Dear Families,

As I am writing my third quarter letter to you, I am filled with gratitude for the state of St. Margaret’s Episcopal School. In January, at the annual State of the School Address, we shared mission-critical metrics about the achievement and well-being of our students, our positive financial trajectory and growing endowment, and the success of our Tartans Thrive Campaign to build a transformational space in the heart of our campus for all Tartans. The quantitative and qualitative inputs that we track point to an incredibly healthy and vibrant school. A school that is truly thriving. 

With record-level admission applications across all grade levels this year, I’m thrilled to share today that we are enjoying the highest levels of re-enrollment in school history.  Attrition at St. Margaret’s is lower than ever which is especially meaningful during a time when schools around the nation are seeing trends in the opposite direction. And we look forward to welcoming a group of incredibly qualified new students in all divisions this fall.

Thank you for your partnership and support in affirming the school culture we have established for our students at St. Margaret’s—one of courage, optimism, respect, hard work, ambition, positivity, support, friendship, and love.  I believe the culture of a community is central to the ways in which people in that community think and behave. A healthy culture is additive, wherein each potential is realized or exceeded. The sense of love and support we all feel as a community enables us to stretch and take calculated risks. For our children to thrive, they need the freedom to grow within a loving and nurturing environment. With this solid foundation from which to develop, our children can try new things, make new friends, and consider opportunities that before may have seemed out of reach.

For example, I love that we have a student who picked up football in his senior year and will now be playing at the college level. Another student, a junior, arrived at St. Margaret’s as a sophomore and fell in love with our Peer Counseling program and wanted to share that love with everyone. She endeavored to create a monthly newsletter for all Upper School Tartans to share insight into health and well-being tips and updates. We are now all benefiting from this tremendous resource.   

I have experienced several school cultures in my years as an educator, and St. Margaret’s is a “yes and” culture. Our school is a place where students and adults say yes to new challenges, yes to new opportunities, yes to working both hard and smart, yes to supporting their classmates – yes, and… whatever leads us toward greater levels of growth. The environment instills confidence in our students and allows our young Tartans to push themselves to their highest potential while feeling the respect, love and encouragement of their teachers, coaches, and peers.

Recent PTF Parent Up Speaker Shawn Achor, in his most recent book, Big Potential, shares research that reveals that success and happiness “depend almost entirely on how well we connect with, relate to, and learn from one another.”  To be our best selves and to reach our highest potential, we need to be in community with one another.  We need to rely on each other and help each other grow and thrive.

 

Mr. Achor’s words remind me of Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, that describes unique ecosystems that lead to high levels of excellence. Mr. Gladwell states, “The values of the world we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with have a profound effect on who we are.” The world of our students consists primarily of their homes and St. Margaret’s, and we shape the world they inhabit. It is all of us and our shared values that create our culture.

Recently there has been great interest in social science and how one’s environment impacts decision making and behavior. A book I read recently called The Peer Effect: How Your Peers Shape Who You Are and Who You Will Become by Syed Ali and Margaret Chin addresses this topic profoundly. The authors look at peer culture through the lens of their own high school which is well known for its academic achievement. Ali and Chin make the following claim: “When people ask why teens behave the way they do, culture is the answer. Their behavior is not about age or hormones, but about how teens are organized within peer groups and the norms those groups uphold.” They go on to say, “who you hang out with affects who you are and who you will become.”  To me, the operative clause in this sentence is “who you will become.”

For many of us, we spend so many days and years at St. Margaret’s it would be understandable if we sometimes overlook the uniqueness of our culture. I want you to know that I never fail to see it and I vow to grow and develop this beautiful environment that leads everyone to become their very best self.  Each person in this community plays a part in St. Margaret’s success, because everyone contributes to the culture of our school. I am incredibly grateful for this place we call home and all the people who make up that home – you, our amazing Tartan community.  

Thank you for sharing your precious children with us each day.  They are a true gift, and we will never take this gift for granted.  I think a lot about the long-term impact of a St. Margaret’s education as it relates to our mission to educate hearts and minds for lives of learning, leading and serving. These early years at St. Margaret’s are pivotal and long lasting for our students and we have a responsibility to do all we can to help them develop the tools they need to grow into young adults who will become the very best they can be -  because someday in the not too distant future they will be the generation of educators, leaders, volunteers and philanthropists who will change the world for the better, one Tartan at a time!