<p>@dodgersmom: You know, my daughter does have her own waders and 3 weight…</p>
<p>The fish would probably not find it very interesting, nor would they be very happy about it.</p>
<p>@pulsar: We practice catch and release.</p>
<p>@Winterset:<br>
Thanks for sharing the video. It was really good. SPS should appreciate your eagerness.</p>
<p>About to sell our house and move to Wyoming. But have fishing rights on Odell Creek in Montana. Join me anyone? Or we can do the Snake or Henry’s Fork. We have a Calif family on CC-SPS that fish. Son is a 3rd former, but did no fly fishing. LOVE the enthusiasm for fly fishing!!! sf</p>
<p>@Winterset: If my D ends up at SPS…we’ll take you up on that offer!</p>
<p>To shift gears… to College placement… Here is an interview with Tim Pratt the Director of College Placement at SPS from earlier this month (part 2). <a href=“https://www.sps.edu/podium/default.aspx?t=52562&a=87630”>https://www.sps.edu/podium/default.aspx?t=52562&a=87630</a>
Part 1 is here: <a href=“https://www.sps.edu/podium/default.aspx?t=52562&a=86500[/url][/size]”>https://www.sps.edu/podium/default.aspx?t=52562&a=86500</a></p>
<p>Tim played hockey at Exeter and Middlebury, was the coach at Tabor before joining St. Paul’s 12 years ago as the boy’s varsity coach. He used to teach Humanities. </p>
<p>As an aside the Harvard Crimson had an article last week saying they are studying whether to bring back early admissions and "By the time spring comes around, we’ll have to have made a decision” Hmmmmm the changes 5 years can bring.</p>
<p>Can someone summarize Mr. Pratt’s ideas for those of us who cannot watch/listen to video?</p>
<p>Okay anxiety is building for admissions. Close your eyes. About all a boarding school applicant can do now is to let a school know that they are their first choice and if accepted, they will accept. </p>
<p>Try to remember that a negative decision is not a reflection on you as a person. Trite as it may seem it is truer than you can believe. One year a school may need more boys, more girls, a hockey goalie, or a harpsichordist. But do they need a symphony of harpsichordists, or a team of goalies? Each school may look for a slightly different individual to round out their mix. Think of it as a series of buckets. Each bucket should have something in it, but the school should not be one bucket of math, Greek, or humanities scholars.</p>
<p>Each of the applicants out there has amazing strengths. Follow your passions. Good luck on your applications. And remember for every door that closes, another opens. </p>
<p>I hope ALL of you are admitted to SPS. Keep your worries down, your spirits up and your fingers crossed.</p>
<p>Announcement today: Following the end of the current admissions season (July 1), Jada Hebra will move from Admissions Director to Vice Rector for Faculty. </p>
<p>Her background was: She has served as a teacher, head of house, associate dean of students, chair of the same gender housing task force, chair of the diversity committee, director of college advising and most recently as director of admissions. (She can also whistle like no one else) </p>
<p>If you know her, you will be thrilled for her. Who knows, maybe someday she will be the first ‘Rectoress’ or whatever we would call it.</p>
<p>Who is taking her place?</p>
<p>The position has been posted. There will be a search. Here is the description:
[St</a>. Paul’s School ~ Director of Admissions](<a href=“http://www.sps.edu/podium/default.aspx?t=204&nid=588686]St”>http://www.sps.edu/podium/default.aspx?t=204&nid=588686)</p>
<p>Thanks for the updates. It will be interesting to see if they promote from within to fill the Director of Admissions position…as they did with the Rector.</p>
<p>There are several strong possibilities. But picking the best requires a big net. As you know, for Rector it was quite an extensive process with several hundred possible candidates and every constituency was involved in defining the individual, the skills, the objectives and then interviewing the final candidates. The admissions job will not need to be nearly as exhaustive a process.</p>
<p>Here’s a transcript of a chapel speech by the school’s rector, Mr. Matthews, given this past Saturday morning to parents attending the “Inside SPS” weekend. It speaks to the openness and honesty one finds as a member of the St. Paul’s community - something I have come to admire greatly about the school and it’s leadership. The talk touches upon drug and alcohol use on campus, a problem that is found in any high school, public or private. What I feel is insightful is how a school chooses to handle with the problem:</p>
