Each year brings anew rewarding opportunities to work with our students and their parents to fulfill the Academy’s mission “to inspire a diverse community of students to Moral, Intellectual, Aesthetic, and Physical Excellence so that each may rise to honorable achievement and contribute to the common good.” The natural result of this mission is a community where “caring matters most” caring about growth, caring about personal responsibility, caring about achievement, and, most importantly, caring about others.

The Academy creates many avenues for young people to grow into responsible, caring, involved, and informed adults. First and foremost, of course, is the academic mission of the Academy -- a challenging and inspiring program that creates occasions for our students to acquire values and skills that will serve them and others well for the rest of their lives. At Thayer, we also appreciate that students must be encouraged to participate in the arts, athletics, and community service. These endeavors offer very particular ways to more fully educate young people and create rich occasions to celebrate one another in the context of a community of shared values. The result is a carefully balanced program that successfully cultivates the Moral, Intellectual, Aesthetic, and Physical qualities of our students.

The balance of Thayer’s program is further enhanced by a very deep commitment to attract a community that has remarkable socio-economic diversity. Indeed, since its inception Thayer Academy has quite deliberately sought to open doors of opportunity to a wide range of young people. Today, the Academy offers substantial financial support to over a third of all our students, and we can quite proudly note that one of Thayer’s most compelling qualities is that the demographic composition of our community is far more reflective of the real world than many local public schools and almost any other independent school. One of the great consequences of this is that this school becomes a place where students learn from each other, in addition to learning from their teachers.

We continue to build upon Thayer’s remarkable foundation. Very obvious improvements are evident in the new facilities such as the Glover Science Wing, the Fitness Center, the Middle School Resource Center, our four additional artificially-turfed fields, and much improved parking lots and bus drop-off areas. In the years ahead, we plan to build a new performing and visual arts center. Less visibly apparent but of surpassing importance are the strides we continue to make to: reinforce the cohesion of our 6-12 curriculum; explore new opportunities to continually challenge our students; refine the already excellent professional development opportunities for teachers; improve facilities, increase endowment, provide financial aid for those in need, maintain competitive compensation packages for our faculty; enhance the use of technology; engage students in leadership roles; develop sister-school relationships and other interesting international experiences for our students; and finally to lay the foundation for Thayer’s next Five-Year Plan.

We have a rich history of achievement to draw upon as we step confidently forward to challenge ourselves and our students to excel. A great deal of information about our history, our programs, and our calendar is at your fingertips, and I invite you to explore the Thayer Experience.

Sincerely,

Ted Koskores
Headmaster