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What Does It Mean to Belong When You’re the Only One Observing?
Yom Kippur gives boarding schools a chance to think beyond recognition and ask a deeper question: Can students bring their whole selves into the communities where they live and learn? Today is Yom Kippur! For Jewish students, families, faculty, and staff observing the holiday, it is a deeply significant day centered on reflection, repentance, prayer,…
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The First Month Is Lying to You: Why Boarding Schools Shouldn’t Mistake Activity for Belonging
September can make a boarding school look like everyone has found their place. That does not mean they have. September might be the easiest month of the boarding school year to fool ourselves. Walk across almost any campus, and everything looks alive. The athletic fields are full. Clubs are recruiting. Student centers are busy. Dorm…
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Why Residential Life Should Have a Seat at the Admissions Table
There is a moment that happens long before a student walks into their first class. It doesn’t happen during Orientation. It isn’t at Convocation. It isn’t when they unpack their belongings in the dorm. It happens during the admissions process. As schools, we spend countless hours helping prospective families understand our academic offerings. We proudly…
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Helen Waldron on Admissions as the First Act of Student Support
Opening Remarks At Beyond the Bell, we often talk about admissions as more than an entry point. Done well, it is the first act of student support. It is where schools begin to understand not just what a student has done, but how they learn, where they have struggled, and where they have the potential…
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The Hidden Academic Crisis of February: Why Struggling Students Stop Asking for Help
February is one of the quietest months in schools. It is also one of the most dangerous. By the time February arrives, the energy of the fall is long gone, the excitement of January has faded, and the pressure of the spring has not yet begun. Students are stuck in the middle. That middle is…
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A Decade Later: How One Surprise Visit Still Shapes the Way I Support Students
Today I turn twenty eight. That number still surprises me. It means that the moment I am writing about now happened almost exactly a decade ago, during my junior year at Brehm Preparatory School. Yet it remains one of the clearest memories I carry into my work as an educator. When I turned eighteen, something…
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The Quiet Students Are Sending Signals. Are We Listening?
Every school has them. The quiet students. The rule followers. The ones who move through hallways without drawing attention, sit in class without issue, complete assignments, and never require intervention. They are easy to celebrate. Easy to overlook. Easy to assume are “fine.” But as more research emerges about belonging, school climate, and adolescent mental…