News & Announcements

At Kirby, we understand that raising a teenager is both joyful and complex. High school is a launchpad and a laboratory—a time of growth, stretching identity, and trying out new ways of being in the world. On September 16, Kirby families gathered for a Lunch & Learn focused on practical tools for supporting students across academic and emotional dimensions.

The session was hosted by Head of School Christy Hutton, College Counselor Dot Kowal, and School Counselor Claire Baldal. Together they explored the teenage brain, shared stories from their work, and offered guidance on parenting with presence rather than pressure.

Adolescence: Identity in Motion

Adolescence is a stage wired for independence, risk-taking, and discovery. It’s marked by rapid development and sometimes contradictory behavior. Families were encouraged to see their role not as problem-solvers but as steady, supportive presences. Practical strategies included creating rhythms around rest, setting boundaries with technology, modeling stress management, and offering unconditional care. Students often test limits most at home, precisely because that’s where they feel safest.

Academics Designed Around the Student

Kirby’s academic program reflects these same values: structure paired with freedom, challenge met with care. There is no single “right” path through high school; the best transcripts tell a story of curiosity, pivots, and growth. Families were encouraged to help students choose classes and activities that spark genuine interest rather than chase GPA. The arc of the journey allows 9th and 10th graders to explore broadly, with 11th and 12th grade as opportunities to deepen and refine.

A Culture of Regard

At the heart of the discussion was Kirby’s stance of Unconditional Positive Regard—the belief that students are capable and worthy before they’ve achieved a single thing. This stance shapes classrooms, counseling, and community. Families practiced embodying it by naming a strength in their child beyond academics and identifying one area where their child feels most engaged. These reminders help shift the focus from performance to the whole person in the process of becoming.

The Bigger Picture

This Lunch & Learn modeled the partnership Kirby believes in. One where students are met with insight, trust, and care. Where parenting is honored. Where growth is measured not just in outcomes, but in becoming.

Because high school isn’t just preparation for college. It’s preparation for life.

At Kirby, we don’t wait for students to prove themselves before extending our trust. Before the essay is written, before the grade is earned, we begin with belief.

That belief has a name: Unconditional Positive Regard.

It’s not a program. Not a personality trait, either. It’s a stance. A way of being with young people that treats them not only as learners, but as whole human beings in the process of becoming.

Unconditional Positive Regard (UPR) is often misunderstood as leniency. In truth, it’s the foundation that makes high expectations sustainable. When students know their worth isn’t contingent on performance, they become more willing to take intellectual risks, to ask for help, to keep going when the path gets hard.

Some arrive carrying academic wounds; uncertain whether school can ever feel like a place of success. Others come in confident but stretched thin, used to performing at full tilt. For both, the work is relational. We start by seeing them clearly. Then we offer the kind of challenge that invites growth without demanding perfection.

That’s what creates a culture where students not only achieve, but mature in clarity and confidence.

That’s not a small thing, especially now. We’re living in a moment where anxiety is rising and self-trust is eroding. In high-performing schools nationwide, students face increasing levels of stress, burnout, and disconnection. The data tells one story. So do the young people in front of us.

We believe there’s another way.

At Kirby, we see every day how trust supports rigor, and how respect makes room for real thinking. Psychological safety isn’t soft. It’s essential. Without it, learning narrows to compliance. With it, learning becomes expansive, creative, alive.

You can see UPR at work here in how we respond to mistakes, how we structure feedback, how we balance freedom with accountability. Relationships are central. So are standards.

We don’t ask students to earn belonging. We ask them to show up and we meet them with clarity, consistency, and care.

At Kirby, students are both challenged and cherished. That’s not a tagline. It’s the culture. And it’s what shapes the kind of graduates the world needs.

We begin with belief. From there, everything else becomes possible.
 

Lunch at Kirby

The results are in—we all love Indian cuisine day, even Chef Tracy, who names it as her favorite to prepare!

