{"id":2078,"date":"2019-10-18T21:05:26","date_gmt":"2019-10-18T21:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/?p=2078"},"modified":"2020-03-30T20:27:37","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T20:27:37","slug":"head-of-school-mr-matt-levinson-emphasizes-community-and-the-student-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/2019\/10\/18\/head-of-school-mr-matt-levinson-emphasizes-community-and-the-student-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Head of School Mr. Matt Levinson Emphasizes Community and the Student Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Eva Schiller (V), Vicky Gu (VI), Meghan Durkin (V)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Though the Pingry community has known his name for almost a year now, Mr. Matt Levinson has just begun his first academic year as our new Head of School. Following a five-month search and a unanimous vote from the Board of Trustees, Pingry officially welcomed its sixteenth Head of School on July 1, 2019, succeeding Mr. Nathaniel Conard\u2019s 14-year tenure as Headmaster.\t<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The role of the Head of School has long been ambiguous to many Pingry students. Mr. Levinson explains his job as keeping \u201ceverybody focused on the student experience\u2026 from myself, to all administration, staff, and teachers,\u201d and that \u201cevery day is different. There are a lot of interesting challenges that cross my desk, problems to solve.\u201d He remarked, \u201cBut also, being out in the community, being out in classes, being out at games, is really important.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When asked what drew him to Pingry, Mr. Levinson immediately responded, \u201cthe Honor Code was a first appeal\u2026 The trust that\u2019s inherent in having an Honor Code is really meaningful to me.\u201d Pingry\u2019s inclusive atmosphere was also attractive. \u201cCommitment to diversity and inclusion is really important to me, personally and professionally,\u201d he says, adding, \u201cI\u2019ve been really struck and impressed by Pingry\u2019s diversity and how it strengthens and enriches the community.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tBeginning his career teaching both middle and high school students, Mr. Levinson has stepped into many roles within school communities, whether that be coaching sports or serving as a dean of students. He believes that his experience allows him to \u201cunderstand everything that goes into running a big organization like Pingry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tDespite his extensive experience with education, he confessed that in high school, he was not always \u201cas engaged as [he] should\u2019ve or could have been, but something just kind of kicked in senior year and a couple teachers really inspired [him].\u201d During his time at Pingry so far, he has noticed \u201chow much [the teachers] are inspiring to you all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When asked about his vision for Pingry, Mr. Levinson left his response open-ended. Rather than only him deciding where Pingry should go in the upcoming years, he thinks that everyone should have input and \u201cthat the vision question is something we all need to invest in and work on together.\u201d However, he does have a \u201cstrategic plan focusing on global education, student wellbeing, interdisciplinary learning\u2026 and also to promote teacher growth and development.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His first step is to address student wellbeing with the hopes of helping the community \u201cimprove and be attentive.\u201d So far, he has met with peer leaders and teachers, and plans to do some staff training in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tSpeaking on the Pingry community, Mr. Levinson noted that \u201ceveryone\u2019s been incredibly welcoming, which has been wonderful.\u201d He has visited classes on both campuses and gone to games in order \u201cto get the chance to see the student experience.\u201d What amazed him since his arrival was the \u201clong history of people who invest their lives here. I think everyone here is trying to always get better, no one\u2019s standing still, which I love about the community\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr. Levinson also revealed that the process for getting \u201cShorts Days\u201d begins with students. A student emailed him one evening asking to allow shorts the next day, and by the end of the night, Mr. Levinson had confirmed one.&nbsp; \u201cI know,\u201d he says, \u201con a hot day, when there\u2019s no air conditioning, it\u2019s nice to be able to wear shorts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Speaking of air conditioning, will Pingry ever get it? \u201cThat\u2019s a big question I\u2019m hearing; lots of people want to talk about that, but I don\u2019t have an answer to that yet. It could happen. I don\u2019t know when, but I know it\u2019s something that people, especially in the 90-degree weather, are very interested in.\u201d Perhaps someday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr. Levison concluded, \u201cI would just like to say I\u2019ve been so impressed with the students in this school. The engagement in the classes that I\u2019ve seen, from kindergarten all the way through 12th grade, makes it clear that the kids here really like learning and want to learn, and the teachers are really invested in making that happen.\u201d<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eva Schiller (V), Vicky Gu (VI), Meghan Durkin (V) Though the Pingry community has known his name for almost a year now, Mr. Matt Levinson has just begun his first academic year as our new Head of School. Following a five-month search and a unanimous vote from the Board of Trustees, Pingry officially welcomed its [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":2128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[207,32,27,217,9],"tags":[33,10],"class_list":["post-2078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eva","category-faculty-staff","category-featured","category-meghan","category-school-news","tag-faculty-and-staff","tag-school-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2078"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2096,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2078\/revisions\/2096"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}