2018–2019 School Year
I hope you and your daughters have been enjoying the summer and are finding time for rejuvenation, laughter, and joy. The time seems to be flying by! Our Division Heads will soon be sending you all the information you and your daughters need to be ready for the start of school, and I look forward to seeing you all back on campus.
I’ve spent a lot of time this summer thinking about what makes The Ellis School distinctive. Why should families want their daughters to come to school here? What difference do we make in our students’ lives? Why are we so committed to being an all-girls school? The answers are compelling.
I think it’s clear to all of us that, despite impressive progress in so many ways, the world still has some distance to travel to be as wonderful as we would like it to be for girls and women. My goal for our girls is that their time here means that they leave incredibly well equipped to be successful in the world:
- to be caring, empathetic individuals with real integrity, cultural competency, and an ability to connect with all sorts of different people in authentic and meaningful ways
- to be genuinely curious and intellectually ambitious, delighted by learning, interesting in their own unique ways, and equipped with all the skills necessary to be successful, independent learners
- to be secure and confident in themselves, with a clear sense of what they value and strong voices with which to speak up for themselves and others
- to be completely undeterred by challenging situations, to enjoy finding creative solutions to tricky problems, and to be positive changemakers in the world
I believe girls can grow in these ways at The Ellis School precisely because we are an all-girls school. In the company of other intellectually curious, diverse, welcoming students, and guided by gifted and committed faculty, our girls thrive. Being all-girls means girls at Ellis are never held back or excluded from opportunities because of their gender, and growth experiences abound. It also means that our students can develop uniquely strong bonds with classmates - the kind that our alumnae regularly tell us last a lifetime, and that provide real mentorship and support for decades.
I’ll be sharing more stories throughout the year of the ways in which girls are thriving at Ellis and beyond. For now, let me end with one small anecdote. I read an article in The New York Times recently that described the kinds of responses posted to YouTube videos about science and how they vary depending on the gender of the presenter.
The article states that scientists who are women receive significantly more disparaging responses than scientists who are men. I found myself having two main reactions to the article. One was anger at how unfair that is, and dismay that this kind of inequality still exists in 2018. The other was fierce pride because I know that when an Ellis girl stands up to share what she knows—whether it be about science or any other subject—she can count on being respected and taken seriously. Her ideas matter, and she matters. And when she leaves Ellis, she will be ready to raise her voice, tackle challenges, and make her own positive mark on the world. She’ll be bold. She’ll be brave. And she’ll be sparkly.
