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| What is on the Board of Trustees’ agenda for 2009-2010? Joseph E. Ronan, Jr. ’72, newly-appointed board president, shares his thoughts.
I am certainly very pleased (and honored) to have started my term as president and my seventh year on the Friends Select Board of Trustees. As an alumnus, I personally owe a great deal to the school and am looking forward to building on the school’s successes over the past decade under Rose Hagan’s strong leadership. We are also very much indebted to Paul Steege, the outgoing Board president who did a really outstanding job in his four years in that role and during his nine years on the Board.
I arrived at FSS as a ninth grader in 1968, the first year the “new” school opened its doors. After spending a few months at the YMCA (where classes were held pending opening of the “new” school), we moved into the new building in late fall. By then, I found myself part of a far more diverse community than I had known in my parochial universe in Delaware County. My experience at Friends Select broadened my views of the world; the ramifications of my FSS education have been positive and lasting, and what I learned at the school continues strongly to influence my thinking (and not just about avoiding split infinitives).
My teachers were a wonderfully dedicated and talented group (much as they are today). I am particularly grateful for having received financial aid which made it possible for my family to afford to send me to Friends Select. After graduation, I continued on to Haverford College and then to New York University School of Law. I have practiced law in the Philadelphia area for the last 30 or so years.
I am also happy to be assuming board presidency of a school that is in very good order. Rose Hagan has done a tremendous job in her 14 years as head of school. The board is very positive about the current state of the school and its central place in a thriving Philadelphia. We feel the school is poised to continue to move forward from a position of strength and clarity.
The board’s immediate priorities will continue to be the near-term financial and operational health of the school. We will continue to work with the administration on such issues as continuing to balance the budget, conserving the endowment, managing enrollment, maintaining our commitment to financial aid and diversity, ensuring competitive faculty compensation, strengthening existing programs and envisioning new ones. Given the economic difficulties we’ve all experienced, this concern is of the highest priority to the board, and we will spend a great deal of our time in this area.
At the same time, we will also consider the bigger picture, using the recently-completed strategic plan as a roadmap and working with the school’s administration and faculty to develop an implementation plan. The role of the board is to mesh day-to-day realism with broader goals – to answer the question, “Where are we going from here?” One area of particular interest will be international studies, a program that is poised to expand with the support of a recent grant from the E. E. Ford Foundation that will match each dollar of donor contributions. We are convinced that international education offers the school an opportunity to broaden the worldview of our students (and at the same time, of the entire school community). We also believe that pursuing this approach is entirely consistent with the school’s broad mission and educational purposes.
Another board focus will be the school’s physical plant. Forty-one years ago, when the current building was opened, the idea to build the school as part of a revenue-generating real estate project, with an office building adjacent to the school, wasn’t just a bold decision; it was entirely novel. You have to remember that this was before the Four Seasons Hotel on the Parkway, before the adjacent office buildings, and while the center of Philadelphia business life was still very much at Broad and Chestnut. It was a creative solution that showed a huge degree of confidence in the school and the future of Center City – faith that has helped secure Friends Select’s enviable position as the only Quaker, pre-K through grade 12 independent school in Philadelphia.
How do we now apply a similar degree of foresight and vision to the future of Friends Select School, while balancing the practical needs of the here-and-now? As we begin the 2009-2010 school year, the board, the school’s administration and faculty and the extended school community (including the two meetings Meetings under the care of which this school has operated for hundreds of years) will have the opportunity to face these and other challenges and opportunities together. I am confident that all of these parts of the school community recognize what a special place Friends Select is and how important it is for us to work together to arrive at a sound and imaginative blueprint for the school’s future.
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| Explosions of foam disks, riotous laughter, rhythmic chanting games, and deciphering meaning in a foreign language. No, this isn’t a Fringe Festival production. It’s life in lower school. Come sample the experience.
Lower school teachers welcomed parents into their classrooms for Back-to-School Night in late September. On October 27, the specialists take their turn in the spotlight, with a full schedule of presentations and hands-on activities.
The evening will begin with brief presentations in theatre by Dan Deslaurier (art), Bob McCarthy (science), and Paula Cairo (library). Then, parents will fan out across the school for special activities with Rae Asbridge (physical education), Patricia Supovitz (Spanish) and Derek van der Tak (music). The groups will rotate every 15 minutes, so every parent will get to attend all three demonstrations by the end of the evening.
