I hope you are doing well and enjoying the waning days of summer. If the August 1 divisional newsletters did not herald the sunset of summer for you and your family, I suspect this note will. With apologies for marking the end of what is likely your son’s favorite season, and with excitement for my favorite part of the year, a new school year, please read on…

I first became a head of school in 2009 and began my tenure at St. Christopher’s in 2016. I can say with full conviction that there has never been a moment in my tenure as a school leader, or likely in the past many decades, when the call for boy-centric and boy-celebratory education has been more clear.

The national and international data on male performance–measured academically, economically, and in physical and mental health–are not encouraging. Richard Reeves, founding president of the American Institute for Boys and Men and St. Christopher’s guest speaker in 2024, summarizes the challenges and opportunities facing boys and men today in a compelling manner. If you have not read his 2022 book, Of Boys and Men, I recommend it to all parents and educators of young men today.

The cover story of the May/June 2025 issue of Harvard Magazine was entitled,”Falling Behind: Boys, men, and the new gender gaps.” It echoes many of the challenges—and some of the solutions—offered by Reeves.

Just two weeks ago, the National Association of Independent Schools, which represents and advocates for more than 2,000 independent schools across the country (the vast majority of which educate both boys and girls), sent a newsletter to tens of thousands of educators with the lead article, “Turning the Focus Back on Boys.” In it, a veteran independent school educator, who spent much of her career (rightly) advocating for the rights and needs of girls and women, now finds herself compelled to actively consider the ways in which school settings today “work” (or do not work) for boys. 

The author points out that, nationally, approximately two-thirds of high school students performing in the top decile of their class are female, while approximately two-thirds of high school students performing in the bottom decile are male. 

Additionally, the most recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics indicate that female undergraduate enrollment in colleges and universities has surpassed male enrollment by approximately 2.4 million (8.9 million females vs. 6.5 million males in 2021). By 2030, when many of our boys will be in college, that differential is expected to grow to at least 2.6 million.

As Reeves and many other educational scholars have rightly pointed out, academic and professional success are not zero-sum measures. As parents and educators, we can all support the needs and opportunities of both young men and young women.

Here at St. Christopher’s, I am proud of and excited by the ways we continue to focus everything we do–who we hire and how we train them, how we allocate our precious time with students, and how we construct our campus environment, both physically and culturally–squarely around what both research and experience tell us works best for boys.

Specifically, I am proud of the work we did over a two-year period to evaluate and update our daily academic schedules in all three divisions to create additional time for deep learning, movement, and fellowship. Importantly, our new academic schedules prioritize sleep and down time for boys with their friends and families.  

I am proud of our work to create intentional Rites of Passage moments for all of our boys, both here on campus and through outdoor, experiential learning, notably through our continued work with Camp River’s Bend. 

I am proud of a new initiative we will launch this school year, a longitudinal survey of our alumni, one we are committed to offering annually for at least the next five years, in which we will ask St. Christopher’s alumni of all ages questions within two primary themes–First, how are they doing, holistically? How are they faring personally, professionally, civically, physically, and emotionally? In asking these questions, we are attempting to assess the overall wellbeing of our alumni. Second, we will ask our alumni exactly how their St. Christopher’s experience did and did not prepare them for life beyond St. Christopher’s Road. We will ask them, sincerely, what adjustments they think should be made to both our academic and character curriculum. 

I am proud of the manner in which we have intentionally separated our boys from their smartphones while they are on campus with us, so that they and we can focus on what really matters–real-world interactions, memories, and authentic relationships with classmates and teachers.

And, while we believe that smartphones should not play an active role in secondary education today, we know that our boys are growing up in a world in which artificial intelligence will play an increasingly influential role in their educational, professional, and personal lives. As such, we are taking an active and engaged stance on layering artificial intelligence into our curriculum, thoughtfully and rigorously, and highly differentiated by divisions and grade levels. In 2024 we formed a schoolwide faculty task force to study the role of artificial intelligence in the St. Christopher’s learning environment. You can expect to hear more from me and others on the topic later this school year. Rest assured that we will approach this issue in the same manner that we approach all matters at St. Christopher’s–guided by our Mission, our Community Pillars, and doggedly focused on what is best for our boys. 

