California Boarding School Culture/Honor Code/Motto

8minutemile
Wed, 24 Jul 2019 00:26:41 +0000

I’m quite a researcher myself as well and and trying to learn as much as I can about boarding schools, California ones in particular. My initial reaction to Thacher was that it had a strong sense of community. At times, I’ll admit that I found the messaging about the honor code and the values to come across to me like a carefully crafted message and seemed like a marketing campaign. A cohesive community with strong values is what many parents expect or hope for as they consider sending their kids off to boarding school. Most schools do have strict honor codes but Thacher is among the best at emphasizing it–that’s just my impression based on the materials/brochures I’ve seen of theirs compared to other schools. Kudos to Thacher for identifying that community values matter a lot to many parents. If anything, I appreciate that the school makes this an important highlight of their school. I agree with the comment from @Happytimes2001, “The motto is one thing, what transpires is another.” Based on what you’ve shared, @CaliMex, you seem to be very satisfied with your child’s experience with the school and it’s helpful to get your perspective. Glad to hear your experience has been a positive one.

For me, I still think there’s a bit of mystery surrounding Thacher Trustee Doug Hodge’s involvement in the college scandal. He was also a Thacher parent and it’s not fully clear whether a Thacher student was involved. As far as I know, Thacher hasn’t made a public statement that says unequivocally that no Thacher student was involved in the scandal. I would think that would be the first thing they would state clearly if that was the case–just reading between the lines here. Sometimes it’s what not said that’s more than what is said. But I could be wrong about this so please correct me if I am. Also Hodge’s case has yet to be fully played out in the judicial system, so there will likely be more details forthcoming in the future. Also, the media coverage has been so heavily focused of the two celebrities involved, Felicity Huffman and Lori LoughIin, so much so that the incident with Hodge has had much less media coverage in comparison and less is known about that case. I think it’s fair for parents interested in Thacher to want to scrutinize this incident a bit more, or to be interested in knowing more details, especially for those considering sending a child to school there. If a Thacher student is involved, I think that’s a detail that prospective families/students might like to have.