Dear Chadwick Community,
As promised, I want to periodically update you on what's going on at the Board level. I hope this newsletter finds you and your family in good health and still filled with promise for what's to come in 2022. As Chair of the Roessler-Chadwick Foundation (RCF) Board of Trustees and as a current parent, I recognize the extent to which the pandemic still impacts our lives. While I'm sure some in the community might have had individual challenges as the school works through the pandemic, I hope we all can recognize the unprecedented effort it has taken the school leadership, faculty and staff to manage the goals of keeping children and employees safe while maximizing in-person learning.
Since I last wrote to you, there has been quite a bit of activity in which the RCF Board has been engaged. While I won't cover all of those activities in detail, I do want to use the higher order responsibilities of the Board to frame the activity that has been taking place:
- Safeguarding the School's Mission (tangibly supported through the school's Strategic Plan)
Continuing to stress the current plan as the guidepost for operational decisions;
Creating a new mission fulfillment process to provide clear operational metrics for the school to assess on an ongoing basis how well it is fulfilling its Mission;
Moving forward on the new Strategic Plan (see update below);
Refining the Board's oversight of Chadwick International through the Chadwick International Governing Board
- Hiring, Supporting and Evaluating the Head of School
Interim Head of School Transition Taskforce continuing to assist and guide Interim Head of School;
Transition Taskforce working on implementing a comprehensive Head of School evaluation process;
Permanent Head of School Search (see update below)
- Stewarding the School's Finances
Ongoing monitoring and evaluation of the current fiscal year's performance;
Worked with Interim Head of School and new CFO to approve the budget for the next fiscal year;
Assisted in the evaluation process for the new CFO and ongoing Director of Institutional Advancement search;
- Evaluating capital projects with short-time horizons as we work through the long-range strategic plan (see update below)
For the sake of providing a meaningful update, this newsletter will focus on the items in bold. Also, I want to note that the three areas in bold are what the Board has established as its main goals for this school year.
While I will share insight on what is happening in these key areas, it's also important for me to share with you some information about how we are going about the business of the Board. In the last newsletter, I said:
"We as a Board will continue to respectfully seek your thoughts and opinions by taking advantage of opportunities to have live conversations with the community as we go through this school year."
It should go without saying that to properly discharge our duties as trustees, we need to have a connection to the various constituents of the institution. While we might have connections as current parents, past parents and alumni, we need to connect with the community in our roles as trustees to best do our job at hand. With that in mind, I will highlight some of our efforts to enhance that connection.
Parents. It is true that a significant percentage of our Board members are current parents at Chadwick. That being said, it would be a mistake to think that being a current parent is enough to say we've reached out to the parent community. We have tried to be purposeful in finding ways to have trustees connect with the parent community. As a wonderful way to reach out to families that don't get the chance to come to campus often, the Chadwick Parents Association initiated the bus stop meet-and-greets a couple of years ago, where administration could get up extra early in the morning and make it out to bus stops to meet parents they might not meet otherwise. This year, we decided to have trustees wake up in the wee hours as well and join the administration at most of the bus stop visits this school year. I attended two myself and was pleasantly surprised to meet parents I had never met before. Other trustees attended two other stops. Several trustees also attended an on-campus Admission event in December and the Head of School coffee on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Finally, I spoke to the CPA Board and new parents (expanded to include new families from last year as well as this year) earlier in the year. Both events provided an opportunity to clarify the Board's role, discuss plans for the year and provide an opportunity for parents to ask questions.
Faculty and Staff. In December, I gladly accepted the invitation from Interim Head of School Tom Sheppard to join one of the Wednesday morning meetings to talk with the faculty and staff. The meeting afforded me an opportunity not only to outline the Board's role and activities and address questions, but it also allowed me a forum to thank the faculty and staff for all they had endured over the past year. I hope it was good for the people who were able to attend. I can say without question it was good for me. I came away from that time with even more appreciation for the love and commitment they have for Chadwick.
Alumni. It is my sincere desire to enhance the engagement with Chadwick's vast alumni community. This effort will include open dialogue with the alumni community, increasing the number of alumni serving on the RCF Board of Trustees and engagement with the Alumni Board. A couple of trustees attended the Distinguished Alumni Awards event, which provided an opportunity to connect with past alumni and faculty. Regarding the Alumni Board, we have joined their meetings as a means of strengthening ties and improving communication. I spoke at their initial board meeting, and our Head of School Search Co-Chairs, Saskia Subramanian and Nick Tell, as well as Chair of the Committee on Trustees (COT), Armand Dawkins '96, joined the most recent Alumni Board meeting. Additionally, our Strategic Planning Chair, Rachel Nguyen, Strategic Planning Task Force member, Stephanie Uchima-Carney '00, as well as Trustee Jenn Chou '96, will join an upcoming Alumni Board meeting.
Students. Probably the most important connection we as trustees should strive to cultivate is the one with students. I will admit we need to increase our opportunities to interact with students in our role as trustees. One thing built into our calendar is feedback from students directly at the May Board meeting. Thanks to Director of Teaching and Learning Erin Nordlund, I had a unique opportunity to speak with a group of seniors. As part of Ms. Nordlund's 12th-grade AP English Class, she asked students to reflect on and report on the complexity and power of leadership. Ms. Nordlund graciously asked me to join a remarkable panel of Chadwick alumni to discuss our personal experiences with leadership and answer questions from the 12th-graders. I found the students highly engaged, and we had a fruitful discussion. Subsequent to the event, Ms. Nordlund shared samples of how the students summarized their learning from this exploration of leadership. One example from 12th-grader and Chadwick WOW Kinsey Ho is shown here. All of the student reflections were amazing, so please take this as just one sample.
I want to make it clear none of the above activities are meant to be a pat on the back for the Board. It is just what we need to do as part of our charge to help guide this institution. Gaining the perception that comes from genuinely engaging with the broader Chadwick community provides insight that is invaluable as we consider the community while we discharge our duties. On a personal note, I serve because of how much I value this community. That value is steeped in the people who make up this community, so connecting with you is something I enjoy.
In closing, I want to share with the broader community something I shared during our aforementioned Board retreat at the start of the year. Too often when one thinks of leadership, the focus is only on the hierarchical or otherwise vertical relationships of an organization. However, we know that if the support for a structure only takes into account the vertical, it will be a very weak structure. For a structure to be strong it also needs horizontal support. Likewise, effective leadership not only comes from the vertical hierarchical relationships, but also from the horizontal interrelationships. As a community, I hope we continue to build strength in those horizontal relationships.
Again, feel free to contact me at pv-rcf-board-chair@chadwickschool.org to share your thoughts or comments.
Respectfully,
