A. I can only speak for the independent schools. Certainly
when I interview teacher candidates, if they come from
public schools, I stress that not only can they have the
pleasure of a great deal of autonomy here, they have the
responsibility of it. No one will hand them a course
outline and some candidates that's very uncomfortable and
they don't want to be in a place like this. They'll even
say, "You mean no one will just tell me what book to use and
what materials to use?" So there is a great deal of
difference in some people's minds about that. We do spend a
lot of time trying to meet individual student needs within
our own standards and expectations, those guidelines, this
is a college preparatory school, so we have boundaries even
though we have a range of students. There are things we
can't handle and know we aren't prepared to handle, but
within our own philosophy and guidelines, we do try to
adjust programs often so there is that autonomy.
Q. Could you compare a school like Sunset High School, a
public school with a similar student body, middle to high
socioeconomic area, high-achieving students, many national
merit students, could a school like Sunset ever be like
Crestwood Country Day?
A. I really don't know enough about the school, but certainly
there are -- oh, yes, there are public schools all over the
country that have the same goals and work hard to give
attention to students. My own children went to a public
school in a small community that was very like our lower
school. But the numbers were such that classes could be
fairly small, there was a great deal of independence there,
so I think it can happen. I think with the large public
schools it's apt to happen to smaller areas, perhaps within
the honors program or something like that where there are
many similarities. One of the problems that we don't have
to face and constantly remind ourselves of is not being all
things to all people. That's a very different situation.
Q. You talked about teachers having a great deal of autonomy
but because you're a college prep, there are some guidelines
and boundaries, what are those and what influences --
A. Well, especially in the upper school, there are guidelines
put out by college boards about curriculum and basic
requirements some of the top colleges have that we want to
be sure our students meet. We know that they are all going
to take SATs and achievement tests and have the right to
expect that we're doing the job preparing them as best we
can for those. AP courses are bound tightly by curricular
requirements, that's a tough one. So there are those
things. Within the rest of the school, it's pretty much
preparing students for that, but also for the general
educational goals we have, we set our own that way. We're
accountable and we use national tests to check ourselves and
see where we are. You can tell also by the feedback from
students who leave of how they're doing, how by the number
of students who win national awards or state awards, things
like that, our little teams group, for instance, which is
math and sciences, they're first in the state for two years
now. Those things give you a sense of your being on track.
Q. Do you feel any influence from state or federal programs or
regulations?
A. Oh, yes, we have OSHA and ADA and the new AIDS regulations.
Q. What's ADA?
A. The American Disabilities Act which goes into effect in
July. That affects private and public.
Q. Was that the one for -- ADD students?
A. No, not disabilities -- it's a worker detention deficit, but
this is handicapped.
Q. Handicapped students or workers?
A. Both. That's a big issue right now. Everybody --
Q. What does that mean to you?
A. Well, nobody knows quite yet, but it certainly means some
things in physical plant, any new building you build has to
be built with facility for handicapped. We don't know as
far as other areas of employment and how it's going to be.
It's pretty general but it will be done case by case across
the country and certainly the goal of it is to enable
handicapped people to have the same opportunities.
Q. And what does the AIDS program require?
A. Well, more and more there are materials you have to have
everywhere, the gloves, the masks, the mouth-to-
resuscitation piece. Someone facetiously said the other
day, "We'll all be carrying our little fanny-pack kits."
Q. Oh, that will be sad.
A. So it creeps in, certainly. We have some state regulations
that we -- for some teachers to teach certain things in
upper school they have to have certain hours of preparation
and subject matter and all.
Q. Is that a choice on your part or not a choice?
A. If we want to be state accredited, we do it.
Q. And that's what NCA is about?
A. North Central -- we're not accredited by North Central, we
don't need that. The state has its own thing. A member of
the state evaluating team, or somebody anyway, sits on our
regional evaluation committee and gives us approval.
Q. Is your work life or how is your work life influenced by
your board of trustees?
A. The board of trustees in this school sets policy and is
responsible for the financial well-being of the school. I'm
directed to carry out policy basically, so there's a lot of
interaction; I am a trustee, that's not always true in this
kind of school; I am a voting member of the board; I'm very
involved in the fund raising which is part of the board
responsibility; I report to them constantly so they can
judge whether I am carrying out their policies. So there's
a lot of interaction. We meet monthly and the committees
meet more often than that.
Q. Can you tell me about an incident in which your work life
was influenced or shaped by parents?
A. We have a very strong supportive parent association and I
meet with the head of it, not regularly, but off and on.
They raise money for us, they assist in admissions in the
sense of working with new parents, they're probably our best
PR force in our community, so I work with them a lot. We
had over 300 parent volunteers this year out of the family
body of around 500 and that's incredible. So they're very
much a part of it.
Q. Should I assume that there are positives and negatives to
parent involvement?
A. Yeah, there are, but I would say that this is a very
positive group here. It has given more to the school and we
don't have any problems, it's just tremendous support here.
Q. Can you tell me about an incident in which your work life
was influenced or shaped by the students?
A. There was a program here called "New Horizons" which was an
experiential week in January, February, somewhere, and it
had many problems with it. Over a period of years, it kind
of petered out and we were going to end it. A group of
students from the student government requested a meeting
here, presented a proposal to revive it and redesign it, and
it is now functioning very well. They were really prime
movers for that.
Q. With all of the discussion about school choice, if a voucher
system were in place, would this school want to participate
in that?
A. It would depend on the requirements. I sat on the
governor's task force so I was very involved in that, and
this school, above all else, wants to keep its independence,
so if it would have to suddenly meet all state requirements,
probably not, one of the issues raised there was if a
private school accepted any public money, if it followed a
student here, we couldn't charge any higher tuition than
anyone else -- than that money, so in that case, no, also.
Interesting, there were about 25 at least parochial and
other non-public schools for whom that amount of money was
equal or more than their tuition, so they might -- but we
couldn't be the same kind of school if we did that. So it
would depend entirely on the restrictions. Otherwise, yes,
where we have places, it seems to me absurd not to be able
to take from them. We have our own inner-city gifted
student program going on right now and to be able to get
some funds to help us with that would be wonderful.
Q. What issues do you think I should be addressing in looking
at differences in autonomy? Especially from headmaster,
principal or superintendent-type role?
A. I think one of the biggest is the evaluation of faculty.
This came out in a nationwide survey of Catholic schools, I
think, where if they felt had an inadequate teacher, they
could remove the teacher far more easily than the public
school can. That's almost a necessity to have a school like
this stay alive is to have a good evaluation process, both
for the improvement of everyone here, which is the goal of
it, the goal is not to get people out, but it does enable
you to design an enrichment program for faculty. The same
thing is true to have authority to remove kids who either
abuse the rules and regulations that are here or disrupt
classes so that others can't learn. We can do that and that
makes a big difference. We have the autonomy to do that.
And I think issues like that, or we have the autonomy to
change a program entirely if we want to, we don't have to go
through any process or committee. That's not to imply that
teachers don't process it but it's their decision. These
divisions change things all the time.