NOV 2023
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DAVIDSON DAY UPPER SCHOOL
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UNTOLD STORIES OF DDS
Members of Davidson Day’s Varsity Volleyball and Varsity Boys’ Soccer teams trained, competed, and toured Europe from July to August, 2023.
VARSITY VOLLEYBALL AND VARSITY BOYS SOCCER TRAVEL TO EUROPE, SUMMER 2023 BY JILLIAN TOYA
This past summer, from July 23 to August 1, the Davidson Day varsity boys’ soccer and girls volleyball teams traveled to Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia to compete against local teams in those areas. This new overseas adventure was the brainchild of Athletic Director Chris Turner, who had started a similar program at Forsyth Country Day, his previous school. When asked why and how he came up with the idea, Turner said, “This is something that I have been hoping to bring to Davidson Day
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since I started, and I even discussed this with [volleyball] Coach [Catherine] Glass and [soccer] Coach [Brad] Laatsch. The training, playing, touring, and cultural experiences have been exactly what we hoped for.” Starting in Italy, the teams’ routines consisted of early mornings and late nights, beginning each day with training, followed by breakfast provided by the hotel staff. According to senior volleyball captain Sydney
Tate, “We were there for ten days and we did some type of training every day. The trip was physically demanding but definitely one of the best training experiences I’ve had.” Coach Catherine Glass had a blast watching the kids make core memories, saying, “I loved our morning jog to the lake and watching the kids taking the polar plunge and swimming in the waterfalls.”
Continued on page 7
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FAMILIAR FACES IN NEW PLACES BY STEVE MCGILL
It’s a new school year at Davidson Day, and with a new school year come new changes. With the 2023-24 school year, we’re seeing some old familiar faces in some new unfamiliar places, as we have three administrators wearing an “interim” tag as they navigate new roles with new responsibilities. At the top of the list stands Interim Head of School Michael Smith, who, prior to this year, had been serving as the Head of Upper School. Filling in for Smith as Interim Head of Upper School you can find Tia Hill, who now occupies Mr. Smith’s old office on the second floor. Filling in for Hill as Interim Director of College Counseling is Caitlin Barndt, who was serving as assistant college counselor in previous years. Finally, Dean of Students Debbie Taylor now has an additional role – that of Director of Wellness, which encompasses the entire school. With all these changes taking place, you’d think there would be a lot of growing pains in the early stages of the year, and while there certainly have been behind the scenes as these administrators adapt to their new roles, things have been moving along quite smoothly on a day-to-day basis, which is a credit to each administrator’s willingness to step up and lead on short notice.
Last week, I had the opportunity to speak with Smith, Hill, Barndt, and Taylor about all the adjustments they’ve had to make in their new roles. Smith was asked to take on the role of Interim Head through the summer, with the plan being to hire a “permanent” Interim Head for the 2023-24 school year prior to the beginning of school in August. After the Board of Trustees conducted a national search, they agreed that Smith, with his background and his love of DDS and knowledge of the school environment, was the best man for the job. When Smith interviewed for the position, he was on the AFAR trip in Portugal, Zooming in at 10:00 at night (5 pm here). Smith’s decision to take on the interim role for this school year was based on one simple factor: “Devotion to the institution,” he said. “I’ve been here 14 years. I thought, if someone is coming from the outside and it’s going to be late summer when they arrive, or early fall, then it’s possible that someone would arrive here knowing nothing about the school until the interview process, and then they’d have to try to understand the culture and the climate and the cadence of this place, and that could take week, months, and then they’d have to hand it over to someone else new who would have to do the same thing. It wasn’t very logical for me.” Continued on next page
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CONTINUED FAMILIAR FACES IN NEW PLACES In choosing a replacement for himself as Head of Upper School, he needed to look no further than the office across from him, occupied by Head of College Counseling, Tia Hill. “I have worked with Tia for a decade,” Smith said, “and she is so savvy to everything that already happens in the office. I consult her on a lot of academic things, such as a student’s sticky schedule, will someone dropping calculus affect their college admissions candidacy. All kinds of stuff. She’s great for the role.” When offered the interim role as Upper School Director, Hill was both surprised and happy, as she had been very comfortable and confident in her college counseling role, but felt eager to take on a larger administrative role. “I think ‘overwhelmed’ was a good word for how I felt,” Hill said. “I actually started thinking about things like faculty meetings and upper school assemblies and of how Michael operates and how he runs those things. What would my style be? How would I lead? What would those types of meetings entail? My mind was racing as I started to list things I knew I would need to start learning. I had a list on my phone, a list on my laptop, I had a physical list.” The process has been similar for Caitlin Barndt, who, upon Smith’s request, has stepped into the role of Interim Director of College Counseling after serving as assistant college counselor for the past several years. “When the announcement came that our head of school was changing,” she said, “I thought oh, that won’t impact me too much.” Little did she know, it would impact her a lot. But she is enjoying the new role and the new responsibilities. Even though she is a staff of one, she feels like she is still part of a larger team. “With all the systems we have in place here,” she said, “from Jess Thompson as our school counselor, Angie Spraberry as our school nurse, the role that Debbie Taylor has as our Dean of Students, the advisory system, the quantity of coaches that are in the building day in and day out as faculty or staff – these students are so well-supported, even by each other, I feel that