The 2024-2025 school year marked the 10-year anniversary of our Center for the Study of Boys (CSB), our in-house research center focusing on best practices and programming for boys, their families, and educators here in Richmond and around the globe. CSB Director Kim Hudson and her team of Center leaders did a fabulous job of celebrating the Center’s anniversary with a host of programming and events, culminating in our January 22 panel discussion that featured leading boy experts and scholars from the U.S. and overseas.

We are poised to continue the Center’s strong momentum into 2025-2026 with a visit from renowned author, psychologist, and “boy expert” Michael Thompson, who will share insight with boys, faculty, and parents on what he has learned working with thousands of boys, parents, and educators during his remarkable 30+-year career. We will share more information about this and other exciting programs and visits in the weeks ahead.

Today, I am pleased to share with you progress made on the very first objective listed in our 2021 strategic plan, Momentum 2025. In it, we committed to creating a “Portrait of a Graduate” document that would guide parents, students, and educators through a boy’s JK-12 journey at St. Christopher’s, highlighting academic, social, and emotional markers that we hold as aspirational and significant for each of our boys. We are pleased to share our “Portrait of a Saint,” which will serve as an aspirational guide for every St. Christopher’s boy on his unique journey through our school. Later this school year and in the years to come, we will share additional information regarding how this Portrait will become manifest in our school’s curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, and more. 

I will close with pride and excitement on the state of St. Christopher’s today. We open the 2025-2026 school year with 1,039 boys JK-12–more boys enrolled than at any point in school history. Likewise, we welcome 141 new Saints into our school community this year–more new students than ever before, a reflection of the substantial and record demand that exists in Richmond right now for a St. Christopher’s education. 

Likewise, our parents, alumni, grandparents, faculty, staff, and friends have supported our boys and our mission with a level of philanthropy that is unprecedented in our history. Collectively, in 2024-2025, this community donated a record $17.8 million to St. Christopher’s, supporting a variety of causes ranging from faculty support, to student financial aid, to library renovations, to a new racquet center, and much, much more. We are an exemplary school, in no small part, thanks to the generosity of you and all members of the Saints community. Thank you!

When you are next on campus, I encourage you to take a look at three wonderful capital improvements recently completed or still underway. First, over the summer we resurfaced the Cal Boyd Track, thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor. Second, we are well underway on a full renovation of our Upper School library (Memorial Library), made possible thanks to funding from our 2025 Auction, plus our Reunion and Class of 2025 fundraising efforts. Finally, over the summer, we began Phase 1 of our Racquet Center project, which includes building two new tennis courts at 103 Pepper Avenue so that we can build the new 11,000-square-foot Loupassi Family Racquet Center, housing seven singles squash courts, on the site of two current tennis courts. Phase 2 of the project, which is the construction of the Racquet Center itself, is slated to begin this fall, with a target completion date of November 2026. We are extremely grateful to the many donors who have made this project possible, bringing squash practice and competition to the St. Christopher’s campus, for both the boys of St. Christopher’s and the girls of St. Catherine’s, for the first time in history.

Finally, I hope you will join me in welcoming the 23 new members of our faculty and staff this school year, practicing the genuine “Radical Hospitality” that we espouse as an Episcopal school. 

If you have not already, please carefully review the August 1 newsletters from the Lower School, Middle School, and Upper School, and please be sure to attend to important details and deadlines contained therein. 

In closing, I will ask you to mark your calendars for our Opening All-School Service on the Terraces at 8:30 a.m. on Friday, August 29. During that brief service, open to parents and community members, we will officially commence the 2025-2026 school year. At the beginning of the service, our seniors, the Class of 2026, will escort our Kindergarten boys, the Class of 2038, from the Lower School, across St. Christopher’s Road, and down onto the Terraces where, nine months from now, our seniors will graduate. In just under 13 years, our Class of 2038 will do the same. The journey, the time between our youngest and oldest Saints, is what we care about most here at St. Christopher’s. 

If you join us on August 29, you will see the St. Christopher’s brotherhood on display, all 1,039 of our young men of promise gathered in one cherished place, surrounded by dedicated educators who know, love, and celebrate each one of them for exactly who they are and for who they will become.

Happy end-of-summer, and I look forward to seeing you on campus soon.