February 2, 2024

Dear Parents and Guardians,

As we near the end of our first full week of the second semester and race into February, I am glad to have this opening to be in touch. I hope that 2024 has gotten off to a good start for all of you. Here on campus, we have emerged from Winter Term and are finding our footing for what still lies ahead over the balance of the winter leading to Spring Break. I had an opportunity to speak in Chapel to start the semester last week, and tried to acknowledge that the cold and rainy winter days we have endured can be a grind. Yet, there is so much exciting activity still to come over this final winter month -- games, events, performances, and lots of Brooks School talent of all shapes and sizes on display. We are also into the final semester for the class of 2024 and are looking forward to finishing well with all of them. With just 115 days to go until Prize Day, we are eager to get the semester started well as we close in on the end of winter.

Winter Term continues to feel like a real gift. For me, the gift is centered on the concentrated time we all have with a colleague or two, and a particular group of students with a shared interest. The opportunities to be immersed in engaging experiences and subject matter is great. The chance to travel locally and a bit farther afield is both furthering and a lot of fun for the group. The best part of Winter Term, however, is the relationship building and connection that happens by virtue of diving into something with a group of students who often do not know each other all that well at the course’s outset. We spend a lot of time together in ways that hold after the experience comes to a close. This year’s edition was no exception to this rule. A special thank you to Joanna McDonough for organizing and coordinating all 31 classes with so much thought and care. I am already looking forward to Winter Term 2025!

One highlight of this year’s Winter Term was the interfaith service in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This was organized by our dean of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, Reverend Terri Ofori, who pulled together a wide range of faith leaders to celebrate the legacy of Dr. King with students, faculty and a number of guests. With the participants sharing Dr. King’s words from some of the many moving addresses he delivered over the course of his life leading the way, and a powerful reflection from Rabbi Howard Mandell of Congregation Beth Israel in Andover wrapping things up, we were all better for having had the experience. As we move into a charged election year with so much strife at play in the country and world, this service was an important reminder of the difference we can be and make as advocates for peace and justice.

As I indicated in my mid-December letter, we continue to think about weekend life at Brooks and what we might do to address some of the challenges we are experiencing. The first step was sharing with all of you our decision to restrict boarding students to no more than seven weekend overnights over the course of the second semester. This shift opens opportunities for us to think about and program on weekends in ways we know our students will enjoy -- time with one another in activities that are fun. We are a boarding school, with classes on Saturday mornings and engagement as a core value of our school. In our view, the considerable majority of a boarding school student’s time while we are in session ought to be spent at school -- including weekends. Our job is to ensure that our weekend program is robust, appealing and nimble as keeping up with adolescent wants and needs can be challenging. We move forward in that spirit and firm in our feeling that weekend life is a core community building component over the course of the school year. If you have any questions, please do be in touch.

Finally, our winter trustee meetings went very well on Friday and Saturday of last week, and we continue to make progress on our centennial campaign priorities. With steps that would deepen immersive learning, foster a culture of exploration and contribute to all realizing genuine belonging at our school in mind, we refined our vision for enhancing our housing and academic spaces. We are primarily focusing on redeveloping the former Russell House site. As it relates to improving our academic spaces, we are looking at an initial step that will move our older and core academic building in a direction that realizes the standard we enjoy in both our science building and center for the arts. We will have much more to share about this direction as we transition from winter to spring. It is very exciting to be moving all of this work along.

Before closing, I have two final items I would like to highlight: First, I do want to underline my hope that all of you will have an opportunity to see Robert Freeman’s exhibit, Struggle, in the Robert Lehman Art Center. The work will be up through Saturday, February 17, and is a compelling and impressive series of pieces under any circumstances, but especially as we move into Black History Month. If you find an opening to have a look, you will be moved and very glad that you made the time to take it all in. Second, we are now less than one week away from our Giving Day on Thursday, February 8, and are hoping to earn as much support and participation as we can. Each year, this effort plays a vital role in allowing us to reach our Brooks Fund goal by June -- all dollars supporting the school’s operation in the current year. With thanks to all of you who have so generously supported the school this year and over time, we add our thanks for considering a gift on Thursday of next week.



As always, I welcome thoughts and questions you would care to share or ask, and I will look forward to seeing you on campus over the coming month. We are on our way to a great February.

Best,

John R. Packard

Head of School 

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