Meg Frazier, new Head of School at Sacred Heart Greenwich, catching up with students on a campus bench.
Meg Frazier Conducts a New Symphony of Thinking at Sacred Heart
By Robin Jovanovich
Meg Frazier had a homecoming earlier this year when she accepted the offer to become head of Sacred Heart Greenwich. The Branford, Connecticut native was headmistress of Marymount International in London when she was chosen as Sacred Heart’s 34th Head of School, replacing Pamela Hayes, who retired after an exemplary decade at the helm.
Before leading Marymount, Frazier served as Academic Dean at Georgetown Preparatory School. She brings with her a host of educational experience having taught English, history, and Spanish and coached soccer and basketball. Prior to Georgetown Prep, the Dartmouth graduate was Head of the Upper School at Stone Ridge School in Bethesda, Md.
After only a few months at Sacred Heart, Frazier said she finds the job both “exciting and daunting. I started July 1 and spent the summer working mostly with the janitorial staff to ensure that we could open school safely,” she said in a telephone interview in late November. “With the unfolding Covid-19 reality, 2020 is not the year to be a visionary.”
But Frazier clearly is an educator with intellect to burn. She is a committed advocate for single-sex education — “right now is a renaissance for girls’ schools. We’ve focused on confidence-building and it’s taken us far.”
The next frontiers, she noted, are “embracing design thinking and expanding interdisciplinary opportunities.”
Frazier describes what is happening on the Sacred Heart campus as a “symphony of quantitative and creative thinking. The school is moving away from the treadmill of tests and giving students, particularly the high school students, greater independence with the right guidance.” Environmental and social justice issues are two of the areas where strong student interest rests.
At Sacred Heart, the connection with nature and the outdoors has been reaffirmed. “Our view is that there is no such thing as bad weather, just wrong clothing,” she quipped.
While a first-rate education will continue within four–walled classrooms, Frazier said the movement to free children from having to sit at desks all day is a thoughtful one.
When asked to describe a Sacred Heart education, Frazier replied, “It is one in which faith and values are intentionally infused. Our population is 65 percent Catholic, but there is no litmus test. We prepare and encourage young women to go out and build a better world.”
While Sacred Heart is increasingly well known for its high school science research and broadcast journalism programs, it is its early and continued emphasis on reading, writing, grammar, and public speaking that distinguish the school. “Our third graders lead mass at chapel, and they are confident speakers,” Frazier said proudly.
One of Frazier’s immediate goals is to increase the number of scholarship students. “We have longstanding partnerships with leadership development programs like Prep for Prep, and we have many donors who earmark funds for financial aid, but we need to be more creative and provide transportation for scholarship kids, especially ones in underserved communities like Bridgeport.”
We look forward to meeting Meg Frazier at the end of the 2020-21 school year, by which we know she will have moved mountains.
