Head of School

Holiday greetings from the Hillside!

We all enjoyed a respite for Thanksgiving and are looking forward to a longer break December 17 - January 9. Before we left, the Prep Soccer Team won their tenth New England Championship and fifth National Championship! This, plus the ongoing hockey seasons and the start of the basketball season, has led me to address a question I regularly get as the Head of South Kent School: “Why high performance athletics?”

To start answering this question we need to look at the constantly changing world of independent boarding schools. 25 years ago, most boarding schools looked roughly the same, and families were not looking for anything different, nor were there many different options to consider. Since that time the landscape has changed dramatically due to an ever-increasing disparity of wealth, shifting demographics, the decrease in the number of traditional nuclear families and the resulting changes in family expectations, changing values in our culture, etc. 

Tuitions at schools like ours used to be the same as the price tag on a midsize Chevrolet; now we cost at least twice that much. 

We have also seen many changes in sports for young athletes. Those who aspire to compete at high levels are being encouraged to concentrate on one sport with year-round training. While controversial from many standpoints, this trend is likely to continue.

Just being an excellent, small, Episcopal boys school is no longer enough to attract enough qualified candidates. Across the country, schools had to determine who they were, and how they could do things better than any other school, which has created a wide array of schools for the consumer; we chose to offer high performance athletics for three-quarters of our students.

We created a niche in the market because we understand all of the above circumstances. Athletics are also the perfect place to teach our trinity of values - simplicity of life, self reliance and directness of purpose - because they always apply to every practice and every game. We are able to support our athletes by creating the opportunity for them to pursue their athletic passions within a boarding school environment that emphasizes community life and academics. 

Most importantly, we are preparing our boys for life after high school, life after college, and life after athletics. Guided by our mission, South Kent School’s academic, athletic, and student life programming work together to provide opportunities for our students that cannot be realized anywhere else:  

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.

So, while at first glance it might appear that South Kent School has changed a great deal in recent years, in fact, we have not. We already had strong and distinctive academic and community life programs, and raising our profile through athletics gives us a path forward that few other schools can follow, while at the same time keeping our values and traditions; we did not have to change who we were, or our core values. 

I am confident that a South Kent School education is more important today than ever, whether the student is a world class athlete or not. Young men today need the beliefs, the mores we have always lived, because they are being taught in fewer and fewer places. 

Coach Raphael Chillious recently did an interview with “Prep Athletics”, when he explained our high performance sports exceptionally well. A short excerpt from this interview can be seen below, or you can watch the entire (hour long) interview here.

Excerpts from the PREP Athletics interview with Raphael Chillious.
 

Head of School's Reading List:

Video Updates:

21-22 Hillside Update Season 2 Episode 2

The Hillside Update is back by popular demand! Our new co-host, Erik Bjornson '23, gives us a quick update and leads the "Ask the Boys" segment, finding out what our students are thankful for this season.

Video Updates:

21-22 Hillside Update Season 2 Episode 3

On this episode of the Hillside Update we welcome new team member Oliver Jones as he premiers his segment about SKS Programs, and co-host Erik Bjornson continues his segment and asks the boys how they celebrate the holidays.