Solebury Speaks

Hear from students, faculty, and administrators on life and learning at Solebury School. Don't miss a post! Click the orange bell icon on the right to subscribe.

MLK Day of Service
Jeannette Eckhardt

Community Service has always been a priority at Solebury School. From its opening days to the present, students, teachers, and staff have given their time and skills to help build and enrich communities on and off campus.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Solebury students, teachers, and parents took part in various projects to serve our surrounding community.

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Residential Life: A Transformative Living Experience at Solebury
Jeannette Eckhardt

Solebury’s residential life program offers a holistic approach to ensure that students not only pursue rigorous academics but learn lifelong skills while building strong bonds with peers and adults within our community. We believe our students can flourish with a balance of structure and flexibility that allows them to learn essential life skills, try new things, and develop a stronger sense of self.

A New School Year and A Fresh Start: Convocation 2022
Jeannette Eckhardt

Convocation is a moment for us to gather as a community at the start of the year, to welcome our new students, faculty, and staff, and reaffirm the values we stand for and strive to live by. On September 16, Solebury School welcomed more than 90 new students to our corner of Phillips Mill and School Lane. This year, Cari Nelson P’24 was chosen to be the faculty speaker. Cari encouraged the community to be who they are, and choose how they would use the fresh start to make the most of the new year.

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Cultivating Global Awareness: Solebury Global Education Concentration
Jeannette Eckhardt

The emphasis of Solebury’s Global Education Concentration is on the United Nations’ Global Goals for Sustainable Development, a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. The goals address global challenges of poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace, and justice. 

Solebury STEM Concentration Q&A with Britta Milks and Jan Mejia-Toro ’23
Jeannette Eckhardt

Offered at the sophomore level and above, the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Concentration at Solebury allows STEM-loving students the opportunity to go beyond the classroom offerings to take their passion and interest to the next level through hands-on opportunities and experiences. To take a deeper dive into this concentration, we caught up with Britta and current STEM Concentration student Jan Mejia-Toro ’23. 

Solebury's Day of Service
Jeannette Eckhardt

On May 19 we held our annual all-school Day of Service with over 20 projects for students, faculty, and staff to participate in. Working together, we made a big impact building an entirely new trail in the trail systems, installing a new garden, making more than a dozen blankets for donation, painting three murals for installation, raising more than $800 for Fisherman's Mark through bake and thrift sales, and so much more. 

Julie Laing and Bill Christy

Debating with our kids about their attachment to their phones has become a common conversation in so many households over the last few years. Yet during the time of Covid, they have also become lifelines for our kids as they deal with this new reality where social distancing is a thing and so many of their routine interactions no longer happen. However, Putting it down occasionally in order to engage with their family, do something helpful for someone else, or begin developing other interests is essential. But how do we do it without feeling like a nag and instigating an argument?

A Message for the Community on the Events of January 6, 2021
Tom Wilschutz

I wanted to speak to you about the events that unfolded in our nation’s capital yesterday. One senator compared the day to Dec 7, 1941—a day then-President Roosevelt labeled “a date which will live in infamy.” I suspect for all of us, January 6, 2021, will join a list of dates we remember vividly. In the immediate aftermath of what was a truly horrifying day in American history, I would like to focus on glimmers of optimism in the midst of one of our democracy’s darkest moments.

Serve Up Food Activism for the Holidays
Sarah May, English Department Head and Co-Director of Solebury Service Society

It’s a cruel irony that COVID-19 has made the issue of food insecurity both much more acute and also more challenging than ever to address. For those of us fortunate enough to be in a position to help, now, more than ever, we have to make fighting hunger a priority. It is real and everywhere and exploding.

Test Stress and How You Can Help
Julie Laing and Bill Christy

It’s that time of the year again when students of all grades begin to feel their anxiety rise; as the end of the trimester and the possibility of an exam or a final paper loom large. For many kids, their fall has been a flurry of new faces and attempting to settle in—stretching their social muscles and finding their places amongst the student body. Within the whirlwind of all of that, it is suddenly November and that signals the closing of the first trimester of their year. Unfortunately, it also signals exams, final projects, and a rise in many of our students' stress levels.

The Healing Path Forward
Tom Wilschutz

Human history is mostly evolutionary in its nature, punctuated by moments of life-altering revolutions. Upheaval and unrest are the engine of radical change—both positive and negative—for humans and the societies they create. Solebury students are now witnesses to such upheaval and unrest. A global pandemic has altered everything about how we work, learn, travel, vacation, eat, gather, recreate, interact, and on and on. Layered over this global threat, centuries of systemic racism that was built into the very fabric of our nation at its birth is being challenged in ways no American has ever seen.

