{"id":6222,"date":"2022-12-16T23:22:25","date_gmt":"2022-12-17T04:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/?p=6222"},"modified":"2024-05-24T14:20:46","modified_gmt":"2024-05-24T19:20:46","slug":"a-leadership-safety-net-graces-board-of-trustees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/a-leadership-safety-net-graces-board-of-trustees\/","title":{"rendered":"A Leadership Safety Net: Grace\u2019s Board of Trustees"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Media Provided by Lola Jakob ’22<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Robbie Pennoyer holds the most important job as Head of the School, he has a boss of his own. That distinction belongs to the Board of Trustees. While students do not interact with the Board, other than receiving the occasional email from them, the Board plays a critical role in how Grace operates and in shaping the experience of students. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Board does not get much attention from students. When students at Grace were asked if they knew anything about the Board of Trustees, many of them gave the same general answer. For example, Caitlyn P. \u201825 said, \u201cI\u2019ve never really been told much about the Board.\u201d Students might not realize it, but the Board plays a role in most affairs at the school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melanie Weston, who became the Chair of the Board of Trustees in June of 2022, explained the importance of the Board to the function of the school in an interview with the Gazette. The board\u2019s most important job is to hire, and if necessary, fire the Head of School. While the Head of School is the one in charge of other hirings, like division heads, teachers, administrators, and more, the Board selects a Head of School that it believes will make good hiring decisions to maintain excellence at the school. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Board is, according to Ms. Weston, \u201calways observing\u201d the Head of School and trying to give him feedback. In addition to making the decision of whom to select as the Head of the School, the Board is also responsible for setting the budget for the school each year. Mr. Pennoyer then makes decisions about how to allocate the funds within the amount set by the Board. Currently, one of the Board\u2019s main focuses is the rewriting of Grace\u2019s classic mission statement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though \u201cthe final decision on some things is [Mr. Pennoyer\u2019s],\u201d Ms. Weston said, he still \u201cworks with the expertise of the people on the Board.\u201d She said that the Board and Mr. Pennoyer function as a \u201ctwin engine jet \u2026 where one needs the other very much.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When working together, the Board will often tell Mr. Pennoyer a larger goal for the school, and then Mr. Pennoyer will work towards achieving that goal. One example of this relationship was the way the Board and Mr. Pennoyer worked together to create a strategic plan for the school. According to Ms. Weston, a strategic plan is a \u201cmaster plan\u201d or \u201cmaster map\u201d for the direction that the school wants to go in the next few years, including topics like financial aid, increasing average SAT scores, and expanding grade sizes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Board and Head of School come up with strategic plans for seven-year blocks, and are currently working on starting a new strategic plan for the upcoming years of 2024-2031. Mr. Pennoyer helps work on the plan, and the ultimate approval for the plan is made by the Board. Once a plan is established, it would be Mr. Pennoyer\u2019s job to decide how to achieve the goals within the plan. Ms. Weston used the example of SAT scores, saying that the Board might hypothetically propose having increased average SAT scores as one element of a strategic plan, but then it would be up to Mr. Pennoyer to decide which changes could be made to the curriculum to help achieve this goal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current partnership with the Board and Mr. Pennoyer is a strong one. Ms. Weston described Mr. Pennoyer and the Board\u2019s relationship as Mr. Pennoyer \u201cdriving the bus, but [the Board is] watching over his shoulder.\u201d Ms. Weston said she has particularly enjoyed working with Mr. Pennoyer as he is \u201ca deep thinker\u201d and is able to think of \u201cabsolutely brilliant\u201d decisions \u201con the fly.\u201d She believes that herself and Mr. Pennoyer \u201cpair very well together,\u201d and \u201cit has been very rewarding to work with [Mr. Pennoyer] so far.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Board itself consists of many committees. Some examples of these committees include a committee designated to finance, which works on the school\u2019s budget, a strategic planning committee, and committee on institution and culture, which focuses on non-academic related matters. For example, when the school has found themselves in the press, the Board receives help from many advisors and committees about how to best deal with the situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the chair of the Board, Ms. Weston\u2019s main job is to ensure that the Board fulfills all of its obligations. Ms. Weston is like \u201cthe point person\u201d of the Board, as she signs the letters from the Board. However, the trustees on the Board always make decisions together and everyone signs off on a decision. Ms. Weston also works closely with Mr. Pennoyer and meets with him weekly about current issues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Weston, the mother of a current high schooler at Grace and two recent graduates,  has an important role of being \u201ca huge cheerleader for the school,\u201d like making sure to talk with parents at gatherings or going with Mr. Pennoyer to do fundraising for the school. