Head of School

Greetings from the Hillside!

Hard as it is to believe, we are already a quarter of the way through the school year. As we look forward to the Centennial next year, we have focused our energies this fall on “returning to our roots,” particularly what it means and has always meant to be a member of the South Kent School community. 

With this in mind, I welcomed the students back to campus with an early Chapel talk about the initial days of South Kent School. I spoke about why our School was founded and the community bonds that have always made a South Kent education so unique and impactful. After my address, Co-Head Prefect Simon Gaul spoke in Chapel with a similar message about the importance of our community, albeit from a student perspective.

On September 26, we celebrated Founders' Day, the School’s 99th birthday. In the morning Assembly, Co-Head Prefect Nate Bartoli read introductory remarks. Then Mr. Foster White '55 told the story of the School’s twenty-four “Charter Scholars,” including his father, Frank C. White '29, who assembled to procure an education for the very first academic year in 1923. Read their Founders' Day remarks here. We ended the day in Chapel, where guest speaker Rev. Dr. Kate Kelderman, chaplain at Kent School, furthered the lessons about early South Kent and the traditions and values that our schools share. 

This past weekend, we welcomed families back to the Hillside for Fall Family Weekend 2022. It was wonderful to see students reunite with their loved ones and have families experience what a day in the life of a South Kent School student looks like. On Friday, families joined us for classes, Chapel, advisor conferences, meals, athletic practices and games, a parent reception, and a special musical performance put on by a few of our music students. On Saturday, families had the opportunity to sit in on a panel discussion with South Kent faculty and staff and learn more about the School and its many programs and offerings. We had a lively Q&A session about everything from Mastery and block scheduling to College Counseling and Community Life. We capped off the weekend with some exciting athletic competitions from the soccer and hockey teams on our home pitch and rink. A fun time was had by all, and the vibrant New England foliage helped us show off our campus during peak season.

Fall Family Weekend photos are available here. 
To view photos, enter the South Kent School SmugMug site password: sks1923

Now that we've finished up the first quarter, the Third and Fourth Formers will be receiving comments and suggestions on their “Report Cards” instead of traditional letter grades as we shift to “Mastery” education. The School has embarked upon this Mastery journey after deeply investigating how boys learn best. As a result of that investigation, we learned that traditional teaching and learning practices fell short in many ways, including how teachers report grades. Traditional letter grades can include bias, inequity, inflation, and the conflation of effort with ability. The result is a grade label that does not adequately inform important stakeholders (colleges, parents, students) of a student’s performance on learning targets within a curriculum. It will take another year or two to transition to the Mastery system in the upper forms (and longer for the NCAA and some college admission offices to catch up). Still, we believe that this is a far better system of providing feedback and accurate assessment to the students rather than simply issuing letter grades.

Out of the classroom, our athletic teams are off to a strong start. As of this writing, all our hockey teams have winning records, with the 18U team winning the prestigious USHL Fall Classic Tournament in Pittsburgh. The Prep Soccer team has a record of 9-1-0 and won the Sportmen’s Cardinal Classic Championship, while the Varsity Soccer team is 4-3-2. The Mountain Biking team has riders placing higher than ever before, and the Cross Country team members are holding their own so far in early-season dual meets.

Members of the Advancement and Admissions teams and I have been fanning out across the country this fall to spread the word about South Kent. For my part, I have already been to parts of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Wyoming, Idaho, South Carolina, Washington D.C., Texas, New Mexico, and Virginia, and I will continue my travels throughout the year. We look forward to seeing many of you in the coming months.