<p>[St</a>. Paul’s School ~ News Portal](<a href=“http://www.sps.edu/podium/default.aspx?t=6183]St”>http://www.sps.edu/podium/default.aspx?t=6183)</p>
<p>A Critical Partnership
2/24/2011</p>
<p>On the Saturday of Inside SPS Weekend, February 18-20, Rector Bill Matthews spoke in Chapel to SPS parents about a partnership with them in helping their children understand the consequences of drug and alcohol use. These are his remarks.</p>
<p>Good morning. I want to express my gratitude to you for returning to School this weekend, but also for lending us your children for these two or three or four years of their lives and of your lives.</p>
<p>As a preamble to what I really want to say this morning, let me share some comments I made in New York at the Millville Dinner about a month ago. At that event, I reflected on my time at St. Paul’s School, over the 49 years that I have spent here, first as a student and then on the faculty. I talked about this School’s meaning to me. I also talked a little bit about failure, and I quoted a piece by David Brooks from The New York Times. It was a piece about civility, which he wrote because he is concerned, as are many, with the quality and level of discourse, and the lack of civility, in local and state and national government. He said that civility is a tree with many roots. Those roots are failure, mistakes, weakness, and so on. What he was saying was that those roots, when we understand them, lead to a sense of humility and a sense of forgiveness, and ultimately a sense of love. I was moved as I read this piece and, as I often do when I read something, I thought about St. Paul’s School.</p>
<p>A vital strength of this community is that we can talk with honesty, humility, and love about each other’s occasional failings, in the knowledge that those conversations will often lead somewhere important.</p>
<p>Some of your children may have shared with you what I talked with them about on Thursday morning. I spoke to your children about a concern that I had about substance use on this campus right now. I said, “Please know that I know that many of you are abiding by the rules and expectations of this School. For that, I am enormously grateful.” I also said, “Please know that I know that too many of you are not, and I am concerned and upset because of this. I’m concerned because I care about your health and your safety. I’m upset because too many of you are not abiding by the rules and expectations of this community. I’m concerned because we live in a community that is built on trust and on the power and value and importance of relationships. That trust and these relationships are jeopardized by this behavior.”</p>
<p>I shared with them that I need everyone’s help and that I particularly need the help of the leadership of this student body. As you all know, I said, there are leaders who are identified and named, who hold positions, and there are leaders who are less conspicuous, but who make things work every day on our campus. We need everyone’s help, I said.</p>
<p>I think I had the attention of the entire student body that morning. I tried to strike a balance. I did not want to appear threatening. I wanted to bring them with me, and not have them say, “Oh, that’s just an old guy from another generation who’s angry.” I wanted them to engage with this crucial topic.</p>
<p>We are, of course, not alone in this problem, with the issue of drug and alcohol use by students on or off campus. Students and adults at every school, if they are realistic and do not have their heads in the sand, will admit to the same problem. Many young people feel that they are untouchable, invincible, that they won’t get caught or harmed if they try something dangerous. And good, good people make mistakes. Unfortunately, today the consequences of those mistakes are more serious than when all of us were that age. The police now need to be involved in many situations that before were handled internally. There are serious college implications, as well. Worse, of course, are the dangers to health and safety of using these substances.</p>
<p>This talk was prompted by some recent discipline cases. I had no intention of further embarrassing the students who were involved, but I wanted to let everyone know that I and the faculty were aware of harmful substances on campus, and I wanted to ask for the help of the student body. Just recently, I received two communications from sister schools that shared in different ways their concern about student alcohol and other drug use.</p>