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Weston, along with other members of the Board,  has the goal of making sure Mr. Pennoyer\u2019s first year as the head of school goes smoothly. She acknowledged that \u201cchange can be very, very hard for a community,\u201d and Mr. Pennoyer might have a slightly different vision for the school, so members of the Grace community will have to get accustomed to this change. That said, One of Ms. Weston and the Board\u2019s goals is \u201cto help [Mr. Pennoyer] phase his vision in,\u201d to \u201ckeep the community calm,\u201d and overall, \u201cset [Mr. Pennoyer] up for success.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Board is hosting the upcoming \u201cSpecial Evening with Robbie Pennoyer\u201d on January 12, 2023, to \u201crecognize\u201d Mr. Pennoyer as the head of school and \u201cto celebrate the Grace Church School community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another goal for the Board is to boost fundraising efforts, which would allow a possible reduction to Grace\u2019s tuition. Ms. Weston believes that if Grace set up a larger endowment that there could be financial improvements, like lowering tuition or at least preventing it from raising. Ms. Weston described an endowment as a \u201cbig piggy bank\u201d off which Grace earns interest each year. Grace gets money from donations and then is able to take a little bit of money from the endowment each year for improvements to the school community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main sources of money for Grace are tuition, fundraising\/donations, and a small amount of money from the endowment interest. However, there are many expenses, like financial aid, teacher salaries, and purchasing necessities for the school like desks, food, and toilet paper.  It would be difficult to lower tuition because of all of the expenses at Grace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, Ms. Weston also debunked some misconceptions about the Board. She explained that many people \u201chave a misconception, sometimes, of how powerful the Board is.\u201d There are some decisions the Board does not make. Oftentimes, she said, people confuse the role of the Board and think that they should address the Board if they get a bad grade or dislike the food in the cafeteria. The Board is not really involved in the day-to-day lives of students. They have major impacts on students, like creating a high school, but the Board is more involved in the overall culture of the school than the daily issues and lives of students. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also not true that someone has to consistently give a lot of money to the school to get on, and then stay on the Board. Grace does not follow this \u201cpay to play\u201d idea, and Ms. Weston wishes that parents and students would understand that this idea is a misconception. The Board of Grace has a wide range of perspectives and views, and she thinks that is very beneficial. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Weston further described how the Board is always trying to gain new members, in order to make as strong a community as possible. Most people leave the Board after 3-6 years, so they are always looking to add new members. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another common misunderstanding about the Board\u2019s role is that it exists just to \u201capprove\u201d or \u201cstamp\u201d things. The Board takes its decision making responsibilities seriously and discusses the future of the school in-depth. Ms. Weston compared the school to a big ship that doesn’t change directions quickly. If there is an issue, the school can\u2019t just immediately turn it around. As a result, many decisions are set years in advance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Board only meets six times a year, so there is a lot of time, thought, and planning that goes into making decisions. Therefore, if there are changes that current high school students might want, it is most likely that future generations will benefit from them, but maybe not the current high school students.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While students might not always realize how the Board improves life at Grace, the Board has been a key part of just about every major decision at the school. It may do its work behind the scenes, but it deserves to be recognized for its important work and influence upon students, teachers, and family alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nate Barkow \u201825, the author, is a staff writer for The Gazette.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Media Provided by Lola Jakob ’22 Although Robbie Pennoyer holds the most important job as Head of the School, he has a boss of his own. That distinction belongs to… Continue reading “A Leadership Safety Net: Grace\u2019s Board of Trustees”<\/span> <\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":6227,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,200,16],"tags":[180,873],"appful":[],"class_list":["post-6222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-recent","category-special-sections","tag-featured","tag-recentarticles"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9uEnr-1Cm","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/IMG-8865-scaled.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6222"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6917,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6222\/revisions\/6917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6222"},{"taxonomy":"appful","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/appful?post=6222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}