In the 90s, Thanksgiving outside of Langley consisted of at least nine of us: my wife and me with our two daughters, my brother and sister-in-law, and my sister-in-law’s sister with her husband and daughter.  As the years progressed, the children moved off to college and beyond. A year ago, my brother and sister-in-law separated, so this Thanksgiving we were down to five; my wife and I, my sister-in-law, and her sister with her husband.

The consistency and constancy of this fall ritual provides an anchor point to my life. Things change, but some things stay the same. There is much comfort in that, particularly at a time of turmoil and uncertainty in the outside world. I think all human beings need anchor points, and I know that Charles Wright serves as such an anchor in the lives of many of those who are associated with the school, including me. Anchor points not only provide comfort in troubled times, but they permit us to explore and wander, secure in the knowledge that we can return via the chain. The anchoring effect that the school provides our students permits the chain to gradually lengthen as children move through the grades, allowing the freedom to learn how to be independent while remaining secure in the knowledge that the independence does not threaten the important feeling of connectedness.

Particularly in troubled times, I feel particularly thankful for the anchor points in my life. The break that Thanksgiving provides allows time for some reflection before the calendar page is turned to December, and the sprint to the winter holidays begins.

Early in the school year, first graders are all over the map as far as reading ability is concerned. While proud parents of early readers marvel at their child’s proficiency and parents of emerging readers quietly worry about whether there is “something wrong,” educators know that the ability to read comes to children in its own time, typically between kindergarten and second grade. This is no different than physical growth, which also comes when it comes. We also know there is no correlation between how early a child learns to read and later success in school. My older daughter Lisa has always been an exceptional student, and is now working on her PhD at Princeton. But she was a late reader, not really mastering the art of decoding the little scribbles on a page and discerning their meaning until just before the start of school in second grade.

Visitors to our Upper School sometimes marvel at how comfortable our students are standing in front of the weekly assembly and speaking confidently to their peers, and the visitors wonder what we do to facilitate that. While we don’t offer a formal course in public speaking, there are so many opportunities throughout the school to give children the confidence necessary to speak publicly. When I watch the first graders at Authors’ Tea, I am looking at one of those opportunities. To speak and perform in front of others is one skill practiced there, as is the important skill of quietly listening to others.

Each Authors’ Tea ends with the breaking up of the circle, and students seeking brief written comments about their story and reading. Naturally enough, the students typically first make a beeline to their parents. But then, they go around the room seeking comments from those they may not know as well or at all, such as the parents of their classmates, or even the Headmaster!

From time to time someone will delicately ask me a question that boils down to “exactly what is it that you do all day?” Part of what I try to do at least several times a year is to listen to our first graders share their stories and themselves with all who are gathered to listen. That always puts a bounce in my step for the rest of the day.

While there are a few schools, particularly those with large endowments, who are not as tuition dependent as CWA, our business model is pretty much standard in the industry.  The implication of the business model is that there is a direct and inextricable link between the size of raises teachers receive and the size of annual tuition increases.

I’m also often asked why the school is as expensive as it is and why other private schools in the area seem to be able to charge less.  The answer is simple: class size.  On a class-size-adjusted basis, CWA’s tuition is comparable if not less than that of other private schools.  It’s difficult to get hard data about this from other private schools, but in 2006-07, the Tacoma Public School’s cost per student was almost $11,000 a year, with class sizes substantially larger than ours.  That year our average tuition was about $16,600.  With larger class sizes, our costs would be lower, but that’s a trade-off parents have consistently vetoed as not in the best interests of their children, and we certainly agree.

The school has access to quite a lot of benchmark data from other private schools, both in our region and nationally.  We look at this data on a regular basis to ensure that we are not out of line, particularly in the area of expenses.  One interesting indirect measure of CWA’s relative efficiency is to look at the average tuition at comparable private schools in Seattle.  With class sizes similar to ours, most of the well-known Seattle private schools are charging between $4,000 and $5,000 per student per year more than we are!  The cost of living is certainly higher in Seattle, but proportionately surely less so than the difference in tuitions.  Judging by non-faculty staffing levels in some of those schools, we run a pretty lean operation.

Given the vital role that faculty play at CWA, we need to work hard to attract and retain the best faculty we can find.  Searches for ongoing faculty positions are national in scope.  The extensive search process is both exhaustive and sometimes exhausting, but there is nothing more important for our success.  Our faculty compensation, therefore, must be competitive nationally as well as regionally and locally.

We know that parents sacrifice to send their children to Charles Wright.  The process of setting tuition is never easy.  The school and the Board of Trustees wrestle annually with the trade-off that always presents itself: hold tuition down, and thus hold salary increases down, or give more generous raises to the faculty and staff, and raise tuition more.  We really never end up happy with what we’ve done, always feeling that we’ve asked parents for more than would be ideal, but compensated faculty and staff less than we really should.

The Headmaster’s picnic has grown tremendously in the dozen years I have been at Charles Wright.  In my early days, it was primarily an opportunity to watch an athletic event in the afternoon, grab dinner in the Dome, and then stay for a football game in the evening.  Lower School families rarely came, and even Middle School families found that it felt more oriented toward the Upper School.

