Dr. "V's" Blog 

What do we do at Stratford that drives you crazy?

Some months ago, I posed this question to Stratford parents.  The idea was suggested to me by Pat Bassett, the head of the National Association of Independent Schools.  Pat’s observation was that schools should ask this question as a way of making sure they are offering great customer service.  In other words, a school might be doing a great job with respect to its major objectives but might still have some room to improve relations with its families.

The answers that I received from our parents were interesting and instructive.  I have shared those responses with the appropriate administrators.  In some cases we were able to make some immediate changes.  In other cases, solutions were complicated, or we feared that solving one minor problem might create a bigger problem in some other area.  In such cases, we were at least able to note the frustration and to make a commitment to attempt to address the concern.

Below is a list of the “things we do that drive you crazy” (those that involved a particular staff member were addressed directly with that staff member, and are not included here).  In no particular order, and with parenthetical comments attached:

- Too many unhealthy snacks are available to children at Stratford. (Josh Roberts, our cafeteria manager, has made solid efforts to offer attractive and healthful choices; meanwhile, sugared drinks have been removed from both the drink machines and the serving lines.)

- Why can’t non-sponsored clubs make announcements at Upper School assembly? (This is a long-standing policy.  A number of organizations and interest groups are allowed to meet on campus after school and enlist our students as members, but in the interests of simplicity, consistency and fairness, only those which are school-sponsored are introduced at announcement time on Mondays.  The others may place a poster promoting their activities.)

- The grading system used at the upper grade levels needs to be more transparent, with more frequent feedback.  (I can assure you that the principals placed great emphasis on communication and on consistency of grading policies in their school-opening meetings this year.)

- Our coaches should communicate with parents as effectively as our classroom teachers do.  (Agreed; and Grady Smith has also made communication a point of emphasis this year with his coaching staff.)

- The prizes which students receive for the magazine sale are too extravagant.  (Maybe so; I hope we can keep an eye on this over time.)

- Grade-level family gatherings are preferable to multi-grade family gatherings for getting to know the parents of children in your child’s class.  (True.  We will definitely keep this in mind.)

- Parents of older children need to enforce the drinking age with their own children and the children of others.  (This came to me not so much as “what Stratford does that drives me crazy” and more as “this just plain drives me crazy”.  It’s certainly not a Stratford-specific problem.)

- It would be great if Stratford could smooth out the transitions from Lower School to Middle School and from Middle School to Upper School, and make sure that children are academically ready to make the jump to the next level.  (This is an excellent point with which all of us agree, and I believe that all of our principals are keeping a close eye on this issue.)

- Teach more geography!  (I sensed that this was not so much a frustration with Stratford’s program as it was an observation that American children in general are geographically illiterate.  We’re on it.)

Thanks for your input!  It’s great to be a Stratford Eagle.

BV

Whenever I run into our students in recent days, I hear about their assigned summer reading.  Thankfully, lots of them tell me “I’m almost finished”.  Others, the procrastinators, say “it’s about time for me to get started”.  In all cases, I’m glad they’re doing summer reading, and I hope they’ve found time to add some pleasure reading of their own – “beach books”, we sometimes call this sort of summer reading.

So it’s time for my annual report on my summer reading.  I’ve read some “beach books” of my own, but as usual I’ve thrown in some history, my favorite “heavy” reading topic.

I’ve finally made my way through the Stieg Larsson trilogy.  Larsson, the Swedish author whose novels became best sellers after his untimely death, wrote The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with Fire, and The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.  I really enjoyed this series.  My wife and I were also able to see the Swedish films of the first two novels, which came to Atlanta recently.  I’m told that American producers are now casting for an American film of the first novel, but in my opinion it will be hard to improve on the Swedish films (except perhaps that they won’t be subtitled in English!).

With our family planning the wedding of our oldest child in Charleston this fall, I dove into Pat Conroy’s novel South of Broad.  This book is vintage Conroy, with all the strained family dynamics and dripping Southern culture one comes to expect from his books.  But it was neat to read about all the Charleston settings in the novel. 

My wife introduced me to Stephen Ambrose’s 1998 book Citizen Soldiers, a follow up to Ambrose’s book about D-Day.  We’ve always liked Ambrose’s work, going all the way back to Custer and Crazy Horse, a dual biography which both of us read many summers ago.

And finally, I also had some assigned summer reading, just like our students.  This fall, I’ll be teaching one section of AP Modern European History in the Upper School.  I’m grateful to Carol O’Brien Lanier for graciously allowing me to have one of the three sections of this course, which I know is one of her favorites.  After two years away from teaching, I’m excited to jump back into a course which I have taught off and on since the 1980’s.  As part of my preparation, I’ve read two books that Carol assigned to all incoming students in Modern European History:  Mila 18 by Leon Uris and Balkan Ghosts by Robert D. Kaplan.  It seems to me that Carol has made a good choice for required summer preparation.  I’m ready to go.

As always, it’s great to be a Stratford Eagle.

BV