This article appeared as "When Less Is Not More" in the Fall 2024 issue of Independent School.
Each fall at Boston University Academy’s (MA) open house, admission officers promise applicant families that “no question is too silly or small.” And they make good on this promise. Parents—many of whom are going through the independent school application process for the first time—understandably have a lot of questions. Our admission office answers these questions promptly, meeting prospective families with kindness, patience, and empathy. Emails are answered at the speed of light. Phone calls are dispatched with good cheer. Hands are held, worries soothed, anxieties allayed.
Our school prides itself on its high-touch, concierge-style admission process. The warmth and responsiveness of our admission team
is genuine; we want families to feel deeply seen and known from the moment they engage with the school and throughout the admission process—whether they choose to enroll at Boston University Academy (BUA) or go elsewhere. This level of responsiveness sets a high bar for communication—especially in the wake of COVID-19, which amplified parents’ expectations for school-related information. But is it sustainable throughout the four-year high school experience?
Since its founding, BUA has believed that the best way to foster independence and self-advocacy was to put some distance between parents and academic decision-making. We believed, for example, that if we let parents know that course registration was happening, they’d want to control the process rather than letting students navigate it on their own.
Today, we recognize that there’s a false tension between student independence and parent engagement. Families deserve to know what’s happening in their children’s lives; they also deserve credit for receiving information without necessarily acting on it. In the years since the pandemic—during which we communicated on a near daily basis with families—we have realized that, for parents, there is no such thing as overcommunication when it comes to the health, safety, and well-being of their child. Now, our goal is to do more to loop families into their child’s academic and extracurricular experience while still emphasizing that the student should be the primary driver of that experience.
Living Core Values
BUA is a small high school integrated with Boston University (BU). Founded in 1993 as an academically rigorous school for exceptionally kind and curious students, BUA has always emphasized independence—one of our five core values—and self-advocacy. These traits are valuable in and of themselves, but they have special relevance at BUA because of our location and our connection with the university.
Most BUA students, who come from 47 cities and towns across Eastern Massachusetts, take public transportation to school. Our students relish the freedom in navigating Boston’s subway system and the responsibility that comes with getting to and from campus on their own. Beginning in 11th grade, BUA students take college courses at Boston University—real college classes with professors and undergraduate students. As in any college scenario, parents are not permitted to reach out to BU professors directly and thus have little contact with their children’s university teachers in their junior and senior years. We’ve leaned into this dynamic, encouraging our students to advocate for themselves by attending office hours and frequently contacting their professors.
Many students and families choose BUA precisely because we emphasize independence: Parents want their children to gain autonomy by taking public transit to school; they want their children to take ownership of their academic journeys. Historically, relinquishing some degree of parental oversight has been part of this bargain.
The bargain was possible because BUA students have always been deeply valued and cared for as individuals. At faculty grading meetings every January and June, teachers and advisers discuss each student’s progress. It takes all day (and sometimes spills over into a second), but it’s worth it for the valuable information that is revealed about each student’s strengths and challenges. Once a year, during faculty in-service days, we do a visualization exercise: Each student’s name is listed on large sheets of paper posted around the room; teachers, advisers, and administrators place a green dot sticker next to any student for whom they believe they are a “trusted adult” and a red dot for students they worry lack meaningful social connections.
Our small-group advising system fosters close adviser-advisee relationships in which students feel secure, supported, and seen. The same goes for BUA’s intentional, in-depth college counseling program, which elevates and honors each student’s distinct voice and experience. Small class sizes, a robust student support program, and a university liaison who is in constant contact with BU professors work in concert to ensure that all BUA students are closely held by the adults in our school community.
One of BUA’s great strengths is knowing and loving each student for who they are. Parents trust BUA and deeply appreciate that teachers and staff help their children navigate the challenges and choices of high school, and they wish there were more ways to be engaged with their progress and the school community. Our challenge now is conveying this close-knit, caring ethos to the most important adults in our students’ lives—their parents and caregivers.
Bridging the Communication Gap
BUA has identified and is attempting to narrow a gap between communication during the application process and communication as part of the day-to-day school experience once students are enrolled. Beginning with the arrival of a new director of admission in 2016 and in the years since, our admission office has taken family outreach to the next level: Individualized care and attention is now the standard for prospective and applicant families. (Because of this extraordinary responsiveness, currently enrolled families—even those whose children are juniors and seniors—sometimes still email the admission office with questions about tuition, medical forms, or student activities because that was their initial point of contact with the school.)
