Even in the midst of an ambitious building program, the creation of parent organizations and a healthy student community, the School recognized the importance of improving its academic programs on a continuing basis. As early as 1990, Mrs. Heuston announced a proposal for creating a Fine Arts Program on campus. Thus began a decade-long initiative to re-structure our curriculum in the Fine Arts, hire talented faculty, and raise $12 million to build state-of-the-art facilities. In 1996, even before ground had been broken for the Fine Arts buildings, Mrs. Heuston also announced that the same model of program development and campus building would be used in each of the disciplines represented at the School. Waterford turned its attention to a comprehensive and ambitious curriculum redevelopment and campus building initiative. The School, currently revisiting curriculum in the Science and P.E. Departments and planning additional facilities for these programs and an expansion of the Lower Schools’ facilities, is still in the middle of this third phase. Administrators at Waterford focus their energies on the quality of the child’s experience as she learns. Waterford backs passion and believes it is important to nourish teaching and learning. The business of running a school is always stressful, and perhaps has never been as stressful as it is today. Nevertheless, Waterford administrators are expected to bring calm and vigor to their assignments and to treat every member of the Waterford community with dignity and respect. In many situations, they convert problems to opportunities to work with teachers, parents, and students to create understanding, refine policies and procedures, and work together for common goals. | 
