and in response to rapidly evolving circumstances, a di erent kind of decision making is necessary: crisis decision

making. Crisis decision making relies on a relatively small number of people to make timely decisions and to communicate with as much clarity and transparency as possible in order to maintain the trust and fellowship of the rest of the community. It is also a form of decision making that is perfectly suited to a “Whatever it Takes” situation.

In this case, the relatively small group of people was the Administrative Team and the Board of Trustees, and a handful of other critical administrators and our group of external medical and educational advisors. In order to accommodate the kind of nimble responses necessary for such a rapidly shifting school landscape, the expanded Administrative Team began meeting at least twice each week and more as necessary, the Board of Trustees began meeting every two weeks (from their typical annual quarterly meetings) and our advisors were available literally at a moment’s notice. And all of this, mind you, was through Zoom. Without the combined e ort of this group of people, and the corresponding and critical trust and hard work of the rest of the community, all that we accomplished last year would simply not have been possible.

As an example, based on what we learned from our spring 2020 full-online experience, we knew we needed to adopt a software-based learning management system in order for us to run the kind of adaptive program the coming year would demand. This kind of institutional change requires a significant amount of work from the entire teaching faculty and connected administrators, who essentially need to completely change the way we organize our academic program from course syllabi all the way to communication with parents. It is a massive undertaking, and under ordinary circumstances and typical decision making it would take several years to achieve. In the crisis decision making mode, it took about three months and then an unplanned summer of faculty training on the new system and adapting all of their course curricula.

Similarly, construction projects such as adding an additional bathroom to each floor in Rich Hall dormitory, already part of our long-range Campus Master Plan, would have taken years to accomplish behind a long list of other priorities. As a necessary component of opening the campus and under the “Whatever it Takes” ethos, we had it done by the end of the summer.

Just as necessity is the mother of invention, it is also the mother of crisis decision making. Foremost in the long list of examples is the commitment of our entire WMA campus community to the unprecedented schoolwide, yearlong twice-a-week PCR virus testing program. Through the course of the year, WMA conducted more than 27,500 COVID-19 tests with the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, a critical transmission-prevention measure that cost WMA nearly $1 million over our budget. The success of this testing resulted in a yearlong on-campus positivity rate of .00084. It doesn’t get much more “Whatever it Takes” than that.

All of these measures and many more contributed to the multifaceted approach to the year that resulted in our success at a time when the odds were stacked against us. But, it did not come without a cost. Financial costs aside, this kind of schoolwide e ort and “Whatever it Takes” attitude is not sustainable long term. It is just too damaging to the sense of community engagement and ownership for which WMA is so highly regarded. As a result and as the continuing crisis allows us to, we will transition back to a more cooperative and community-focused decision making process and a life on campus that more closely reflects WMA’s mission and its character.

The reality, though, is that we will not abandon the “Whatever it Takes” slogan entirely. We will reduce our emphasis on it, as circumstances warrant, but the reality is that “Whatever it Takes” has often been part of the WMA ethos and has gotten the school through some very challenging times in its history. Many of you have seen this play out during your time here and through the years. It was simply brought to bear again, and the success over the last year, at its core, is probably because “Whatever it Takes” has always been a part of who we are at WMA.