SUMMER 2007Drew Smith
Head of School
On Saturday, March 10, I attended a workshop sponsored by the PYM Committee on Friends Education (CoFE). Invitees included some or all of the members of the leadership "triads" from Friends Schools and their Meetings. A school leadership triad, as defined by CoFE, is the clerk of the meeting, clerk of the board or school committee, and the head of school. In most Friends' schools, this leadership arrangement is the norm, and has been the norm for hundreds of years. Friends School Mullica Hill is an exception to this rule, having a head, a board clerk, and a relationship with a quarterly meeting.
This Saturday workshop grew from two areas of interest within the membership of CoFE: first, to try to define the influence of Friend' schools upon the membership of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and second, to try to help and assist meetings and schools illuminate and strengthen their relationships with one another.
In each case, the committee wanted to gather information and data to refine our own anecdotal impressions of how schools, meetings, and their individual members relate to and are influenced by one another. As a member of CoFE, I know that the committee and I are grateful that so many Friends returned our survey form last year. This has helped significantly to inform our work this year.
In thinking about the school-meeting relationship issue, it became clear to CoFE that it is very often the case that members of meetings do not cross paths very often with the boards, students, and faculty at schools. That is to say, when schools and meetings are at their most physically full during any given week, we are rarely all in the same physical space at the same time. This means all of us are dependent upon the goodwill and accurate reporting of those in our communities chosen to serve as liaisons between the institutions.
This can be a tremendous burden upon the messenger. I cannot imagine, for example, serving in this liaison role when this school moved from Woodbury to Mullica Hill. And our school's experience is not unique. There are a number of schools and monthly meetings currently struggling to settle property and incorporation issues that have sparked intense feelings within both those particular monthly meetings and schools.
Despite what will be some difficult work ahead, I left the CoFE workshop feeling hopeful about the future of the relationship of Quakers to the institutions that operate in our name. I met Quakers of goodwill from all over the Yearly Meeting, all of whom believed that we have an important message to share with the world, the delivery of which will depend upon healthy relationships between and among all of us as individual Quakers and as members of religious and institutional communities, including schools.
Each institution has a piece of our story to tell, and the overwhelming message from our Saturday gathering was that we will discover our best, most hopeful future, working together to spread the good word.
We all, in the end, belong to one another as Friends.
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Monday, May 21, 2007 at 11:48 PM
