Above Board
What I love about this work is that it boils down to stewardship.
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This is true of all boards but as a Quaker school, this is not just a fiduciary matter; it is also a spiritual one. Stewardship is one of the Quaker testimonies. |
I have been the head of Friends Select’s board of trustees for three years, during which time I have learned so much about our school, independent schools in general, and boards.
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Ingrid Lakey '89, P'27, Board of Trustees Clerk
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What I love about this work is that it boils down to stewardship. This is true of all boards but as a Quaker school, this is not just a fiduciary matter; it is also a spiritual one. Stewardship is one of the Quaker testimonies. We must be faithful stewards of Friends Select’s resources to support our community, both as it is today and for future generations of students, faculty, and staff. While this certainly applies to budgeting responsibly, we also have to ask if we are being good environmental stewards. How are we implicated in the forces leading to climate change? A few years ago, as Friends Select’s board and administration were working on plans to improve and expand our campus in keeping with our strategic plan, Advance Friends Select, several of us asked how we could incorporate environmental sustainability into these plans. We were not alone in our concerns about climate change. An eleventh grader named Corey Becker ’22, one of the leaders of the upper school Environmentalism Club, gave an outstanding presentation to the board’s Property Committee about ways we could take on one of the most pressing issues of our time. Corey challenged us to live up to our values to be an environmentally responsible institution. Corey’s presentation was inspiring and was a clear example of excellence in teaching and learning at FSS: nurturing and developing student voice and agency. His presentation added energy to our work as a board. Instead of individual decision points for sustainability in the work ahead, we could see this was a wider concern in our community and needed to be an expression of our values. As we prepared for the transformation of the first floor of the Parkway Building, we hired a construction management company for whom environmental sustainability was a priority. Anchor Management Group brought this lens to demolition (including recycling and reuse to divert materials from the landfill as much as possible) and construction (including responsible sourcing of materials and energy efficiency). This commitment continued in resurfacing the roof and the massive renovation project resulting in the upper school STEAM Building. |
But Corey didn’t just leave it there. During his senior year, he went on to create a Sustainability Committee that included participants from every sector of the school: faculty, staff, students, parents, and me as the board clerk. Corey graduated Friends Select in 2022 and despite heading off to Harvard University, he still manages to stay engaged with our work.
As we have been putting this testimony of stewardship into practice with our building projects, and as the Sustainability Committee is doing a deep dive into all aspects of our school’s environmental impact, it has become clear that it is time to update Advance Friends Select by weaving environmental sustainability into the strategic direction of the school. Quakerism’s forefather, George Fox, called on us all to “Walk cheerfully over the earth answering to that of God in everyone.” To do that, we must commit to walk gently over the earth too.
