Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents of older children, how often in a week is your kid actually seeing their teachers? Are you finding classes only meet a couple times a week? Concerned about what I'm hearing.

As someone earlier said, there are a lot disruptions and often last minute changes or changes that aren't well-thought out and require last minute fixes. There are very few weeks where they actually have classes for five days straight.

What sort of disruptions are you talking about? There have been three public holidays and school conferences since the start of school. Are you saying they shouldn’t close to those?

Just chiming in to say that I’ve always been impressed with the amount of time that teachers dedicate to the girls outside of class time. This is high school but also happened in middle. My daughter regularly seeks out various teachers to make sure she fully understands material before tests, and they always make time for her. I don’t have strong opinions about the HOS, we havent seen much real impact on my DD, but I can confidently say the teachers are more than generous with their time. Very impressive.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents of older children, how often in a week is your kid actually seeing their teachers? Are you finding classes only meet a couple times a week? Concerned about what I'm hearing.

As someone earlier said, there are a lot disruptions and often last minute changes or changes that aren't well-thought out and require last minute fixes. There are very few weeks where they actually have classes for five days straight.

Is this upper schools or middle schools?

Anonymous wrote:Parents of older children, how often in a week is your kid actually seeing their teachers? Are you finding classes only meet a couple times a week? Concerned about what I'm hearing.

As someone earlier said, there are a lot disruptions and often last minute changes or changes that aren't well-thought out and require last minute fixes. There are very few weeks where they actually have classes for five days straight.

We can only speak from our experience as relatively new parents. All our interactions with the HOS have been cordial and respectful - during convocations, coffee chats, blue and white night - she always greeted us personally, stopping to chat. We are not white. Of course this is just one datapoint and more on the surface type of interactions. And yes, how she treats families and faculty can be very different.

Our interactions with the LS HOS entail more deeper conversations and she has always been supportive and we can tell she truly cares and wants to help the families in whatever way she can (within reason of course).

While still too early to tell what impact the “changes” will have on our daughter, so far the teachers have provided high quality and thoughtful learning interactions and experiences. Our daughter has really grown a lot in the short time. Not to say everything is perfect, but the issues for us would be more the fundamental nature of Holton and fit for our child, not resulting from the HOS change.

Anonymous wrote:In reading between the lines and glancing at the new HOS background and the two schools she previously ran, my guess is that the new HOS is more pragmatic and less DEI focused than the previous head, and that's rubbed off the more progressive wing of the parents who see this as a rejection of their beliefs, fitting the pattern of progressives reactions to people who aren't in lockstep with their beliefs (as Fetterman himself said a few days ago). To them, they're seeing a regression from the morally righteous path. So they're upset.

To other parents who aren't as enamored of a lot of DEI, the new head seems perfectly fine and competent.

The former head was there for a long time, too long in my opinion, the idea of a HOS and how the school should run is based on her. Any successor to Susanna was always going to have a hard time. Penny isn’t warm and fuzzy either so that doesn’t help her. I think with Susanna departing, the board took the opportunity to make some changes, they fall under Penny’s tenure so they are her policies.

Communication is an issue and this is squarely on Penny; to her credit if something isn’t going to work (like final exams time) she walks it back.

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like there are issues of actual leadership and professionalism that go beyond debates about DEI.

Confirming the above. Current Holton parent who has no strong views on DEI.

It sounds like there are issues of actual leadership and professionalism that go beyond debates about DEI.

In reading between the lines and glancing at the new HOS background and the two schools she previously ran, my guess is that the new HOS is more pragmatic and less DEI focused than the previous head, and that's rubbed off the more progressive wing of the parents who see this as a rejection of their beliefs, fitting the pattern of progressives reactions to people who aren't in lockstep with their beliefs (as Fetterman himself said a few days ago). To them, they're seeing a regression from the morally righteous path. So they're upset.

To other parents who aren't as enamored of a lot of DEI, the new head seems perfectly fine and competent.

Parents of older children, how often in a week is your kid actually seeing their teachers? Are you finding classes only meet a couple times a week? Concerned about what I'm hearing.

I don't think the teachers are the issue.

If you care about the good teachers, then ask the hard questions about the administration.

Anonymous wrote:After our upper school conferences, I can say the teachers are great. And we have a mixture of “new” and “old”

Same with Lower School. But of course, the paranoids are entitled to believe in a parallel universe where all the good teachers have left.

After our upper school conferences, I can say the teachers are great. And we have a mixture of “new” and “old”

+1

Anonymous wrote:OP here again. My oh my, enough about the skirts.
I would like to know more about the head as a “polarizing” figure. I would also like to know more about the teachers. If so many have left, how are the replacements? Also, I went to the open house but it was such a dog and pony show (why does every school bring their chorus to sing?).

I was in the open house. There isn’t any chorus or post or pony. It is such a very informative event.