February 25, 2025

Dear Parents and Guardians,

As winter winds down and Spring Break approaches next Friday, the promise of warmer days is especially welcome after a season cold enough to freeze Lake Cochichewick from end to end. With our fingers crossed for a spring thaw in the near future, we remain focused on doing well with these last couple of winter weeks. From there, of course, our attention will turn to the other side of the break and beginning what we anticipate will be a terrific final stretch at Brooks for the class of 2025.

Before turning to what lies ahead, I would like to highlight some of what we have been up to since the second semester began in late January. Here is just a sampling of activities that students and faculty members have been working on together over the past four-five weeks:

• With so much support and engagement from a number of you, our Lunar New Year celebration on the first day of the second semester was great fun. I was honored to be with so many students and family members on that special day and I think the food and festivities were even better than last year – no small feat!

• With February’s arrival, we moved into Black History Month and a number of occasions in Chapel, some still to come, where affinity groups led the way and all of us had an opportunity to learn from students and colleagues sharing experiences and perspectives in ways that celebrate difference. We were called to think about how all of us can do more to grow equity, inclusion and belonging at Brooks and beyond our campus. With Women’s History Month beginning in March, we will have additional opportunities of the same sort moving forward.
• I very much enjoyed seeing a number of you at our Boston Reception in early February and hope that occasion allowed you to meet and chat with lots of alums who made time to be together that evening – a preview of where we hope your children will be at some point down the line! 
• Our Model UN team joined thousands of high school students from all over the country in Boston earlier this month to participate in a wide range of international scenarios and challenges at a time when the world order is in some flux and humanitarian crises are many in number. We are very proud of the time and commitment our group brought to this experience.
• As I continue to try to learn lots of names of new students, I was glad to host our Name Tag Party and enjoy some fun with students who came up with all kinds of creative names for themselves! While not a cure for all the ground I still need to cover, it was fun to have this group in our home and revive an annual event that lost some steam during the Covid years.
• With a flurry of executive orders emerging from the White House in these early days of 2025, we have held a couple of what we refer to as Courageous Conversations. The goal of these voluntary gatherings is to create some time and space to share, listen and learn from others. With a considerable amount of uncertainty and confusion circulating in the United States, we are committed to doing all we can to support our school community as best we can. These conversations aim to assist in that effort and will be ongoing as the year continues.

With ten days to go until we pause the semester for a few weeks and the eventual transition to spring, we have a lot still on our plate. At a time when you might think the school is winding down in anticipation of a slower pace for a few weeks, we are doing quite the opposite with our final week of winter athletic contests and the third quarter marking period ending next Friday. There is a lot to do! Here is a sampling of some of what we will be up to as a school community:

• If you have not yet reserved your ticket to Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors, I hope you will do so soon. This show will run on Thursday, Friday and Saturday of this week at 7:30 p.m. in our Center for the Arts and is not to be missed! I have heard a few of the actors practice some of their accents and they are clearly ready to go. I hope to see some of you there.
• On Monday, March 3, all of us will take in the Wilder Speaking Prize finals. This year’s topic, Integrity in a Wilder World, will build upon the theme Nina Freeman set for the school at the year’s beginning, and these speeches have been truly superb over the years. I am eager to hear what this year’s finalists will share with us.
• Finally, on Thursday, March 5, in what will be our final Chapel gathering before Spring Break, I will present the Prince Charitable Trust chair to a member of the faculty. We have six endowed faculty chairs at Brooks, and the process of determining a recipient for a vacant chair involves soliciting the faculty for nominations that I am then able to share with the school when making a selection. To celebrate the full breadth of what our faculty do, in general, while honoring the recipient of this particular chair will be my hope. These occasions prove to be celebrations of the school at its best.

Before closing, and with many exciting Spring Break plans approaching, I want to acknowledge that we have heard about some students heading to warmer climates on trips with minimal chaperoning, along with rumors about unsafe and risky behavior.

While these trips are not sanctioned or organized by the school in any way, and we appreciate that rumors are just that, we have had experiences where trips of this sort take unexpected turns and draw the school into difficult situations. We very much hope to avoid being in such circumstances. More importantly, we see ourselves as partners with you in caring for your children, and we want to ensure they have a safe and positive break. 

To be clear, our goal is for all students to enjoy their time away - embracing family, friends, and fun in safe ways wherever they may be. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Finally, I want to thank all of you for your support of this year’s Brooks Fund and of our Giving Day effort, in particular. With nearly 1,000 donors and over $500,000 raised on that one day, we took a huge step in the direction of realizing our goal by the end of June and had a lot of fun in the process. In addition, we are in our final stretch of our parent drive from the Brooks Fund - Brooks Together - which kicked off in anticipation of Giving Day and will conclude on March 7. We would be nowhere near where we need to be without your support. Thank you.

I wish you a pleasant start to March and what I very much hope will be some early spring weather and lots of melting snow and ice. We will look forward to welcoming your children back to campus near the end of the month, and to getting started on what promises to be a super spring here at Brooks. Until then, take good care.

Best,

John R. Packard

Head of School

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