As every educator quickly learns, without parent and student support, even the most superior of programs will falter. With the merging of the two campuses in 1989, the School deliberately turned to the student and parent communities to address their needs and to develop the organizations and procedures that would allow them to take full advantage of Waterford’s program.
The School has benefited from a vibrant and engaged Board of Trustees, shared with the Waterford Institute. At present, this Board includes four former or current Heads of School. It does not include Waterford parents. This organization allows tremendous independence and protects the overall mission of the School. The Parents’ Advisory Committee, or PAC, was formed in 1990. Two dozen parent couples meet each month to hear reports on School progress from administrators, teachers, and students. They provide valuable leadership and advice over a wide variety of areas, including admissions, finances, and long-range planning. Additionally, the planning and financial support they bring to building projects is seminal in the School’s successful Capital Campaigns. The Parents’ Association was organized to complement Trustees’ and PAC leadership by providing a forum for communication to and from the parent community, and to support a host of activities vitally important to the School. All Waterford parents are members and invited to attend the monthly Wednesday morning meetings. It is led by the Executive Committee that meets regularly to plan meetings and to provide valuable feedback to the School.
Concomitant with the expansion of parents organizations, Waterford developed programs and policies to help students develop their skills, discipline their behavior, and build the School. As the number of students has grown, faculty oversight of student organizations and the student community has kept pace. In 1992, the School instituted Class and School Deans in the Middle and Upper Schools. These Deans are the administrators who bear primary responsibility for teaching students proper behavior, organizing student activities, and administering student discipline. Class Deans meet with their School Deans weekly to discuss student progress. The School also benefits from a lively array of student organizations: Student Government; Community Service; athletic teams; debate, theater, and music groups; and yearbook and newspaper staffs. The Deans closely monitor student leadership of these activities to ensure their close fit with the philosophical and ethical fabric of the School as well as to provide leadership training. Waterford rigorously enforces its rules for student behavior. The School has a strict attendance and punctuality policy; it is a drug-free campus; students wear uniforms; and they cannot drive off campus during the school day. Significantly, students and faculty are required to treat each other with the utmost respect.
Four additional student programs developed during the early 1990s deserve specific mention. First, Waterford provides a College Counseling Program for the Upper School students that includes the Director of College Counseling and five Associate College Counselors drawn from the Waterford Faculty. This allows teachers who have had experience without students to be directly involved in counseling them about college opportunities. In the years since this program was developed, Waterford has enjoyed very strong college placement. Second, UpperSchool students are assigned to Freshmen/Sophomore and Junior/Senior Advisors in groups of seven to ten students. Advisor Groups meet twice a week to discuss registration and scheduling as well as each student’s personal progress. Third, the School chooses an annual theme. These themes focus on School-wide initiatives that have application to the personal development of the students. The most recent of these themes, “Live honorably, love beauty, seek truth,” has been adopted as the School motto. Finally, the School has understood the need to provide counseling and guidance to students who are facing personal or emotional burdens beyond the ordinary. The School links the work of the School Deans with the School Counselor in instituting detailed students plans that guide the academic progress of the student while on campus with the approval both of the student and her parents. | 