<p>The reason I mention it this morning is that I’m asking for your help. I would be enormously grateful to you if you could engage your children on this topic. If nothing else, ask them what they think about what I said Thursday morning. There is no one whom your children respect more than you. There is no one whose opinion they value more than yours. I’m sure many of you are not told that on a daily – or yearly – basis. But, I know it to be true. One Sixth Former said to me after my talk, “You know, Mr. Matthews, the reason I came to this School was because I sensed that this was a school that valued relationships. For me to have to tell my parents or my adviser that I’ve done drugs or that I’ve been drinking would be terrible.” So, I do know that your opinions and the opinions of people on our faculty matter enormously to your children. Simply put, I ask for your help in bringing this topic up with your children, in partnering with us on this important topic.</p>
<p>I concluded by saying that there are many good and joyful things that happen on a daily basis at this School. You are about to hear one of those good and joyful things in a moment when Maura Dickey sings to us. Ellie Duke earlier in the week gave a wonderful talk. Ellie is the vice president of the Sixth Form, and in her talk she said, “Just the other day, a friend of mine said to me ‘every day at St. Paul’s School I feel as though I am becoming someone.’” That is such a beautiful and joyful thought, which I will leave you with now.</p>
<p>Again, I would echo Marcia’s and my sincere gratitude to you for allowing us to borrow your children for these three or four years, and for allowing us to help them grow and become the people that they have and will become.</p>
<p>Where is the like button?</p>
<p>Police? Drugs? Very unbecoming.</p>
<p>What are these kids running away from? </p>
<p>Also at Andover:</p>
<p>[Laurence</a> Steinberg Addresses Importance of Relaxation and Stress Management | News | The Phillipian](<a href=“http://phillipian.net/article/10085]Laurence”>Article: Antonio Pulgarin Speaks to Toxic Masculinity, LGBTQ+ Rights, and Latinx Issues in New Exhibition “Whispers of a Caballero.” – The Phillipian)
[Twenty</a> Investigations, Fifteen DCs Result from Room Searches | News | The Phillipian](<a href=“http://phillipian.net/article/10084]Twenty”>Article: Antonio Pulgarin Speaks to Toxic Masculinity, LGBTQ+ Rights, and Latinx Issues in New Exhibition “Whispers of a Caballero.” – The Phillipian)</p>
<p>…and over at Exeter:</p>
<p>[The</a> Exonian](<a href=“http://theexonian.com/2011/02/17/news/hassan_to_stuco_lets_address_marijuana_use_as_a_community]The”>http://theexonian.com/2011/02/17/news/hassan_to_stuco_lets_address_marijuana_use_as_a_community)
[The</a> Exonian](<a href=“http://theexonian.com/2011/02/24/news/hassan_raises_drug_concerns_with_parents]The”>http://theexonian.com/2011/02/24/news/hassan_raises_drug_concerns_with_parents)</p>
<p>Is this a new trend, or an old one fast becoming national media fodder? What is going on? These articles and the Rector’s words make the problem look, to use a teenage term: “epic”. Is it really so?</p>
<p>Teens will be teens. Some will experiment, some won’t. I’m not condoning the behavior just realistic about what goes on with some teens. This is true public or private, day or boarding. It is true now as it was in the 60s, 70s, 80s, etc. If a school is not catching kids and disciplining kids at least occasionally, then I would be wary about that school looking the other way. Even bright, motivated kids will make unwise decisions.</p>
<p>Not sure what the Exonian articles referenced above say as they are password protected.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s what the adults in charge are trying to find out. At all of these schools, they are trying to get to the root cause of substance abuse. It’s laudable, but I think that we adults sometimes forget that there isn’t always a “reason.” Sometimes the reason is “because I wanted to.”</p>
<p>I’m just glad they are all talking about it. Like creative said, it’s the schools that turn a blind eye that I worry about. When kids and adults are honest with eachother, things always turn out better.</p>
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</p>
<p>u:Exonian & p:BigRed combo still works.</p>
<p>I am just astonished that kids who at an earlier point were deemed both desirable by, and worthy of, these schools would end up so badly. Police involvement and public scrutiny suggest more than the “usual teenage misstep”. Candidly, I am shocked that all the good kids would have to go to assemblies and extra meetings listening to such unsavory things. Or does anyone else find this such a rampant problem? What a pity.</p>