What are you most proud of so far this school year?
“I feel like so much of the first half of the year was dominated by going through the renovation of the athletic complex and I’m really proud of how the students responded to how flexible they needed to be. Specifically, I think about how our Friday night football games were pushed off campus and those usually are such a big, memorable feature of a student’s high school experience. Our football players didn’t get to play in front of big crowds, but the good nature that they came with at the change was really something to be proud about.”
Many students are wondering about the new logo. What were the reasons for updating the Titan logo?
“The primary and driving reason that generated the logo change effort was that when looking at the field and trying to place the logo in the center of the field, there was just no way to place the [current] logo on the center of the turf field without it looking wrong. It’s an asymmetrical logo, which never was an issue until we tried placing it. We had a graphic designer give us feedback, and in doing so they offered some suggestions for how it could be more dynamic. Ultimately, we ended up kind of evolving the logo to still have features that look like our logo that you’re familiar with, but that has a little bit more flair and a little bit more dynamic feel to it. Now we’ll have a new logo that we’re really excited about.”
One of your initiatives this year was to improve student attendance. What efforts have been made and have you seen improvement?
“We’ve done more communicating this year than ever before with parents, especially parents of students whose attendance isn’t great. We recognize that school attendance may be harder for some kids than for others; we’re trying to look at it as a place to support kids and not necessarily be overly punitive. At the same time, we want to make sure kids know we’re keeping an eye on this and we want them to be attending when they’re feeling well enough to attend. One of the things we’re doing is to communicate months in advance of our big events, especially for juniors and seniors, that in order to attend our big events, students have to have good attendance. Additionally, we’ve not really had a history in our school of keeping really good records of classroom attendance, so that is something we are focusing on as well.”
Another initiative was connected with student engagement. What work has been done in that area?
“A challenge coming out of the pandemic is that students came out with a different approach to school than they were used to. Our teachers are looking for new strategies to get kids to complete work without having it always be driven by a grade or some type of extrinsic motivation or reward, and that’s a challenge all teachers have always faced. One of the things we did was we worked with the Harvard Graduate School of Education through a program called Instructional Rounds, where teacher teams are trained in how to do this program through a protocol. Our initial findings found that our students are pretty compliant, and there’s a level of compliance where students are kind of strategically compliant, like they match the level of effort they put into an assignment based on what it might be worth. So we’re trying to address those things so we can get to full-blown, authentic engagement where students are actually really excited about doing the work because it’s just super exciting work to do.”
What should students and teachers be looking forward to as term 4 approaches?
“We are looking at having a grand opening event for the entire athletic complex sometime in May. We’re going to have several games like a few lacrosse games, and we’ll probably have a rugby, maybe baseball, and softball game, but nothing is set in stone yet. There may be live music in the amphitheater as well, and maybe some food trucks. It should be a fun, large event. I’m also looking forward to the Class of 2024 graduation in June on the new field.”
What has been one of your favorite moments so far this school year?
“I really enjoyed participating in the Harbinger Hot Seat hot wings challenge. I think that was such a fun moment. It turned from a mini idea and then actually ended up being executed better than I expected. I always talk about GonkPlex, but the big change for this year is this athletic complex, and it’s really super exciting.”
Is there anything else you would like to add?
“I think it’s been a great year and I am looking forward to warm weather, and seeing all of our spring sports kick up.”
