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Two thumbs up!

Visiting accreditation team from VAIS praises Trinity for student-centered facilities, unique programs, caring culture

“Yesterday I was in the hall, and a young man walked by and his apple fell out of his lunch box and rolled across the floor, and then his chips and his sandwich and his cookie, and it was everywhere, his lunch spilled all over the floor,” said Katye Snipes, school administrator at Anna Julia Cooper Episcopal School. As a member of the visiting accreditation committee from the Virginia Association of Independent Schools (VAIS), Snipes and her colleagues spent three days on campus this past November to provide a thorough evaluation of how well the school is living out its mission. They were thoroughly impressed by what they saw.

“I thought, ‘this is a commercial for whether a high school community takes care of each other.’ Sure enough, three people jumped up and handed him his stuff,” continued Snypes. “That doesn’t just happen unless people truly take care of each other. You guys are taking care of each other.”

Each VAIS school welcomes a visiting committee of educators from across the state every five years. This year’s group included administrators, teachers and heads of school from Roanoke, Alexandria, Richmond and the Eastern Shore. “One of the many things I love about this process is that it's always about the school's mission and the way the school wants to move forward over the next five years,” said Head of School Rob Short, connecting the accreditation to the Trinity’s values of self improvement and lifelong learning. “It's a very rich process that we all participate in as teachers, staff. It's fun to grow, to develop, to take risks and to become better each year.”

The spilled lunch anecdote was one of several “two thumbs up” observations and highlights of the committee’s glowing report shared at a special assembly on Tuesday, November 19, 2019.

The committee also praised the strength of Trinity’s broad, student-centered programs including "an outdoor program that offers so many opportunities [and] that leverages your proximity to the James River” as well as an 8th grade program that is “unique and mutually beneficial to students and families [and that] that supports 8th grade learners in honing executive functioning skills and integrating them into the high school community.”

In the arts, Snypes noted Trinity’s commitment to serving both beginners and experienced students. “There aren't a lot of high schools where you can show up and say ‘I've never played a violin before, but I would like to try’ and then be given an opportunity,” she said. “That’s remarkable."

Josh Chapman, committee vice chair, and Head of School at the Community High School in Roanoke, VA, noted what he called Trinity's "excellent use of funds" to improve facilities over the past decade, and most recently with the completion of the Perkinson Arts Center.   "Every dollar that went into that building seems to me to have gone into your [student] experience," said Chapman. "To see everything being used pedagogically tells me that this school has your experience at its center.”

Multiple committee members noted Trinity’s effective and unobtrusive use of technology as a tool and not an end unto itself. “This is a one-to-one [laptop] school, but in some ways you wouldn’t even know it because it's not about the ‘stuff,’” said Hank Berg, committee chair and Head of School at the Highland school in Warrenton, VA. “You almost don't even notice computers here, even though you’re one-to-one. And that’s a great thing.”

Berg also gave high marks for the school culture, where students and faculty take care of each other. “It doesn’t happen automatically,” he said. “It really happens because you [students] make it happen that way... It's really students who carry on that culture and traditions.”

Chapman concluded the committee’s remarks by sharing a sentiment he heard from a parent whose eyes teared up when she told him “this is a place where everyone fits.”
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Trinity Episcopal School

3850 PITTAWAY DR | RICHMOND VA 23235-1099 | Phone: 804.272.5864 | Fax: 804.272.5865 Email: mail@trinityes.org