Dear St. Andrew’s Alumni, Parents, and Friends,
Although our summer is spent busily preparing for the return of students, it is also a time of reflection. Early August seems like a good time to share some thoughts regarding this past year with all of you: the community of people who love and support St. Andrew’s School. I hope this letter will become a yearly tradition for us; the Report on Philanthropy, our annual report, always arrives in mailboxes in the fall, but I am grateful for this moment in which I may share my thoughts about the character of the year.
St. Andrew’s is a school that matters: we are a place of building up, bringing together, and daring to listen and learn. In a world that is fractured and “remote” it takes enormous courage for young people to come together, give grace, put down their phones, show up in person, learn from each other, and take the risk to grow, admit mistakes, persuade others and change their own minds. It requires a brave and devoted faculty to create the conditions necessary for growth in intellect and character—to have the perception and dexterity both to inspire and support in the requisite measures. Countless selfless acts make daily life at St. Andrew’s happen, and we can never take that for granted. I hope this note will highlight some of those moments.
Students and Faculty
The people are always the heart of our school, and the 2023-2024 school year was no different in that St. Andrew’s gathered a group of remarkable humans to learn together. The year began in mid-August with new faculty orientation where we welcomed a total of eight new colleagues. We also marked the first fully fledged year of the Teaching Fellows Program, designed by Emily Pressman. We welcomed four fellows into the program, which you might have read about in the spring St. Andrew’s Magazine. All four will return to the faculty next year, and we are absolutely thrilled to continue to help these outstanding faculty members grow and develop as boarding school teachers.
The VI Form arrived a week before Opening Day for their leadership meetings, where they established their values as a class and considered the kind of leaders they need to be for the school, the students, and each other. They did some incredible work together, and with their values of care, trust, passion, effort, servitude, communication, empathy, engagement, awareness, and adaptability, the Class of 2024 made a meaningful impact on the school. Their enthusiasm, joie de vivre, and commitment to this institution made it hard to say goodbye to them after graduation. The Commencement celebration included a remarkable address by alumna Halimah DeLaine Prado ’93 P’27, general counsel of Google, which none of us will soon forget.
The signature event of the fall was the kick-off of a two-year 50th Anniversary Celebration of Coeducation at St. Andrew’s. The “first girls” returned to campus in October so that we could celebrate them at Homecoming. Despite a massive thunderstorm, an hours-long power outage, and flooding across the region, alumnae gathered in our living room for a dinner with girls who are leading the school today. The stories and advice the “first girls” shared were invaluable, and Ty and I enjoyed staying up late with them to learn as much as we could. It was an unforgettable celebration of an important chapter of the school’s history. The next morning, with the skies glowering and generators feeding power to the chapel, the entire school gathered to hear a few alumnae share their recollections of the dawn of coeducation. (There were not only profound truths and powerful advice, but students also learned about things called “record players” and “pay phones” that apparently existed in 1973!) The perspective, the friendships, the laughter, and the honesty these women brought back to campus helped us think about how much the school has changed and how much potential our future holds as we stand on the shoulders of these giants. Progress is not inevitable—it is hard won with the goodwill, good humor, and good work of many. What a wonderful lesson for all of us to hear again so early in the year.
This has also been a major year of achievement in sports at St. Andrew’s, even as we remain committed to our model that eschews specialization and requires competing in multiple sports as an essential part of education. This is where we learn to “empty the bucket”—as well as practice teamwork, communication, grit, sportsmanship, and how to quiet our egos in the service of a greater goal. We are the rare school that fields JV teams in nearly all our sports (and occasionally thirds), and at those levels, competition can be hard to find. Many, if not most, schools in Delaware allow each sport to operate year-round, meaning that our teams often begin their seasons slowly compared to others. However, no one can beat the Saints when it comes to camaraderie, and that unified spirit and can-do attitude mean that by season’s end, we are surprising others (but not ourselves) with our late-season and post-season success. Following our athletics core values of commitment, teamwork, sportsmanship, accountability, excellence, relationship-building and an all-in attitude, the Saints had phenomenal success. This year, girls and boys cross-country came in second and third in the state, respectively; field hockey tied for most wins ever in a season (since 2016); in swimming boys won the DISC tournament; in indoor track the boys won their first ever conference title and the girls finished second in the conference by a nose; boys lacrosse made a state tournament run for the first time in six years; girls lacrosse had the most wins since 2017; girls soccer powered their way to the state semifinals; boys and girls tennis went deep into state competition, finishing overall third and fourth in the state respectively, with our second boys doubles coming in first in the state and the first doubles runners-up. In crew, we were the only high school that had all four top boats—the two girls varsity and two boys varsity—in the finals at Stotesbury.
