Head's August Message

I hope that you have had a wonderful break. Katie and I got to spend our first full summer here at Burroughs, and I am happy to say that it is our last "first” – I am certainly looking forward to doing things for a second time this year.

While it has been a very smooth summer, it has also been a busy one here on campus. Burr Oak Camp, Aim High and August Days went very well and with much enthusiasm.

This summer, there was also lots of activity in the Athletic Department. Work on the fields and tennis courts disrupted the northwest side of campus, but the orange construction fencing should be down before school starts! The tennis courts were resurfaced for the first time since they were built 15 years ago, and they look fabulous. The Ray Beckman Soccer Field is nearly complete and promises to be one of the nicest venues in the city. Sod should be laid this week on the significantly larger field that will serve both our girls and boys teams. The irrigation and drainage on the field have also been improved. While the sod will take some time to establish, it is our hope that the boys will be playing there by October. Thanks go to the very generous parents of tennis, football, soccer and lacrosse parents who made these projects possible.

An added benefit of this larger and improved field will be greater flexibility. In the fall, the football and soccer teams will not have to share space as often, and, in the spring, we will be able to offer boys lacrosse for the first time in the school's history. We are still working out the details of the program – when we will begin to play a varsity schedule, for example.

Our new athletic director, Peter Tasker, has been very busy working with our current coaches and hiring new ones, including new head coaches in girls varsity basketball and lacrosse. We hope to bring coaches more into the life of the school – to have them be part of the whole Burroughs fabric, not just on the fields but also in assembly, at lunch and in the classroom. Another top priority is increased communication with families and fans. Peter is on the job, quite literally! He and his family moved into the athletic director's residence on the south side of campus earlier this month.

One of my major projects for the summer was reviewing responses to the parent survey. I am thankful to everyone who responded – more than half of our families took the time and opportunity to share their thoughts about how to make Burroughs better. I have read all of the roughly 300 responses and have begun meeting with the department chairs to review the ratings and responses for their areas. While it would be impossible to respond to every comment, please know that your input has been incredibly helpful to me as I look to this, my second year.

One of the areas that parents see as the greatest opportunity for improvement is the advising system. Forty percent of those parents who responded to the survey see it as excellent, but that is far below the rating they gave most of our programs. We will be implementing a number of changes this year that focus on additional faculty training and more contact time between advisors and advisees. Students will meet with their advisors virtually every week; a 15-minute period has been inserted in most of our Wednesday schedules to make this possible. Our goal is to ensure that teachers get to know their advisees – and vice versa – in a more meaningful way.

One of the most important jobs for me this year will be to support and work with our new department chairs as they move into their new positions. I spent three days with the new chairs this summer going over the details of their jobs and thinking collectively about the direction and philosophy of the school. I could not be more excited for or about them.

You will hear more from Todd Schnuck and me about the goals of the Board of Trustees for the year. One of them is to build on the work that we began last year on making all families feel welcome and comfortable on campus and at our events. I was thrilled last year that we had nearly record numbers at the Annual Dinner, and I hope that this level of engagement will continue, in fact, increase in the coming year.

We have also spent much of the summer reviewing the 2004 master plan. While I am eager to get some shovels in the ground, I want to be certain that whatever we do fits nicely with our long-term goals.

There is much that I am eager about as I look forward to the school year, but I have to say that the first assembly of the year is at the top. The summers are beautiful – and hot – and it has been wonderful starting to hear the coaches' whistles around campus with the beginning of sports practices. Last week the new eighth and ninth graders and their buddies headed down to Drey Land, and this weekend the seniors will go. Soon the rest of the faculty will return. But it is that first assembly on Monday, August 30 that truly signals the start of a new year and all of the hope and promise that comes with it. 

Here we go!

—Andy Abbott

P.S. Katie and I hope to see many of you at the JBS family picnic on the September 4.