Dear Friends and Prospective Families,

Welcome to St. James School. We are “a faith-based educational community deeply rooted in transformative, loving relationships.” We believe that education begins with relationship: with oneself, one another, the larger community, the world that we share, and ultimately with The Source of all things, God. At St. James, we are planting the seeds that learning is about both knowing and becoming. We take academic excellence seriously because knowledge matters: it gives students the language, history, ideas, and intellectual tools they need to begin to understand the world and so they can participate meaningfully in it. We also believe deeply in the importance of memory. We teach our students to remember the stories of resilience that we inherit, the words and ideas that have shaped human thought, the beauty we encounter, the lessons of history, and the people whose lives have enriched our own, thus contributing to our inner life from which wisdom flows. Childhood itself is also something worth remembering and protecting. Our students have room to run, laugh, imagine, make things, get messy, wonder, and play simply because it is joyful. We want St. James to be a place where children are known and challenged, but also where they are allowed to be children. Playing, making, and navigating friendships, creativity, making mistakes, and fun are not distractions from learning; they are essential to a rich and healthy education. 

Our vision of “a world without inequities” calls us to imagine education as both formation and transformation. We want our students to recognize the inequities (i.e., racial/ethnic and gender discrimination, unequal access to education and health care, and economic disparities) that shape our world, to develop the knowledge and wisdom to begin to understand them, and to cultivate the agency to lay the foundation so that they will have the courage to help change them. We want our students to become, in the fullest sense, good medicine for the community, people whose presence brings healing, possibility, courage, and most importantly, hope to the places and people they encounter. That requires both a strong mind and a generous heart; both academic excellence and a willingness to listen deeply, question, discern, and serve. Being good medicine for the community also calls for the wisdom to know that our lives are shaped not only by what we accomplish, but by how we love, how we remember, how we treat one another, and how we consciously make room for joy. 

Our hope is that St. James graduates leave us grounded in faith, equipped with knowledge (excellent academic training) formed by memory, guided by wisdom, and animated by love. If we can help children know deeply, play freely, remember meaningfully, think critically and courageously, and live generously, then we are preparing them not simply for success, but for lives of purpose in service of a more just and equitable world. 

To be clear, this noble task requires a team of subject matter experts and creative, innovative thinkers committed to our students and their families. I am proud to work alongside Dr. Eva Porter and Ms. Leah Young, our Assistant Heads of School for Curriculum and Instruction and Student and Family Engagement, respectively.

In friendship and service,

Norman Bayard, M. Ed
Head of School
St. James School