About Jackie

From boarding school student to teacher, coach, advisor, dorm parent, and Dean, I’ve done it all.

I was raised on Cape Cod and spent four years at Cushing Academy in central Massachusetts. As a student, I learned a great deal about the inner-working of boarding school life through my experiences as an admission tour guide, a three-season member of varsity athletic teams, and as a dorm proctor. I loved campus life from the start and knew long before graduation that I would return to boarding school after college to live the life of the teacher, coach, and dorm parent.

As a boarding school faculty member, I’ve served in many roles. From teacher, advisor, and coach to dorm parent and dorm head, Activities Director, and Dean of Residential Life and Leadership, my experiences have challenged me to be a dynamic observer of how our policies, programs, and routines impact the daily lives of our students. I love the connections forged in boarding school, whether in my English classroom, on the field or rink, or over late-night snacks in the dorm, kids come first in boarding school. The several hundred students who I have called “my kids” over the years have made me an expert in adolescence as they shared their fears, frustrations, and greatest successes with me. In my role as a parent advisor, my goal is to use that accumulated knowledge to help parents successfully support their students through one of their most turbulent periods of growth and change.

While attending Williams College I met another “boarding school lifer” from Berkshire School in Massachusetts, and together we have lived and worked at boarding schools in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Madaba, Jordan. We recently took a leave from life at boarding school to raise our daughter at home on Cape Cod, and surely no one misses those “big kids” on campus as much as she does.