Upheaval, Unrest, Change...and Hope
Tom Wilschutz

Human history is mostly evolutionary in its nature, punctuated by moments of life-altering revolutions. Upheaval and unrest are the engine of radical change—both positive and negative—for humans and the societies they create. Solebury students are now witnesses to such upheaval and unrest. A global pandemic has altered everything about how we work, learn, travel, vacation, eat, gather, recreate, interact, and on and on. Layered over this global threat, centuries of systemic racism that was built into the very fabric of our nation at its birth is being challenged in ways no American has ever seen.

Empowering Our Students to Begin Managing Their STRESS
Julie Laing and Bill Christy

School has finally begun again and things are as “normal” as they are going to get for the moment. Schoolwork, social interactions, and big transitions have suddenly been thrust upon these kids who have had their lives disrupted for the last 7 months. All of these things often lead to the same place—STRESS! Stress is a normal and natural part of our human experience, however, learning how to effectively manage our own stress is a lifelong endeavor.

Constructing a “Better” Normal Together
Rashad Shabazz ’03

My faith in Solebury’s profound commitment to being “what school should be” and its pledge of respect for all individuals has not wavered. There still are and always will be more issues to tackle, and I am confident we can work through them together to continue to ensure our community connections stay strong and we deliver a world-class education to our students. Together we can construct a new and “better” normal.

Expressing Gratitude Is Good for Us All!
Julie Laing and Bill Christy

We don’t know about you all, but we are incredibly grateful to have the ability to head back to campus next week and see our students and colleagues live and in person! In the midst of what has been such an uncertain and difficult time, this ability to return to campus is certainly a bright spot for us all. We’d like to take this moment to talk about how recognizing this “bright spot” is beneficial for our emotional well being.

Supporting Our Students as They Return to School Following the Stay-at-Home order
Julie Laing and Bill Christy

No matter what you call it, how you experienced it or what political affiliation you most consider yourself, I think we can all agree that COVID 19 and the shutdown of our country was disruptive for everyone. As Solebury School gears up for fall, whether your student is returning in person or virtually, I think it is safe to say that we can expect the transition may have some speed bumps.

For My Fellow Educators as We Move Forward Together
Gregory Lipscomb

In this moment, I think we educators have a powerful opportunity to impact the lives of our students, ourselves, and each other by creatively and thoughtful rethinking how and what we teach. Consider this: how can our course curriculums fully represent the diversity of human experiences and perspectives? In this moment, how can we make the Black voice more central?  It is not enough to simply include Black voices as I know many of you do…

Head of School at Desk
By Tom Wilschutz, Head of School

My God, has nothing changed?

I am a child of the 1960s. I vividly remember watching the riots in Detroit and so many other cities in 1967 and ‘68. I was young then and didn’t fully comprehend what I was watching, but every night I watched as city after city self-immolated, poor neighborhoods and black neighborhoods disintegrated. I listened as Bobby Kennedy tried to find some words of wisdom to share at the death of Martin Luther King Jr. I was devastated. And then I was devastated the morning I awoke to read of Bobby Kennedy’s assassination. And now this, another black man murdered by someone sworn to protect us...all of us, not just those who happen to be white. 

From the Circle - Week Three
By Tom Wilschutz, Head of School

Signature Memories. I suppose as we make our life’s journey we all collect them—those moments, seared into our consciousness, frozen in time. For me, a few key memories come to mind: learning of the Kennedy assassination and watching my tough-as-nails, battle-tested former Marine father, crying. Sitting in a hospital room, holding my firstborn, a son, throughout the night in the first hours of his life. And now, COVID-19 and an empty campus.

From the Circle - Week Two
By Tom Wilschutz, Head of School

Yesterday afternoon we had Assembly. This time-honored tradition of bringing everyone together—faculty, students, staff, even facilities and dining hall as schedules allow—goes back to the founding of our school 95 years ago. It has been called different things over the years, but it has always had the same goal: bring together the community to share information, celebrate accomplishments, have a laugh, and see each other’s faces. 

From the Circle - Week One
By Tom Wilschutz, Head of School

Today began for me like most trimesters: outside, greeting my students, with a few high fives. My typical query at the circle is, “how are you?” And the typical answer came my way, even this morning, “Tired.” (You have to be impressed with the amazing consistency of many of our teenagers: always tired.)

Of course, there is nothing typical about the start of this spring trimester, 2020.