Teachers Rae, Patricia and Derek are keeping the details under wraps. All Tr. Rae will reveal is that parents will do a cooperative activity that involves teamwork and communication -- but no sweat. Rest assured, however, that Tr. Patricia will have even stalwart non-speakers of Spanish understanding basic phrases and that Tr. Derek will manage to connect each parent in his room with his or her inner percussionist.
Lower school director Michael Zimmerman promises the evening will be equal parts information and fun. “In a brief hour and a half, parents will preview some of the experiences their children will have and gain a sense of the specialists whose imaginative instruction will help shape their days. But the real fun will happen when the parents become kids themselves by engaging in some of the same activities their children will do during the course of the year.”
Lower School Specialists Night happens on Tuesday, October 27, 6-7:30 p.m. in the theatre and classrooms. Child care will be available, with advance sign-up.
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| What really happens in advisory, when groups of 8-10 students get together with a faculty advisor for guided conversation on a pre-determined topic? And how do middle school students benefit from the advisory experience?
According to Middle School Director Terry Kessel, the guiding principle of advisory is that children should be known. “They need adults who understand them and who they trust,” she says. “Advisory provides an ongoing opportunity for these relationships to develop and flourish.”
Middle School Dean Ed Rhee, who oversees the advisory program, describes it as the formalization of Friends Select’s value-based education. “Advisory provides a place outside the traditional classroom where students can explore topics and develop skills that are tangentially – but nevertheless vitally – connected to the formal curriculum.”
This “hidden curriculum” includes material that is not covered in the history, English, math or science curricula, per se, but that students need to learn. For example, says Kessel, "it is the rare student who develops study and organizational skills on his or her own.” So the first advisory sessions of the year cover such topics as how to approach assignments, how to break down projects into manageable chunks, how to deal with deadlines and how to manage time effectively.
As the year progresses, not all of the topics are quite so nuts and bolts. Other topics throughout the year include how to apologize to a friend and how to navigate in the world immediately outside Friend Select. Occasionally, new topics arise organically out of situations in the middle school.
The value of advisory, suggests Rhee, is that it helps students begin to develop into the people they will be for the rest of their lives. “Advisory is a safe place for students to explore issues in a thoughtful and guided way just at the point in their lives when they are beginning to move away from their families and establish their own identities,” he says.
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| Friends Select helps parents stay in the loop about what’s going on at school. Here are several ways to stay connected, even with the most reticent of teenagers!
Back-to-School Night. Scheduled for Thursday, October 1, 5:45-8 p.m., Back to School Night is the first formal opportunity for parents to meet teachers, learn about the curriculum, hear about expectations, and most of all…ask questions. The evening is structured like a mini school day, with classes at 10-minute intervals. Parents will receive a schedule and classroom map at the start of the evening.
Phone or e-mail. Upper school teachers encourage parents to contact them directly with questions not covered in the handbook, on the Web site, or via other communications vehicles. Faculty voice mail numbers and e-mail addresses are listed on pages 6 and 7 of the 2009-2010 Directory that was mailed to each family in August. Ordinarily, parents should expect to receive a response within 24 hours of contacting a teacher or administrator. Uncertain who to contact? Contact upper school director Jesse Dougherty at 215-561-5900, ext. 119, or at jessed@friends-select.org.
Conferences. Conference sign-up information will be sent out several weeks in advance for the following:
· New families are asked to sign up for conferences on Friday, November 20 that include parents, their student, and his or her teachers in a round-table format.
· Parents of returning students are invited to sign up for one-on-one meetings with up to three teachers on scheduled conference days. Student attendance at these meetings is optional. The dates for these optional conferences are: Wednesday, November 18 (9th grade); Wednesday, December 9 (10th grade); Wednesday, January 13 (11th grade).
Grade Reports. Report cards are issued at the end of each quarter. Students receive written comments from teachers in major year-long and semester courses at the end of the first and third quarters and written comments from teachers in minor courses at the end of the second quarter. Comments are also written at the end of each quarter for any student in academic difficulty, i.e., with a grade of D+ or below.
“Q” Notes. Teachers send e-mail Quality of Performance Notices (“Q” Notes), as needed, to provide early notification of unsatisfactory course performance or late or missing work, or to highlight significant improvement. Students’ advisors receive copies of Q Notes so they can confer with their advisees.
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