Head of School

Good day from the Hillside! There has been so much happening on campus in the past month that I am finding it difficult to place it all coherently in one newsletter. However, the variety of disparate newsworthy events and undertakings are all illustrative of the fact that SKS continues to thrive despite a world that can seem to have gone off the rails at different times.

Probably the most noteworthy of these happenings is the Prize Day Challenge. While we are still processing some gifts, writing acknowledgment letters and running reports, I am thrilled to report that this has been another very successful event. We met all the challenge matches that were made possible by a small group of very generous alumni, and we received contributions from more than 450 donors. I cannot thank you enough for the incredible support shown for our school during this two-day event.

We made a critical hire in the past month, adding Sue Harris to our team as Chief Marketing and Communications Officer. Most recently, Sue was the Director of Marketing and Communications at the Hartford Consortium for Higher Education (HCHE) in Hartford, CT where she led strategic marketing, communications, events, and business partnership initiatives that heightened the reputation, promoted awareness, and enlisted affiliates for HCHE programs and priorities. Originally from Barbados, Sue lives in Windsor, CT with her husband Barclay. They have two sons: Nikki and Alex.

Despite the campus being closed, we have had some much appreciated virtual visitors this year through our Young Alumni Panels. Our college counselors, Lynn Worthington and Bill Whittaker, set up these conversations between Sixth Formers and PGs on campus with recent graduates attending college to discuss the transition to college and what to expect, or not.

Vaccinations in the State of Connecticut are moving rapidly ahead. Almost all of our employees have either been fully vaccinated or at least received their first shot. As of now, everyone 16 years old and older can get vaccinated in Connecticut, and students at boarding institutions are considered residents. However, SKS is not vaccinating students this spring, instead encouraging them to get vaccinated as soon as they can when they get home after school ends in early May. The short timeframe to complete the process is the biggest reason for this decision, as are the requirement for the legal guardian to be present at the vaccination of people under 18, the clinical management of vaccine side effects, and the possible interruption of students’ travel plans home. Considering all of this, our plan seems to be the most logical.

This past month, two exciting events took place for our high performance hockey and basketball teams. Our U18 hockey team joined the newly formed Prep Hockey Conference, which will provide competition at least as strong as the teams we currently play and is composed of like-minded schools. Our basketball team had several thrilling games against Putnam Science, the “other” exceptional team in New England Prep School basketball. By far the most exciting game an SKS team has played in recent memory was the one that came down to the wire in Brown Gym on March 20.

Look at that buzzer beater!

In the most recent edition of The Atlantic is an article entitled “Private Schools Are Indefensible” about which many of you sent me notes and links. The general theme of the article is that a tiny handful of the wealthiest independent schools cater only to rich white families and rarely live up to their promises of egalitarianism and/or preparation for real life as 99% of the country knows it. I wrote a response citing our mission - “South Kent School prepares young men to succeed in college and thrive as thoughtful and engaged citizens in a rapidly changing and intensely competitive world” - and attempting to illustrate that SKS (and most other independent schools) cannot possibly live in the rarified air of billion dollar endowments, and we work to put our values and mission into everything that we do on a daily basis in simple but effective ways. I have not heard back from The Atlantic.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of our partnership with Syracuse University Project Advance, or SUPA courses. SUPA is one of the oldest and leading “concurrent enrollment” programs wherein students can earn college credit from a university, in this case Syracuse, while they are still enrolled at SKS. The courses have to be accepted by Syracuse, and the teachers have to be SUPA certified, requiring twice annual professional development sessions for every SUPA course taught.

From the student perspective, there are many benefits to taking SUPA courses. College courses increase college readiness. Transferability of the credits is roughly 90%, which can result in savings at college through reduced course requirements and lower tuition expenses. SUPA course content is significantly greater than corresponding AP courses, which have come to be little more than a college admission tool.

There are benefits from the perspective of the School and participating faculty members as well. “Adjunct instructors” as SKS SUPA teachers are known, are part of an ongoing seminar program through which they meet with Syracuse professors and other SUPA teachers to gain exposure to new topics and methods, to share teaching experiences, and to develop curriculum. This professional development, in turn, spreads to the other SKS faculty because of our close collaborative and cooperative teaching in the block plan.

In the ten years that we have been part of the SUPA program, SKS students have earned 1,358 college credits. 65% of three or four year boys are taking courses for college credit while they are on the Hillside, taught by our own faculty. The record at SKS is one student who received 21 units of full credit at RIT, or credits for more than half a year. Next year we will offer SUPA courses in: Calculus I, Calculus II, Elementary Probability and and Statistics I and II, Practices of Writing, Introduction to the Analysis of Public Policy, Introduction to Creative Nonfiction, Introduction to African American Studies, Introduction to Entrepreneurship, and Foundations of Economics.

We are looking forward to Prize Day on May 9th and getting some rest after a long 32 weeks of on-campus learning. Lastly, we are excited at the prospect of seeing many of you on campus next fall on September 24th, 25th and 26th for Alumni Weekend!

Head of School's Reading List:

Are we Rome?
by Cullen Murphy

In the same issue of The Atlantic that has the article about independent schools is an article called “No Really, Are We Rome?” by Cullen Murphy. This piece, written after January 6th, reexamines and updates Murphy’s book of fifteen years ago called Are We Rome? After I finished The Atlantic article I pulled out my old copy of the book and reread it. Murphy does not really answer the question he poses in the title, but draws many interesting parallels between the modern US and ancient Rome, and suggests that if we do not address government corruption and our international arrogance that we could face the same demise as did the Romans. Whether one agrees with him or not, it is certainly a short and provocative read.

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