School leadership continues to evolve. Early in 2023-24, we searched for new head and associate chaplains, and appointed Rev. Michael Giansiracusa and Rev. Thomas Becker to these critical posts of spiritual leadership. (A highlight of the 2023-24 years was the return of Rev. David DeSalvo P’00,’04 as interim head chaplain.) Last year, I convened a faculty advisory committee to help search internally for a dean of faculty, and was delighted to appoint Wilson Everhart ’95 to this crucial role of faculty stewardship, retention, and renewal. Greg Guldin will be our dean of student affairs, overseeing residential and student life, student discipline and honor, and advising. We also appointed a new CFO, Bill McClements ’81 P’12, who will oversee school finances and operations and lead our efforts to define the financial model that will sustain St. Andrew’s into and through its next century.
Hold the Phone
Time is so precious, and perhaps no time more precious than the fleeting years of adolescence, which also happen to be the years when humans have the neurological window to experience so much social and intellectual development that, when done right, will serve us for our entire lives. We should all be proud that St. Andrew’s continues to be known for our “cell phone culture,” which has received national attention in the last three years, and which ensures that we are preserving critical time for community, play, friendships, attention, and discussion during the adolescent years. For those not familiar, our culture is simply that phones must stay in students’ rooms and cannot be used anywhere but inside the room, except when listening to music while in the gym. Students must check their phones into the hallways when study hall begins in the evenings, so they are not in the room with their phones, which also remain in the hallway overnight for third, fourth and fifth formers. Only seniors are allowed to keep phones in their rooms overnight if they wish, although internet service is disconnected for everyone at 10:45 p.m. to ensure students can rest without distraction. Students embrace and own the policy as an essential foundation for community and friendship-building.
Jon Haidt’s book, “The Anxious Generation,” reignited a national conversation about the incredibly damaging effects of smartphones for adolescents—damage to their development of friendships and social skills, their academic work and schooling, and their mental health. This book is our all-school read and I invite everyone receiving this note to join us in reading it. The data are convincing, although I wish I could say they are astonishing. What I know is what you read last year about St. Andrew’s in the Atlantic, on this topic: we are so fortunate to be in the vanguard of schools in recognizing that high school is part of childhood, and in fostering student-led community norms that allow kids to have the best chance of flourishing and happiness in adolescence.
A Framework for Discourse in Independent Schools
The public discourse in our country and the world around is fraught with discord and plagued by cowardice, fueled by short attention spans, online anonymity, distrust, and a zero-sum mentality around political decision-making, whether the decision in question is existential or trivial. Our schools must be places of openness and exchange, where a variety of voices and virtues are gathered, and where listening and speaking are practiced and prioritized. If our students can learn these skills in their adolescence, it should give all of us hope for the future.
Therefore, I was privileged this year to be invited by John Austin ’83 P’18,’21,’23, head of Deerfield Academy, to participate in a task force of heads of independent schools to advise him in creating a framework for independent schools around these issues. Although many sets of principles exist to guide universities—which have a mission distinct from independent schools, particularly in their commitment to research—no such framework existed for secondary schools. John received funding from the E. E. Ford Foundation to support this work, and it was a highlight this year to be in conversation with the heads of so many other schools around free expression and, crucially, how it serves a great education.
