About John Barrengos
John Barrengos is the Director of Admission at The Putney School,
and the Chair of the AISAP Finance Committee.
Really smart folks asked me lots of good questions when… when I
interviewed to become the admission director at The Putney School.
“So, you’re a Head of School right now…”
“Yes.”
“And, you’re here, interviewing to become our admission director…”
“Yes.”
“Er, eh, uh” Often a lengthy pause.
“…Why?
Yes, “why?”
“Why?” was a refrain…a consistent question.
I enjoyed the question because I felt clear about my convictions. I
liked the chance to address the premise beneath the apparent confusion.
“I have loved my school and my work, but my kids need an
excellent high school and my school cannot pay me enough to support that
goal.”
It was pretty straightforward, so the reality made sense to my
prospective colleagues, but there was something about my openness to the
possibility of a demotion that conflicted with the idea that
becoming a school head is the pinnacle of one’s successful independent
school career. By that rationale, no one would choose to depart from
the head’s role. Beyond my family’s needs, the question’s premise was
embedded, I think, in a cultural norm that our schools share.
I looked at headships, certainly, but I’d had a professional crush on
Putney’s confident embrace of progressive education since I’d been in
graduate school in the 1990s. I’ve always loved admission and seen it as
an essential intersection of the present and future tense of school
communities. And I admired Emily Jones and knew I could learn a great
deal from her about leadership and about schools. Beyond the ways in
which the move could work well for my family, it was a move that,
although unconventional, could also work for me. Both mattered. In my
cover note to Putney, I responded to the unasked question, “Why?”
The short answer is that although I enjoy headship, that role is
not the only way in which I have or can enjoy my work in a school
community…I am drawn to living and working in schools because it permits
me to make a real difference in the lives of individuals and it allows
my family to live and work together in intentional communities.
Admission work is essential – not only in the obvious and concrete
reliance that our schools place on admission programs to generate 85% or
more of our gross revenues through tuition and other programs, but also
because the caliber of the students and parents and the mesh and match
of those families (our marketplace) with our aspirations is what defines
the future trajectory of our schools.
The quality of our teaching, the design of our imaginative programs,
and the needs and ambitions of the students and families we serve and
upon whom our schools depend are all brought together through the funnel
and crucible of admission. The job of counseling a family to choose
the right educational community for the child’s next chapter requires an
educator who can read kids and their families, who has the courage to
share that reading with the family and to imagine a child’s learning
journey in a school; it requires, too, strategic vision and some savvy
with marketing and communication. Admission work touches nearly every
aspect of a school community.
Leaving and entering, learning how my new school works, settling into
life as a family in our new community – these are shared features of
transition when we make our life’s work serving schools and when each
school can be a rich new chapter in the book of our professional lives.
I feel very fortunate to be able to bring the breadth of my experience
to our admissions work. Weaving together essential threads of
individual and community is a great challenge and honor. Working with
each individual student and family while simultaneously assembling a
community of learners who are the living animation of our school’s
mission and values is incomparably meaningful and satisfying.