The big change in the nature of the event came when the Middle School had the brainstorm of putting on a carnival for Lower School students.  That changed the picnic from one primarily geared toward older students to a true gathering of the entire CWA clan.  Over the years we’ve added a number of additional sporting contests to the mix, so that in any given moment between about 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., there is a great deal happening on nearly every part of campus.  A true community dinner follows, and the event is capped off with a perennially well-attended football game.

Adding to the excitement this year was the opportunity to be KIRO-TV’s “Game of the Week.”  Each week the KIRO staff picks seven games as candidates for the GoTW, and the game chosen to be filmed and highlighted is determined by the number of votes cast on the KIRO website.  Thanks to the enthusiasm and ingenuity of CWA students, we won the most votes and a KIRO news van was here filming the game.  You can watch the highlights through September 19 at http://www.kirotv.com/hsfootball/index.html

After the game, the KIRO team expressed both surprise and gratitude at the atmosphere of the whole event,  particularly at the game.  They were invited for dinner, talked to repeatedly by members of our community, and made to feel at home.  The positive behavior of the fans they noted with pleasant surprise, with a comment to the effect that “we don’t always find things this way.”  The tone suggested that this may have been an understatement.

We have a truly wonderful community of adults and children that enthusiastically support and thoroughly enjoy the company of each other.  I am pleased and proud to be a part of this place that makes such a difference in the lives of so many.

A number of years ago my family lived in Ohio; Lisa (CWA ‘00) and Laura (CWA ‘02) attended a K-8 private school that I served as headmaster. Sharon and I had some good friends with two daughters about a year older than each of ours who attended a local public school.  One Friday night when Lisa and Laura were probably about 11 and 9, our families got together for dinner, and conversation turned to weekend plans.  Lisa excitedly talked about a groundbreaking event that was taking place at school on Saturday.  After a short silence, our friends’ older daughter said “You mean you’re going to school on a Saturday?”  “No,” replied Lisa, “I’m going to school for an event.”  After another pause, the other girl said, “I would NEVER set foot on my school’s campus any day I didn’t have to.”  And this girl was a very strong student who went off later to a fine university.

How sad that someone would feel this way about a place she spends so much time?  And what a contrast my daughter’s experience!  Schools like Charles Wright are so much more than places to suffer through the “3 Rs.”  CWA is a community of adults and children who genuinely enjoy each other’s company and who value deeply the time spent together.  It’s no surprise that Charles Wright alums often report that they made lifelong friends at CWA.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every school-age child in the country could have this kind of school experience?

One of the most difficult parts of the atmosphere at CWA to explain is our sense of humor.  Those who spend any time at the school feel it in their bones, but it’s hard to characterize.  Two phrases help, but do not thoroughly convey its essence: “it’s hard to be a pompous ass at Charles Wright” and “at CWA, we take what we DO seriously, but we don’t take OURSELVES too seriously!”  Those who know founder Sam Brown know exactly where we got our sense of humor from!  We feel it is such an important part of who we are and we incorporated by reference to it in our last revision of the mission statement.

Reading between the lines, one could sense the same attitude on the part of the News Tribune that was expressed to me a number of years ago by a CWA alum, “of COURSE we’re good at Knowledge Bowl! Academics is what we do…” On the one hand, it is really quite a compliment to be thought of as so obviously excellent that it is no surprise that the school dominates one and all at the state level in our size category in an academic competition (and while I’m bragging, I should mention that in local and regional meets, we more than hold our own against the largest schools as well). On the other hand, it seems more than a bit unfair, as it doesn’t acknowledge that excellence in any endeavor takes incredible effort and persistence. Our students, whether or not Knowledge Bowl competitors, work very hard at their academic studies, and thereby achieve great success — success beyond what most of their peers can aspire to. And the members of the Knowledge Bowl team hone their competitive skills by going well beyond the knowledge gained through their school work.

Former CWA history teacher Dick Neunherz first brought knowledge bowl to the school, and since his retirement, current history teacher John Lemma has picked up where “Doc” left off and continued the tradition of excellence in this area.

Perhaps because watching smart people perform is not as embedded in the psyche of the country as is watching those with physical prowess, and because the Knowledge Bowl team has been perennially so outstandingly successful, they didn’t get quite the same fanfare as did the boys basketball team when they brought home the state trophy. We’ll take the compliment, thank you, of the lack of surprise that we do so well in academic competition, but no one should overlook the hard work over many years to achieve that level of success.

The capital campaign and the Language and Performing Arts Center project are moving along nicely, but that too takes a great deal of time.  And, of course, in the background the school has been preparing for the just-completed visit by the evaluation team from our accrediting agency, the Pacific Northwest Association of Independent schools.

It is also been a bit of a challenge to change my thinking and writing style to blogging.  Blog posts tend to be short and contemporary, and only rarely are long treatments of a subject.  I’ve obviously not mastered that form yet!

 I’ll have to see if I can work on doing this more frequently, and with fewer words!