November 17, 2023

Dear Parents and Guardians,

With just one day to go until we all depart for a well-deserved Thanksgiving Break, I am glad to have this chance to check in. Incredibly, we are now 11 weeks removed from the first student arriving on campus for preseason athletic practices on September 1. Along the way, we have accomplished a great deal through a terrific fall season, and it has been fun to reflect on and celebrate those accomplishments. While it would be impossible to capture all of the fall season highlights in one letter, the last couple of weeks have provided a number of great community moments.



To start, our Beloved Community Day on the first Friday of November was a great opportunity to step out of our routine and into a wide range of activities designed to deliver on the day’s theme - Simpatia - Building Beloved Community through a Latinx Lens. As you have likely seen in our Community Newsletter, adults and students were all engaged in cooking workshops, dancing workshops, a writing resistance workshop with Dariana Guerrero, and spending time reflecting upon our current exhibit, SILENCIOS, in the Robert Lehman Art Center. We were all treated to Ms. Guerrero’s celebration of the city of Lawrence’s strength through her poetry in Ashburn Chapel. We finished over lunch with a wonderful fiesta in the dining hall. All told, it was a great morning together.

For the second time, our campus community celebrated Beloved Community Day. Our students, faculty and staff learned to cook, salsa dance and build beloved community through a Latinx lens.

I enjoyed having an opportunity to attend Footloose on Friday night of last week, and came away absolutely amazed by a cast and crew of both experienced and novice performers and set designers who delivered three incredible shows. When we built our Center for the Arts six years ago, we hoped that it would draw more and more students new to theater, music and visual art into the space. In this case, the acting, singing and dancing talent of so many students who had never been in a show before was part of what made it so fun to attend -- feeling the impact of a talented and dedicated arts department supporting student growth in a first-rate facility. 

We wrapped up our fall athletic season with several games on our campus. The highlights included our girls soccer team winning their quarterfinal game in the NEPSAC Class B playoffs. Their season continues this weekend against Pingree School. I would be remiss if I did not underline the truly historic performance of Kata Clark ’25 at this year’s New England Cross-Country Championships. In the context of a number of impressive individual performances by members of the team, and a fourth-place finish for the girls, Kata won the New England championship race for the third consecutive year. This comes on top of winning the Independent School League championship race three consecutive years, and winning EVERY race she has entered as a Brooks School runner for the past three years -- quite an accomplishment in the midst of so many memorable performances on the athletic fields all fall.

By now, you have received a link to a survey inviting you to share some thoughts regarding weekend life on our campus. As you may know, we have experienced an increased level of Saturday overnights in our boarding student population this year, and we would like to better understand what may be driving that. Your participation in this survey would be a big help as we contemplate weekend planning and programming for the second half of the year. Many thanks. 

With thanks in mind at this time of year, I also want to underline how grateful we are for the time and wisdom so many of you make and share with prospective parents and guardians in all kinds of ways. While I am thinking primarily of the many of you who volunteer your time and perspective in our admission office waiting room, we are also the beneficiaries of your time on Zoom calls and your willingness to connect with prospective families looking for an additional layer of perspective. We have been full in this very busy admission season and your support of the school and experience your children are having here has much to do with why so many explore Brooks as a place for their children. Here, too, many thanks.

Before closing, I would like take you through a particularly fulfilling day and evening this past Saturday. The day started by welcoming the Settles family to campus to dedicate the new entryway to Wilder Dining Hall in memory of Preston Settles ’25. It has now been more than 20 months since we lost Preston, and we determined some time ago that this busy hub of activity would be the perfect place to honor someone who so generously shared his warmth and spirit with everyone he reached. I was filled with pride that so many current students and colleagues joined the Settles family for a brief ceremony dedicating a beautiful plaque that is now secured above the door that takes us into Wilder Dining Hall -- testament to the depth of connection and importance of relationships at our school.

After taking in the games played that afternoon, I then attended a celebration of the soccer coaching career of Willie Waters ’02. As you may know, Willie and his family will be headed to Fay School at the end of this school year where his wife, Associate Head for Academic Affairs Susanna Waters, will be taking over as head of school on July 1, 2024. While an exciting move for them, this is bittersweet for all of us at Brooks, and certainly for the scores of current and former boys soccer players who returned to campus to pay tribute to their coach. As we mingled and shared some thoughts with one another about Willie’s impact on the many boys he coached through the years, I could feel the depth of connection and how important he has been to so many who have played for him. It was an honor to be there.

Later that night, we hosted an open house in our home and had a front row seat with lots of current students enjoying one another’s company and clearly forming and furthering the same kinds of connections and relationships that were so palpable when remembering a friend in the morning and celebrating a coach in the afternoon. As we head in the direction of Thanksgiving, I find myself deeply grateful to have the privilege of leading a school where one can have a day like I did this past Saturday -- immersed in the many ways our community facilitates experiences that reach us, matter to us, and hold over time. In my opinion, this was Brooks School at its very best.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and a nice break with your children.

Best,

John R. Packard

Head of School 

Brooks School • 1160 Great Pond Road, North Andover, MA 01845