Sunday, February 22, 2009, NAPSG Business Meeting.

MS. FORD: Good afternoon, everyone. We know that we still have lots of stragglers who haven't quite found the ballroom. It took me a couple of tries before I made the right turn and got here directly. But we want to stay on schedule, and so we're going to get started anyway.

First and foremost, welcome, all of you, to the 88th Annual Conference of the National Association of Principals of Schools for Girls. It's very exciting, this organization has been around for a long time, and I want to give you just a little bit of historical context, some of which is familiar to some of you, but some of you may not have heard it for a long time.

NAPSG was founded in 1920 by a group of school and college leaders to support the ongoing education and development of girls and women in their single-sex institutions. But when the former boys' schools became co-ed and their missions then included girls, they, too, were invited into this welcoming fold and supported the girls in their schools, as well.

The mission of NAPSG, as I think you know, is to further the professional growth of its members by providing a forum in which issues pertinent to the education of girls and young women are presented and discussed. School heads and other representatives of member schools and colleges meet to address issues that cover a large range from curricular and administrative policies to moral education and to the role of women in a complex and changing world.

Today NAPSG has a membership of 300 schools and of 628 individual members: School heads, associate heads, and honorary members. The annual conference is always very enthusiastically attended by an engaged and very responsive membership. This is something that a number of us have been talking about all day today, about how many people will say, "Well, there are so many opportunities for conferences, but this is the one never to miss."

And the setting. I don't know how many of you are from the northern climes, but I can tell you, living in the Boston area now, it is really just so glorious to be here. And watching this morning's Weather Channel was really pretty horrifying. It just reinforced the value of the decision to be here.

In addition to the annual conference, in 1985 a biannual administrative leadership seminar was begun for women in independent schools. That has produced more than 40 new women heads of school, which is something that we are really very proud of, and should be. Because of the increased interest and popularity of this program, the reviews and the evaluations are always absolutely raves. The seminar since 2000 is now an annual program, as well, and a very important one.

This year's program, as you have already seen from the materials that you have gotten in the mail, as well as today, is a rich one which we hope you will find stimulating and satisfying and inspiring and energizing. As important as the content of the program is the camaraderie between and among all of us. We know that learning for our students is a social enterprise and that the most effective learning takes place in the context of relationships, and I think that's absolutely true for adults, as well, for all of us as leaders, as administrators, as heads of school. Leadership I think is on everyone's minds, with all of its challenges nationally and internationally, and of course, in our schools.

The United States presidential election threw into bold relief the elements of leadership and underscored the expectation of leaders in whatever context they find themselves.
This time of year for school heads is always arduous with the budget and the tuition and the hiring and the contract responsibilities, but this year I certainly don't need to tell you it's particularly so, given the fiscal constraints and the attendant very tough decisions and conversations that I know many of you have had and are continuing to have. And all of that will continue, I think, for probably most people well into the spring as there's still so much uncertainty.

Your leadership is obviously crucial to the health of your schools, and it's one more reason why your being here is an opportunity to step back a little bit to enjoy one another's company and counsel, to tend to yourselves before going home to finish the balance of the school year with all that work will require of you, work that we're all blessed to be doing and to have done.

Apropos of the challenges facing heads of school, one of the things I'd like to ask you to do with me right now is to join me in a moment of silence. Two of our colleagues were planning on being here but could not come because of events which heads of school most dread, and that's losing a student. And in both of these cases, they were tragic deaths. One, a junior girl at Concord Academy, and one, a junior boy at Dalton School in New York. I would like to ask you to include in your thinking and prayers, whatever that might mean for you, these students, their families, their friends, their school communities, and Jake Dresden and Ellen Stein, who, as you might imagine, are the ones who are being looked to for comfort and counsel and community and consolation. So if you would join me for a moment of silence.

Thank you.

So welcome again. I hope you all will take advantage of every opportunity that the next couple of days will offer. Enjoy one another, and take advantage of these creature comforts, because you have absolutely earned them, and have a wonderful next couple of days.