Scott's 1 Big Idea

Robert Frost’s 1914 poem Mending Wall features two neighbors coming together in the springtime to repair the wall separating their properties. The narrator blames cold weather and hunters for the gaps but doesn’t really know the cause. “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” He simply meets up with his neighbor each Spring to “walk the line and set the wall between us once again.” Heaving the stones back onto the wall “We wear our fingers rough with handling them.” But it’s an annual ritual.

Then the narrator questions the need for a wall in the first place and gets a famous line in return:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

Good fences make good neighbors. Surely clear boundaries are healthy and require maintenance. Boundaries between teachers and students “help to not only avoid burnout, but also prevent role confusion, build trust, ensure professionalism, foster student independence, and teach students how to respect boundaries outside the classroom.” Boundaries between parents and their children provide structure, clear expectations, and allow for both safety and accountability. What about the boundary between family and school?

Our partnership with parents and guardians is crucial for our success as a school. We need parents to volunteer, welcome new families, get involved, support the Providence Fund, help plan events, and act as ambassadors in the community. We also need parents and guardians to help their students arrive at school on time, eat healthy meals, get enough sleep, and learn from their mistakes.

Parents need us to ensure their child is kept safe, is known and cared for by the adults on campus, and is set up to make progress in learning, friendships, and life. This seems like a clear set of expectations, but like Frost’s wall, this boundary between school and home needs mending and maintenance over time. Instead of cold weather and hunters to blame, we have new technologies, increased uncertainty, and a glut of contradictory parenting advice that drive parents and guardians to seek greater and greater levels of support from schools. Boundaries between school and home can become blurred if we are not vigilant.

Trust can erode. And trust is the lifeblood of community.

Here are some brief stories and lessons to illustrate the challenges facing the school/home partnership. Some of these are my own (both as a Head of School and parent) and some are from colleagues.

A parent recently shared, ‘I checked my son's grades and saw he failed a test. I wanted to email the teacher right away, but then I thought... maybe this is something he needs to figure out on his own.’

Trusting our kids—and their teachers—means allowing room for failure. That 'F' might be the wake-up call that drives them to take ownership of their education. If we constantly intervene, we rob them of the chance to turn things around themselves.

"I found out about a big project due next week, and I’m worried my daughter hasn’t started,” a parent told me. “Should I reach out to ask her teacher to remind her?”

Sometimes, stepping back is the best way to help. The moment when a student realizes they’ve run out of time can be painful, but it’s also when they learn to manage deadlines, ask for help, and take responsibility. Trusting the process means letting them stumble—and then watching them stand back up.

A parent emailed me about their son who forgot to turn in an important assignment. “Should I ask the teacher to let him redo it?” they asked.

As tempting as it is to intervene, there’s value in letting our students face the consequences of their actions. Mistakes aren’t just moments of failure—they’re opportunities to learn. Trusting the school and our teachers to guide them through those moments is crucial to their growth.

A parent shared, “My son’s group project partner isn’t pulling their weight, and he’s frustrated. Should I ask the teacher to reassign him?”

Group projects teach teamwork, patience, and problem-solving, not just academics. When we step in to control the situation, we’re denying students the chance to handle these challenges on their own. Trusting the school’s process and the natural messiness of collaboration is how they learn to navigate the complexities of real-world relationships.

A parent shared their frustration: “My daughter had a busy weekend and didn’t finish her homework. I’m tempted to ask the teacher for an extension.”

While it’s tough to watch our kids struggle, sometimes the best lessons come from learning how to manage their time—or the consequences of not doing so. Trusting their teachers to handle the situation and allowing teens to experience those natural outcomes helps build resilience and responsibility.

A parent recently mentioned, “My son got into a disagreement with a friend at school. I’m thinking of contacting their counselor to smooth things over.”

