SCHOOL OF THE HOLY CHILD
There will be plenty of new faces at Holy Child this school year, but the interim Head of School, Colleen Pettus, is not one of them. She is starting her ninth year at Holy Child, having been head of the Middle School for the first five and Dean of Faculty and Associate Head of School the next three.
Pettus is excited to report that when school reopens next month it will be on “a nearly” full-time basis. “Due to the size of our campus we will be able to bring all the girls (among them her daughter who is a junior) back four days a week. Wednesdays will be asynchronous learning days, with everyone out of the building, but <absolutely> school days.”
The reopening plan, she noted, was informed by a combination of parent, student, and faculty responses to Holy Child surveys, as well as an enormous amount of in-house professional development and collaboration since the spring.
“From challenges come great opportunities,” offered Pettus brightly. “All that collaboration brought us to in-depth conversations about making our current curriculum more robust; student life without everyone in the same room; and the new virtual platform for college counseling.” She was encouraged by the high attendance at the virtual financial aid meeting.
Every inch of the expansive campus will be used this school year, said Pettus. “We’ve added to our outdoor facilities, purchased a tent, and our overall message is: Use the outdoors.”
After-school activities will be limited, but clubs will be built back into the school day and the campus will be open until 4 to try and accommodate parents’, as well as students’ needs. The arts will not be overlooked but they can only be virtual for now. While sports are on-hold, socially distant physical education is not. “We’re working with a ready-to-play mentality,” she emphasized. “Physical well-being is essential.”
The first day of school is September 8 and orientations will be held the week before. “We’re paying extra attention to new students to make sure they transition easily into this very new school world.”