As the framework itself states, it “rests on a simple assumption: that schools are, first and foremost, places of inquiry and exploration, preparing students for the freedom, rights, and responsibilities they will enjoy as adults. Teaching and learning are distinct from advocacy and activism, and nonpartisan teaching is vital to creating an intellectual climate within schools that promotes, sustains, and deepens courageous inquiry.” The framework uses a graphical representation to describe a foundation in our schools of learning and inquiry with a goal of student autonomy and self-determination, supported by three pillars—expressive freedom, disciplined nonpartisanship, and intellectual diversity. The report provides a good deal of detail on how these elements can be understood, and it is my expectation that many schools will embrace the framework, debate it, and some will discard it. Whatever schools decide, the intent was to create a basis for this important discussion in independent schools, and I hope the document will encourage many schools along this path of discernment, especially in a contentious election year.
We will always promote what we value as an Episcopal school in a nonpartisan manner. Beyond those tenets, there is a necessary balance in schools as teachers exercise their freedom to teach and design their curriculum ever mindful of the goal of supporting the freedom of students to learn, inquire, and find their distinct voices. At St. Andrew’s the considerable gifts of our teachers and the small size of our classrooms mean we can pursue and achieve this balance. For my part as a head of school, I have taken care to refrain from public comment on partisan and political matters and show restraint and moderation in my own speech, in the hope of allowing many views to flourish and for students to feel confident in their own voices and the primacy of their place in this community. We can all be proud of the incredible work taking place in St. Andrew’s classrooms, and I invite you to visit us and join a class or two.
Nature for Nurture
Our built and natural environment are the critical context for the St. Andrew’s student experience. Without our 2,200 acres of Eastern deciduous woodlands, wetlands, waterways, and farmland, an education in this place would be so different. With the board and school leadership, especially in facilities and the business office, we have begun this past year to plan for the future of the facilities and ecosystem, including studying what it will take to be a zero-carbon school someday. The Urban Land Institute convened a “Technical Assistance Panel” of experts to help us plan, and the Stone House Group, our energy and facilities partners, has worked on several linchpin projects, including a carbon dashboard that will debut before the calendar-year end.
It is always remarkable to Ty and me how the school becomes such a hive of activity in the summer—just the opposite of what you might imagine during this time of rest. Our facilities team has been working very hard to keep the campus in shape, with cleaning and small construction projects to create more student-facing office space in Founders, as well as a student gathering space above the Kip duPont Boathouse, thanks to major gift support.
The grounds crew have been hard at work as well. Everyone in the state of Delaware knows we have the best grass fields, and this doesn’t happen without a lot of planning and effort. After an early dry spell, the rains have been more abundant this year than in recent summers, and our grounds have flourished. Since my arrival, we have embarked on a reforestation and tree management program on the campus. As our stately trees reach 100 years, they require regular maintenance to do well, particularly in the suffocating heat of the summer. Working with an arborist, we are underplanting critical areas such as the Main Drive to ensure that the view of Founders Hall emerging from a grove of majestic trees remains a key feature of your arrival on our campus.
Opening the Doors
Finally, it was an enormous delight to end the year by announcing that we met and exceeded, for the first time in school history, a goal of $3 million for the Saints Fund. I must express my profound gratitude to all who contributed. Your love of St. Andrew’s, your devotion to and meaningful support of this place, make everything we do possible. We exercise enormous discipline in our spending, but the cost of one student’s education for one year at St. Andrew’s exceeds $86,000. Therefore, even those paying full tuition receive substantial support—and the Saints Fund and endowment income make up the difference, approximately half of our budget. Thank you for all you did to open the doors of this school to all the families who require scholarship support to accept an offer of admission. Scholarship assistance remains essential to our identity as a school “open to all, regardless of means,” and it benefits every single one of us, whether we receive a scholarship or not.
And remember, our doors are always open to you! Please come visit and experience St. Andrew’s today if you have the chance. Until then, you have my sincere gratitude and warmest wishes for what remains of your summer.
- Joy Blog
