Parent Newsletter by Franny Shuker Haines

Dear Buxton Families,

I try to get these newsletters out early in the week, but I am still recovering from our most recent two-day board meeting! We spent last Saturday in a mini-retreat on board governance, reminding ourselves of what it means to be stewards of the school and how best to serve the mission of this unique experiment in education. It was really inspiring for me to see all of these smart, talented, accomplished, busy people devote so much of their time, attention, and bandwidth to Buxton just because they love and believe in the school. How lucky are we to have these devoted alums, parents, and friends of the school? Answer: very.

I put together a somewhat humorous “Directors’ Report” for the meeting, to fill the members of the board in on what’s happening on the ground in Williamstown these days. I thought you would all get a kick out of it:

Directors’ Report

Statistics Edition

• Number of pages in War & Peace, read by juniors every fall: 1,290

• Number of individual exposures of film made so far this year: 7,980—which equals 1,200 feet of film

• Sheets of photo paper used this year: 4,500

• Number of images made by students that Ben Ripley has looked at over the past 10 years: over 60,000

• Number of artists and thinkers covered in Timothy’s Western Tradition class every year: 169

• Pounds of clay used in the ceramics program this year: 5,000

• Number of courses taught this year (w/o Winter Study): 50

• Number of courses taught this year w/ Winter Study: 60

• Number of Trip Groups on this year’s trip to Chicago: 10

• Tubes of oil paint used so far this year: 100

• Yards of canvas used so far this year: 60

• Feet of linoleum block: 90

• Number of reassembled mouse skeletons used by Cynder: 8

• Trends: baskets on tables for cell phones, playing Bananagrams after lunch, Nerf Wars at Barn bedcheck

• Number of hours Bill Bennett has spent in the Billiard Room over his lifetime: 7680

The end of the year is looming: the seniors put together the yearbook this weekend (an annual event affectionately called “Hell Weekend”), and rehearsals for Spring Arts have kicked into high gear.

I’m going to keep it short today, but I’ll be back in touch soon!

All the best,

Franny