In the past several years, BUA has implemented additional communication touchpoints as part of the onboarding process to smooth the transition from applicant to enrolled family. BUA’s Head of School Chris Kolovos meets with each new family individually before the start of school to learn about their unique circumstances and concerns. These conversations establish a direct line of communication between families and the head of school and often tease out information that advisers and other school administrators can keep in mind in subsequent interactions with the family.
BUA advisers now first reach out to introduce themselves to new advisees and their parents/guardians in the spring, rather than later in the summer. Moving up this timeline has helped accelerate the shift from the admission office to the adviser as a family’s primary point of contact. A “Who to Contact” list mailed home before the start of the school year introduces families to the various school administrators and their functions and serves as an easy-to-reference guide for common questions: “If your child is absent … email the front desk. To ask about academic accommodations … contact the learning specialist. For tuition and billing … email the business office,” and so on. Advisers, administrators, and teachers offer prompt and comprehensive responses to parent questions.
On the academic side, BUA has revised its grading and comment structure such that every student receives a written comment from each of their teachers in October, January, and June (previously students received teacher comments only at the end of each semester). We added an October teacher comment so students can focus on areas for growth earlier in the year. We also wanted to give parents and guardians a sense of how things are going sooner so that the school can partner more productively with families.
In 2018, we introduced biweekly teacher comments for students in academic distress as another layer in the student support safety net and as an additional communication touchpoint with struggling students and their families. Since then, those “biweeklies,” as we call them, have morphed into something more. These are still a forum to communicate academic challenges, but now they are also a place to shout-out student joys and successes: Our goal is for every student in the school to receive a positive comment at least once per semester. Teachers and advisers commend students for extra effort in the classroom, congratulate them on performances on stage or on the playing field, or call out acts of kindness or good citizenry. Students used to view biweekly comments as a digital finger wagging; parents worried that it meant their child was in trouble. The addition of “positive” biweeklies has shown families that their children are seen and appreciated by their teachers and advisers in ways big and small, day in and day out. A short note of affirmation goes a long way toward making families feel valued.
Creating Opportunities for Community-Building
BUA has also reinvigorated opportunities for gathering and community-building—especially critical in the wake of the pandemic, which robbed us of more than a year of togetherness and in-person events. BUA has introduced a slate of new events—and revamped existing ones—to foster connection between the school and families and among families. We’ve added a New Family BBQ for incoming students and their parents/guardians and a State of the School night in October. We have also revived the popular Parents Day, a full school day during which parents attend classes with their children. Faculty and staff are active at all-school events, which is an important factor in family satisfaction: Parents routinely tell us that they are grateful for every opportunity to interact with their children’s teachers and advisers. BUA families have leapt at opportunities to be involved in the life of the school, demonstrating a pent-up demand for parent engagement and interaction.
Enhancing the school-family partnership is an ongoing, iterative process. As BUA has continued to tweak and refine our systems and communication channels, we have come to an important realization: Letting parents know that their children are known, loved, and cared for is always the right decision. Frequent and clear communication is necessary not because students aren’t capable of managing their own workload and responsibilities but because families deserve to be informed and aware of what’s happening in their children’s lives—both the accomplishments and the challenges.
Has student independence suffered as a result? Although the broad trends show that today’s adolescents are less resilient than in the past, at BUA, at least, students continue to demonstrate the self-sufficiency, determination, and pluck that they have from the school’s earliest days.
To be sure, the additional communication touchpoints are an extra lift for already busy faculty and staff, and the administration is mindful of not overburdening folks who already have plenty on their plates. But our extraordinarily dedicated and hardworking teachers and advisers understand the value of relationships, and the return on their time invested is evident in the feedback we receive from families who are grateful for the outreach and who reflect back to us that they know that we know and love their children. Finding time to send just one more email at the end of a long workday; noticing small kindnesses and sharing them in a positive biweekly comment; or seeking out an advisee’s parents at an event for a friendly chat translates to happier families and better-supported students. And that’s what every adult at BUA is here for; it’s why we do the work that we do.
Listen Up
Boston University Academy (MA) recently added a new touchpoint to its high-touch approach to engaging prospective families, one that takes an even wider lens on independent education. A new podcast, Demystifying Independent Schools, helps parents understand and assess whether an independent school is right for their child. The short episodes feature conversations with school leaders across the country as they unpack common myths about independent schools and affordability. Tune in at demystifyingindependentschools.com.