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we’re all going to move our senior class through the college application process pretty seamlessly.” For Smith, Hill, and Barndt, the transition to the interim position has meant adapting to a new rhythm, a quicker pace of life, both at school and in their home lives. “The cadence of the job is much different,” Smith said. “If last year I had two or three meetings a day, now it’s like six, seven, or eight. An entire day can be devoted to meetings. The other thing I learned is that it’s not really my schedule. It’s the Head of School’s schedule, it’s the institution’s schedule. I don’t have much control over it. My job is to keep all the hubs in action.” With two of his kids attending Davidson Day (Parker and Cole), Smith finds it important to still dedicate time to them and his wife. Sometimes, that can mean making hard decisions. When Parker turned 16 earlier this year, the Smith family “made a deliberate decision to go out of town that weekend,” Smith said. “I had a hundred reasons that it was not a good idea, and one reason that it was a good idea. He wanted a quiet birthday with his family in the mountains. So that’s what we gave him.” For Hill, her new interim position means being much more alert about the daily routine of the upper school. She said that it’s still new to her “to worry about things like the cleanliness of the commons, and to be thoughtful about classroom sizes and the way the schedule is unfolding, and making sure in-between class changes go smoothly. The day-to-day operations were never what I was paying attention to, and now it is what I’m paying most attention to.” The mother of two daughters, Hill now brings her oldest child to school with her. “My three-year-old is enrolled,” she said, “so this is my first time having one of my kids here with me. So that changes the drive in. Instead of my typical podcast, I’m listening to ‘Sing Along with Angie Poo.’ But she’s loving being here.” Barndt happens to be taking on her interim role in a year when the size of the senior class is 48 students, compared to 32 last year. But having so many good people around her has helped her to manage the volume. Pointing out that 48 is not the largest class we’ve had here, Barndt said that “we were always prepared to go from small to big; the infrastructure we’ve put in place, with our English faculty, our registrar Vanessa Noe, our testing coordinator Amy Kivett – there are a number of people who are really leaning into their roles and responsibilities to support college counseling as an office of one, which in turn is supporting the transition for Michael, Tia, and Continued on page 7
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NEW VARSITY BOYS BASKETBALL COACH ARRIVES AT DAVIDSON DAY BY DEOLU AKINGBADE
This past summer, former West Virginia Tech (NAIA) head coach James Long has officially signed on with Davidson Day School as the varsity basketball team’s new head coach. Long, who succeeds former coach John Stein, will be looking to bring a state championship to Davidson Day for the first time since 2020. “My goals for next season,” Coach Long said, “are to bring the right people around the Davidson Day community and establish the core values that are important to me. I have lived my life through five core values: Clarity, Accountability, Response, Environment, and Simplicity. If we do this well, then the performance will follow in abundance. Performance-wise, we just want to get better every day.”
Coach Long is a former DI athlete and coach at West Virginia Tech.
Prior to coming to Davidson Day, Long was a key figure in the successful basketball program Court XIV, which has trained stars like Oscar Tshiebwe, Cameron Johnson, and more successful NBA players. The program claims to have trained and/or mentored four NBA All-Stars, 300 college players, and dozens of McDonalds’ All-Americans. Court XIV is heavily affiliated with nearby Hough High School in Cornelius, NC, which explains why two varsity Hough players and one varsity Lake Norman Charter player have decided to come play for the Patriots. Long does not worry about there being any tension between the new players fitting in with their new teammates or with the larger school community. “I would never bring athletes in without character just to pursue winning,” he said. “There will be high-character people representing the Patriots. There will obviously have to be sacrifices in the pursuit of winning at the highest level. Great lessons can be learned for life when you pursue winning consistently. The people we will bring in will represent Davidson Day School in the highest manner and will give energy to others. Great things will follow.” When asked about his decision to hire Coach Long, Athletic Director Chris Turner said, “He’s a pretty reputable and prestigious coach, he has a college coaching background, he works here locally, trains a lot of our kids, and he’ll be in charge of the program.” Although Turner was tight-lipped on what a future schedule would look like for the Patriots, he shed some light on the team’s freedom to pick from tougher opponents. Teams like Cannon School (28-7, 9-1 in their conference), and Providence Day School (20-13, 6-4 in their conference) could be potential opponents for the 2023-24 campaign. Coach Long had this to say: “I would love to play in mega-tournaments. Any event we can get in to give our players experiences they will remember will be a high priority of mine. I would love to play the best teams in NC and surrounding areas.” Continued on next page JILLIAN.TOYA@DAVIDSONDAY.ORG SMCGILL@DAVIDSONDAY.ORG
