May 18, 2020

 

Dear Hathaway Brown Community,

 

I hope you enjoyed the Head’s Holiday on Friday and that you were able to spend some time outdoors over the lovely weekend. Only two weeks of the school year remain and students and faculty in all divisions are wrapping things up in beautiful style.

 

Much progress has been made on our summer planning, and as was noted in an earlier communication, we will be offering a large array of programs for our own families and the broader community. Our summer programming is designed to provide all sorts of enrichment experiences, and those will be important to families more than ever this summer. We’ll make a separate announcement when our initial slate of offerings goes live online later today.

 

Exclusively for our HB families, we will be offering a set of workshops free of charge. We have heard from parents that many of the summer programs and camps your child had signed up for have been canceled. We also know from our parent surveys that students are engaged, connected, and empowered by their HB classes. Thus, we designed summer workshops for K-12 HB students so that our girls can continue to sharpen their skills and affirm their confidence as they approach what may be an unusual school year. These summer workshops are optional and free, and we are excited that they will help with continuity, connection, and consistency. Additionally, we’ll be opening a number of programs specifically designed for parents, and other programs to connect our alumnae with our students. Some programs will have space for your daughter to invite her friends or relatives from other schools throughout the region or around the country to join in the fun.

We will also continue to make our library catalog available to all throughout the summer months. If you need a book- we can get it to you! Simply contact your Division Director, who will forward the request to our Library Services team.

 

As schools across the country have transitioned to remote teaching and learning platforms, it is more important than ever for us to underscore the unparalleled difference an HB education can make in students’ lives. As you know, one of our defining characteristics is our trademark Institute for 21st Century Education. No other high school in the country has reimagined the traditional academic framework in the same manner that HB has through this forward-thinking, entrepreneurial, and experiential collection of programs.

 

For the last few years, we have engaged in an introspective evaluation of this programming, as we sought to measure its effectiveness and better describe the “secret sauce” in a clear, concise, and interesting way. We also know that the shelf-life for a name that references a specific time period (21st century) is not eternal. Thus, school leaders spent some time looking at our marketing materials and making suggestions for how we might make things a little fresher and more easily understood and advertised. That led us to partner with Dr. Cindy Frantz, a social psychologist at Oberlin College, who helped us to design a survey to gauge the girls’ feelings about our Institute programs, and to contract with The Adcom Group, a full-service marketing firm, to help us redesign our graphic imagery, naming convention, and descriptive statements related to this innovative educational design.

 

Through this rebranding process, it became clear that our Institute is best understood within the larger structure of the school itself. I’m pleased to announce that we will soon be rolling out new materials that describe the ethos of HB. Our “Learn for Life” Signature Preparatory Approach is defined by the four key elements of an HB education: Distinguished Academics, Empowered Students, Knowledge in Action, and a Celebrated Community. Knowledge in Action is most clearly seen through the Institute, which will now be called Fellowships in Applied Studies. Beginning in July, we’ll be saying goodbye to the solar system graphics as well as the outdated 21st Century reference point to make way for this refreshed expression.

 

Looking forward to the 2020-2021 school year, we anticipate that there may be times when we may have to again transition to remote learning. If it is not feasible to run school as normal with the incorporation of social distancing and hygiene and sanitization protocols in place, we are looking at phased re-entry, and also are drafting a plan that incorporates a hybrid of onsite and remote teaching and learning. It is likely that each division’s approach will be different.   

 

I am grateful to be part of a committee of independent school heads who are working closely with a team of experts at University Hospitals to create a “playbook” for CCIS schools. This document will outline recommended health directives as we find ways to return students to campus as we are able. Because specific information about COVID-19 is still fluid, we will rely on professionals from UH, Cleveland Clinic, and the Cuyahoga County and Ohio departments of health for counsel as we build multiple contingency plans specifically for HB. We are anticipating making changes to furnishings in some of our classroom spaces to accommodate social distancing requirements and we will limit the use of large gathering spaces. We also plan to limit access to and within the building, and to rethink how we eat lunch as a community. This may mean delivering meals to the classrooms each day.

 

As always, our student-centered approach guides every decision we make, and we are especially focused on doing all we can to safeguard the health of our community members. Plans will be designed to be clear and transparent, and will be readily available to our school families. We expect to be able to share more with you this summer.

  

Finally, I cannot thank you enough for your partnership, which has been and will continue to be incredibly important and valuable as we contend with the circumstances of this pandemic. Our strength lies in our community. Please know that we are here for you whenever you need us.

 

Fondly,

 

 

Fran Bisselle

Head of School