Head of School’s Notebook | East and West

January 16, 2017

Cate hosted a meeting recently of the heads of western boarding schools. Such meetings of school heads were a staple of my growing up. My father was a member of a group who called themselves the Tavern Club, in homage to their gathering place. The Tavern was a modest, off-the-beaten-path establishment outside of Boston, central enough to give access to the folks coming from schools throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire.

It was not a “formal” organization. It was more organic than that. Mostly it was a way to share stories and insights, to support each other, laugh together, and strengthen relationships that enabled these many schools to work together, to compete thoughtfully and responsibly, and in rare cases to ensure that everyone was toeing the ethical line when it came to recruiting, athletics, or the like.

When my dad who is now 80 reflects back on his time as a school head, he will recall always the Tavern Club. I think that is partly because it was through the fellowship that he found there that he was able to summon the strength, the resolve, and the patience to guide a boarding school through the late 1960s and 1970s and ultimately into the 1990s.

It is harder, frankly, in the West to build the very camaraderie my father enjoyed in the East. As a colleague of mine at Tabor Academy in Marion, Massachusetts noted recently, “You can’t throw a rock around here without it landing on a boarding school campus.” We are more spread out in the west, and even over the broad expanse from the Rockies to the Pacific, there are significantly fewer boarding schools than one finds in the Northeast.

That simply reveals the challenge of regular gatherings, though. It does not mean they are any less necessary or important. Much like my father must have noted all those years ago in New England, my ability to lead my own school is deeply informed and improved by my understanding and appreciation of the work of my peers in their communities. I suppose we are all competitors, too, but I’m quite sure that competition in whatever form it is manifest is enhanced by respect, appreciation, integrity of intention and purpose.

It is interesting to note, too, that this western summit was created in response to a larger initiative by the Association of Boarding Schools, a group to which all boarding schools belong, to assist them in their efforts to gain access to potential students. It is an effort built on the belief that there is a best school for every student and that our job is to help each student find that school, whether it happens to ours or another’s.

I realize, of course, that most industries in this day and age don’t really work that way. There isn’t much collaboration and cooperation among would-be competitors in Silicon Valley or Wall Street or anywhere else. But perhaps that is because our economic system is predicated on the idea that competition best serves the consumer. The education system, thankfully, has no such premise. Perhaps that is part and parcel of being “non-profits,” but I think it is more than that. Maybe we just appreciate that if we are to support young people in the realization of their own individual aspirations, we must begin by honoring their choice about the school where that journey will take place.

It is in support of that very thing that Cate will continue to reach out to our fellow schools and build our collaborations accordingly. Much like my father noted all those years ago in New England, there is far more that connects us than separates us. And in our partnerships we are likely to find the best in our communities and bring out the best in others’.

And that serves all of our students most of all.