If you don’t get to experience the joy of daily lunch at Kirby (parents, we’re sorry we can’t invite you to join us everyday. Your kids might find that… weird), we wanted to share a little bit with you about what this quotidian phenomenon is really like at Kirby.

First of all, it’s anything but mundane. Every day around noon, the campus shifts. The bell rings. Stomachs growl in anticipation. Clubs convene. Music drifts from the open windows of the music room. A game of chess begins. A ukulele emerges. Someone’s deep in discussion about a theater set or a research project. Teachers debrief, advise, or just breathe. Students decompress, reconfigure, and refill. Lunch is an important break in the day, one that is less of a “time out” and more of a vital “time in.” Time in.. with friends, socializing, activities, food, play… things vital to learning. 

And at the center of it all? Chef Tracy. (And vegetables).

Since 2011, Tracy has been feeding the minds, moods, and microbiomes of the Kirby community. Her menus are a rotating symphony of flavor and fun—Greek, Southern, Italian, Disney Day—with proteins carefully sequenced, surprises lovingly slipped in, and scratch-made favorites that students pine for years later. She plans her menus with deep intention–aiming for balance, striving to satisfy both picky and adventurous palettes, defying boredom while also creating predictability (rotating favorites, ensuring that the same proteins don’t feature too closely together, and much much more). Her mastery begins well before the food arrives on our plates. As Chef Tracy already told us, her favorite cuisine to cook for Kirby is Indian, because “I get to cook everything from scratch,” she says. “The smells, the spices—it’s the kids’ favorite day too.”

She’s not wrong. Indian food shows up more than once in a recent student lunch survey, along with baked potatoes, pizza flatbreads, kalua pork, and, one of our personal favorites, sesame cucumbers, which apparently inspire passionate fandom.

But more than any one dish, what students remember is how it feels.

“Tracy makes it personal,” says one. “Like homemade lunch.” Another adds, “She always says hi to me by name. That matters.” There’s a reason her line is where people gather—and sometimes, sing. Yes, sing. A few years ago, a spontaneous chorus of Bohemian Rhapsody broke out while waiting for food, and Tracy still grins when she tells it. “The whole line was singing together. So fun. So Kirby.”

Lunch is when you find out who’s rehearsing for Into the Woods and who’s prepping for the Cultural Center open mic. It’s when your English teacher might swing by your table just to say hi, or when you discover your hidden gaga ball talent. It’s where friendships deepen, ideas percolate, and students find their center again before diving back in.

For faculty, it’s a quiet (or not-so-quiet) window for connection: meetings with student leaders, trip prep, strategy sessions, or sometimes just eating with students who need a safe place to land. We can’t promise every student’s favorite meal every day, but we can promise this: Even lunch is part of the education. Because becoming who you are doesn’t just happen in class. Sometimes, it happens in line, with a full plate, a familiar smile, and the smell of something really good on the way.

We are very proud of our students who leaned into the challenge presented by the National Latin Exam this year. We'd like to give a shout out to the following students on their exemplary performance:

• Zaira Adams (gold medal, summa cum laude, Honors Latin)
• Xander Buhr (cum laude, Latin 2)
• Clark Christensen (gold medal, summa cum laude, Latin 1)
• Logan Draper (magna cum laude, Latin 1)
• Maxsun Geluardi (silver medal, maxima cum laude, Latin 2)
• Piers Gorecki-Cook (magna cum laude, Latin 1)
• Seeley Herr (cum laude, Latin 2)
• Peyton Jacobs (gold medal, summa cum laude, Latin 1)
• Toby Jaffé (silver medal, maxima cum laude, Latin 3)
• Liam Johnson (cum laude, Latin 2)
• Ryan Joyce (cum laude, Latin 1)
• Alex Virkki Elabidi (silver medal, maxima cum laude, Latin 2)
• Brynn Wheelock (cum laude, Latin 1)
• Astoriah Wolfers (gold medal, summa cum laude, Latin 1)