Each summer as August wraps up, students refocus their attention towards schoolwork, but faculty and administrators start preparing for the year long before students ever walk through the doors.
As part of his preparations, Director of the Upper School, Joe Ruggiero, has identified some aspirations and themes for the upcoming school year.
“I would love to see us have more fun,” he says. “We just have to figure out more ways to enjoy being with each other, not take things too seriously, [and] figure out how to do that in ways that are both fun and appropriate and respectful.”
Ruggiero hopes students will come forward with ideas on how to make the school day more fun. “One of the big things is just coming up with things far enough in advance that we can plan for them.”
He also wants to prioritize community building and collaboration. He’d like to see students and faculty collaborating “in ways that seem less ‘us and them’ and more about ‘who are we?’” He continues, “We made some really strong inroads last year with everything from the quiet room to having students participate on the revision of the schedule, but I think we can do more and I think students appreciate [having] more transparency.”
Students should also expect to hear more about the use of Artificial Intelligence.
“We had a lot of incidents last year with people getting caught using it inappropriately,” Ruggiero explains. “It’s a great tool, it’s not something we should just say you can never use, but how do you use it appropriately? How do you cite it appropriately? That’s the big thing I think the faculty will be talking about this year which I think will be a really good conversation.”
Speaking of faculty, Ruggiero adds he’s “really excited about the new faculty [members]. We lost some good people last year, but we have some good ones coming in. They’re great and they’re going to be really great additions.”
