Page 3 - Priorities #17 2001-October

From the Headmaster
The Priory community has many reasons for joy and much to celebrate as we complete our first year of the new millinneum and look ahead to our fiftieth anniversary.
Academically, our students continue to amaze us with their enthusiasm, ability and achievement. As a group, their class work and test scores continue to impress. The number of students qualified for the most selective schools continues to increase. We have many individual success stories at all levels of achievement. As I’ve said before, when a teacher finds the right key to each student’s abilities, we don’t have to raise the performance bar—the student does it.
Socially, I see students busy and involved and motivated. Their after-school activities are positive and growth-enhancing. I believe our “sense of community” isn’t just a phrase because I see evidence before me. Younger students look to the older ones as friends and role models, older students take on a challenge such as
Model United Nations or the annual food drive or a sports team, and they go as far as they can in exercising their leadership and creative problelm-solving skills.
Spiritually, I believe the students are taking advantage of the opportunities we create for growth and reflection within their own faiths and the common values of all faiths. We know that young people need to develop an inner gyroscope to guide their adult lives. Our faculty takes seriously their job as role models of the Benedictine way. I see the students responding to the examples of the faculty and the monks.
As we look to the future, we face challenges, but I want to put them in perspective. Priory 2001, nearing its half- century mark, is a community that has grown and thrived and learned to do its job well. The rewarding growth in support from parents andfriends,whichyouwillseeinWayneDavison’sletteronpage12, demonstratestomeyourconfidence in Priory education and leadership.
Our Golden Jubilee year is 2007. As I have worked through our Strategic Plan, our 10-year Master Plan, and our school accreditation self-study, I have held in my mind a picture of the education I hope to celebrate on that anniversary. It will have the look and feel and values of the Priory’s roots. It will secure for students more creative opportunity for individual growth and continue the opportunity for personal relationships with teachers. It will take the best tools of contemporary education and apply them to helping each student become the best adult he or she can be. After much study, we know that the goals I announce in the Golden Jubilee campaign, which we launch now, are a critical part of that vision.
I asked to have on this page the photo of two of the founding monks looking out on the bare fields that faced them in 1957. Our founders were seven young Benedictines with little money but an unshakeable dream of the school that we enjoy today. Their vision became reality. So can ours. This photo is a source of inspiration for me and I hope it will be for you, too, as you read about our dreams for now and the next fifty years.
I have confidence that we can achieve the vision expressed in the Golden Jubilee plan. Our success now will ensure academic quality for the immediate future and a secure existence for the Priory over the next fifty years. I invite you to join me in making it happen. What I ask for now is that you become familiar with the plan so that, over time, you might choose to help in whatever way seems right for you.
Sincerely,
Tim Molak, Headmaster
I have in my mind a picture of the Priory education I hope to celebrate in 2007.
Headmaster Tim Molak and Claire Waterman, who received the 2001 Headmaster’s Award for community service.
The founding monks’ dream of a beautiful, successful school has come true. So can our dream for Priory education in 2007.
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