free tuition to families under certain annual income levels.
The status of LGBT students remains a subject of controversy as school attempts to promote tolerance and support for these students comes into conflict with traditionally minded alumni.
The intense pressures of boarding school life have prompted some schools to step down some of their programming to allow students more free time. Recent sex assault scandals and revelations of others from decades past have resulted in new prevention and reporting policies on many campuses. Boarding students’ success in elite college admissions has fallen significantly compared to rates in decades past, but continue to strongly outperform compared to day schools and public schools.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE OF BOARDING SCHOOLS
Trustees are the legal owners of the school; organized as a corporate board of directors, trustees are volunteers chosen for their sagacity and business acumen. Trustees tend to be very successful players in the business or professional communities. They are often alumni/ae, sometimes parents, or occasionally outsiders who are major donors. One of the trustees’ most critical functions is to choose the Head of school; a poor choice can affect the school for years after. Their second function is to consider and approve or deny major proposals such as new construction programs as well as tuition raises or reductions. Their third main role is to assist the Head to manage any major crisis that may arise. Trustees typically travel twice a year to the campus for general meetings, take on committee work, and spend many more volunteer hours in other school service. Trustees usually are very slow to interfere with the school’s normal operations, but their gravitas and legal power can be brought to bear in times of challenge or crisis.
Heads of School go by various titles – Principal, Rector, Director, Headmaster, Head Master or simply Head. The Head is the spokesperson of the school and articulates its fundamental principles and a vision for the future. The Head also embodies the school and serves as chief executive of the school’s business organization, which is quite often a multi-million dollar entity. The position also requires a great deal of political and social intelligence. The great school Heads have somehow managed to balance all these demands, but typically Heads tend to be stronger in some areas than in others.
Heads who are weak in finances can steer their ship onto the reefs, while corporate types can fail to sufficiently cater to the various constituencies in the school communities. The impact of a new Head takes a while to take effect and lasts well after departure.
Administrators serve at the pleasure of the Head. Each department – Facilities, Development, Alumni Relations, and so forth – is charged with implementing the policies set by the Head and the Trustee. Sometimes a school’s power structure tips the other way, with a Head articulating policies generated by the departments.
The administrators of most concern to applicants and their parents include the Dean or Director of Admission, who is charged with putting together the incoming class (usually 9th grade, though a few schools begin at 8th grade) as well as adding new members to upper classes to replace those who withdraw or are expelled. The Dean of Admission is the face of the school for applicants, manages a staff of assistant and associate directors, and oversees the very central task of meeting the enrollment needs of the school. Admission is a personnel management field that must balance an array of constituencies and needs, including the school’s need for certain student assets – academics, athletics, arts, and diversity are prominent examples.
Admission departments increasingly use data management and forecast modeling to put together strong classes of incoming students. The arrival of a skilled and gifted Dean of Admission can have an immediate impact on a school community; so too, it must be noted, can the departure of one. The Director of Financial Aid manages decisions about which admitted students will receive financial aid, under what terms and conditions, and in what amounts. As with some colleges, some prep schools are adding a Dean or Director of Enrollment Management. This senior officer manages enrollment after the admission process, including such issues as attrition (why students withdraw from the school) and yield (why students chose one school over others). Information drawn from these inquiries has tremendous promise for schools’ efforts to improve their “customer appeal”. There is however a potential negative consequence for applicants seeking entry in the higher grades, as fewer spaces come available due to fewer students withdrawing. The organization of these officers – who reports to whom - varies from school to school.
Faculty: Boarding school educators are unique in the American teaching community, resembling something like a cross between their private day peers and college professors. They have considerable freedom to shape their own curricula, but often receive research support from the schools for their own academic activities. An additional characteristic of boarding school faculty is that a sizable percentage are alumnae/i of the schools where they teach, adding another layer of commitment and cultural cohesion. As with teachers at private day schools, they are not unionized and usually are not formally tenured. Many agree to a multiyear commitment that includes dorm supervisory service. The partners and/or children of dorm faculty help create a family atmosphere for the students. The masters’ children often grow up to attend the school, provided their academics are sufficient. Many teachers serve their entire working lives at one school; some even bequeath their estates to their schools.
Traditionally, many faculty at boys’ schools were “triple threats”, serving as instructors, athletic coaches and dorm supervisors. At girls’ schools, academic, athletic, and residential staffs have typically been kept separate. At present, the tradition of the “triple threat” boarding school teacher is in decline.
Boarding school alumni have traditionally held positions of importance in the school power structure. Since boarding schools lack access to research and government grants, they are much more dependent on alumni support than are colleges and universities. This gives alumni a continued voice in school decisions. The admission prospects of alumni children, known as “legacies”, are thereby more enhanced than legacies at most colleges. Alumni tend to be very active in volunteer work, serving on fund raising and admissions committees and conducting applicant interviews and other pro bono work for their schools.
Students also have a voice in the school administration, despite their youth and brief tenure on campus. Student government maintains a dialogue with the head of school and the faculty about student concerns and serves as a bridge between adult officialdom and the student body. Student prefects help maintain order in the dorms and serve as peer counselors and observers. The schools, ever mindful that many students come from families with long standing school loyalty and that all students quickly become alumni, have adopted a long term viewpoint about students; that goofy fifteen-year-old may turn into an enthusiastic billionaire donor in the blink of an eye.
Parents once were an afterthought in boarding school culture. Poor transportation reduced parental contact to rare campus visits. Parent-student communication consisted of regular correspondence and the occasional “care package”. Today’s enhanced travel options and high tech communications have changed all of that. Parents are increasingly active in the life of the schools. Through parents’ organizations, many parents help as volunteer admissions interviewers, host regional receptions for families of applicants, assist in fund raising, and speak as school advocates. Long distance parents maintain frequent contact with their students as well as with teachers, dorm supervisors, tutors, and advisors. Streaming video services allow parents to follow sporting events and school assemblies. Local parents serve as surrogate parents for international and long distance domestic students; as volunteer activity hosts, providing snacks and drinks to sports teams; and as weekend or holiday hosts for students too far from home to travel on breaks. Many parents maintain their school ties long after their children have graduated.
THE BOARDING SCHOOL CAMPUS
Boarding