It’s hard to watch our kids navigate conflict, but part of growing up is learning how to handle difficult situations on their own. Trusting us and the environment we’ve built to help guide them through these moments teaches them resilience and conflict resolution skills they’ll carry into adulthood.

A parent told me, “My daughter had a falling out with her best friend, and now she doesn’t want to go to school. Shouldn’t the school step in?”

Friendships can be tricky, especially in adolescence, but not every conflict is something the school can fix. As much as we want to help, learning how to navigate friendship challenges is part of growing up. When parents look to the school to solve every social issue, we blur the line between home and school, making it harder for our students to develop the emotional resilience they need.

A parent called me, worried about her son. “There was drama in the group text last night, and now he doesn’t want to face his friends at school today. Can’t the school do something?”

Our kids live in a world where social issues follow them everywhere, even online. But schools can’t be the mediator for every conflict that spills over from home. We need to draw a line between what happens in their social lives and what happens at school—sometimes, it’s about teaching them to handle these situations independently.

A dad reached out after his daughter had a breakup. “She’s so upset. Can you keep an eye on her in school? Maybe the school counselor can help her?”

Romantic heartbreak is part of adolescence, but it’s not something schools can always manage. Sometimes, the real work of healing happens at home, where parents can provide emotional support. Schools can certainly offer resources but knowing when to step back and allow kids to work through these emotions outside of the classroom is key.

A parent shared, “My son’s friends are all taking sides after his breakup, and now he feels isolated. Should I call the school to make sure he’s okay? Should we consider transferring to another school so he can make new friends?

Heartbreak and friendship drama are tough for any teenager, but these experiences are also important opportunities for growth. While it’s tempting to want to remove your child from the situation or ask the school to fix things, resilience isn’t built by avoiding discomfort—it’s built by working through it. Transferring schools or relying on the school to manage these emotional challenges may provide temporary relief, but it won’t equip students with the skills they need to navigate future conflicts. Sometimes the best thing we can do as parents is to trust that our children can learn to handle these tough moments with the support we provide at home—and trust the school to focus on their academic and personal development in the classroom.

We don’t want a wall between home and school, but we do need some healthy boundaries. Those boundaries will bring clarity and promote trust. As a school community we are committed to promoting a meaningful and effective partnership with our parents and guardians. We need each other! And we don’t want to get in each other’s way.

Strengthening our partnership with parents and guardians is so important to us here at Providence that mandatory reading this summer was Hopes and Fears: Strengthening the Relationship with Today’s Independent School Parents (Second Edition) by Robert Evans and Michael Thompson. My review of the book even made it onto the NAIS website (Reading Room: What Your Colleagues are Reading) and the latest edition (The Parenting Issue) of Independent School magazine. Rob and Michael are psychologists who have each spent more than 50 years in schools. And we didn’t just read their book. We are spending a whole day with them this Wednesday, October 2.

All parents and guardians are invited to attend a session with Rob and Michael Wednesday evening from 6:30 – 8:00 PM in the MPR. If Providence High School parents and guardians are interested, please register using the link sent via email. 

Beyond the Bell is our new podcast! We will soon release our first episode, an interview with Allan Carey of Project Sphere. You can read more about him in my last 1 Big Idea. I am also recording an interview with Rob and Michael for Beyond the Bell. Stay tuned!

I am so grateful for the trusting partnership we have with our parents and guardians and I thoroughly enjoy connecting with new and returning parents. These four years fly by and getting to know you all is a top priority for me and our school. I wanted to reflect on our partnership in the hope that we can make it even stronger. Everyone benefits from our trust, especially your kids. Good fences might make good neighbors, but good boundaries definitely make for good partnerships.

Bonus Quotes!

274 years before Frost published Mending Wall, an E. Rogers wrote a letter saying “A good fence helpeth to keepe peace between neighbours; but let us take heed that we make not a high stone wall, to keepe us from meeting.”

“No is a complete sentence.” – Anne Lamont

See you next time,

Scott