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NEW VARSITY BOYS’ BASKETBALL COACH Next summer, Long will coach in The Basketball Tournament with Best Virginia, a collection of former basketball players from West Virginia University. The tournament has been featured on ESPN and features crazy all-star games, unique overtime features, and a big winnertake-all, $1 million prize pool. Last time, Best Virginia made it past the West Virginia Regional to the quarter-finals competition. The team is one of the favorites to win the big prize pool. “Selfishly, it has been the highlight of my summers,” Long told WSOC-TV. “More importantly, we get to all spend time together, put the work in, and compete together. We left last year with a lot of excitement for what was next. We had a good run and know that more can be done. I appreciate everyone in Best Virginia trusting me and giving me the opportunity to coach again.” Attendance at Davidson Day basketball games has been sparse the past few years, as the team has struggled. But it seems likely that crowds will get bigger if good results follow the new coach. “Last year,” one sophomore said, “I attended two games and we lost both, so I probably will go to less or may not go at all, unless there is a serious change in program results.” one sophomore said. With the addition of Coach Long and a host of really tall guys roaming the hallways this fall, it seems quite likely that there will, indeed, be a serious change in program results. Varsity Boys’s Basketball additions, Brady Kester, Isaiah Denis, and Mason Smith
PHOTOS OF SUMMER 2023 EUROPE TRIP PGS 7-10
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CONTINUED FAMILIAR FACES myself.” A young mother herself, Barndt has plenty of help raising her young son Kane. “He stays with my parents a good bit,” she said, “and loves being with them. My husband works a lot right now. That gives me time to get home and spend time with Kane.” But being home does not always mean being away from the day job. “Two to three nights a week I’ll get back on my laptop. I try to force myself to sit out on the back deck. Our property gives a nice view of the lake. I try to sit in a space that’s comfortable and get to work.” Another administrator who is adjusting to an expanded role this year is Upper School Dean of Students Debbie Taylor. In addition to that role, she has also taken on the role of Director of Student Wellness & Retention. “What that entails,” she said, “is whole school, making sure that all of our students are being supported in ways that they need to be supported. That means academic needs, social needs, maybe a physical need. It’s any type of support – mentally or whatever. We want to be sure that those support systems are in place for that student.”
Upper school it would be Jessica, myself, and perhaps Tia. And [Director of Learning Services] Laurissa Ecker-Berkman is in all of those meetings. And we just discuss what can we do to help – how do we establish strategies for the student, maybe how do we help the family along with the student, how do we partner with the family to get help they need. So it’s pretty much an allencompassing role for student wellness overall. It’s a big role. I feel like all the support systems are already in place, so it’s just me overseeing it.” Taylor’s new role was the brainchild of Smith, who said of Taylor: “She’s such a key component to the upper school. She’s the glue of the upper school. This place falls apart without Debbie Taylor. Her scope of work is so incredibly wide that it would be really hard to find somebody who does what she does, which ranges from deciding how many votive candles will be on the tables at prom to how many days of suspension a knucklehead student should get for his or her actions. That’s a really broad scope.” The DDS community gives a big thanks to Smith, Hill, Barndt, and Taylor for all they do to keep our school running. Kudos to you all!
On Patriot Connect, there is now a student referral form that teachers can complete “if they’re seeing a change in a student or if they’re noticing perhaps that in the classroom they’re way behind everybody else,” Taylor said. This referral form can also be filled out if teachers know of something going on a student’s family life that is impacting their overall well-being. Taylor meets bi-weekly with every division’s support team. “In the lower school that would include [Head of Lower School] Liz [McAlister], the reading specialist Lynne McClellan, [counselor] Jessica [Thompson], and myself. Middle school, it would be [Head of Middle School] Andrew Griffith, Jessica, and myself.
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CONTINUED VARSITY VOLLEYBALL AND VARSITY BOYS’ SOCCER In addition to the training, both teams played one game against the home country; almost everyone's favorites were the games in Italy. “We won the game in Italy 2-0,” said senior soccer player Ian Hoffman, “and it was definitely the most exciting because it was at the very beginning of the trip.” Speaking of favorites, the standout country for the travelers was Slovenia. As Tate said, “We were able to stay in an amazing ski resort and look up at the mountains every day. One morning we even got to go for a run into the mountains and swim in a completely clear lake!” Along with beautiful views, the friendships the athletes made with many of the athletes from the host countries will last a lifetime. “By the time we were in Croatia,” said junior soccer player Collin Lank, “everyone was so close, and it was really good team bonding and practice, even before preseason started.” Another element that made this experience more memorable was that many of the athletes’ families made the trip with them. Away from the games and training, athletes and their families had the opportunity to explore the country’s breathtaking sites. From exploring the alleys of Venice to hiking the mountains of Slovenia, and lastly visiting the capital city of Croatia, these days were filled with the types of cultural enrichment that the athletes can look back upon and remember fondly. Coach Turner hopes that “this trip this summer will set things in motion for many future trips.” Update: Both the varsity boys soccer team and the varsity girls volleyball team won state championships this fall. More on that in the next issue!
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DO YOU HAVE A STORY TO TELL? EMAIL US YOUR UNTOLD STORIES, IDEAS, AND PITCHES. JILLIAN.TOYA@DAVIDSONDAY.ORG SMCGILL@DAVIDSONDAY.ORG
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