Jennifer Weyburn, Packer's incoming Head of School, spent time with Packer alumni, parents, and students this week. 

Her visit began with the 137th Packer Reunion on Saturday, April 13, when over 200 alumni returned to campus for a day of lectures, tours, meals, and catching up with friends and former teachers. 

In the three days that followed, she met with parents from all divisions at two informal Q&As. She also had the opportunity to meet with senior administrators, representatives of the Faculty-Staff Advisory Committee, and incoming Upper School Head Maria Nunes, currently a dean at the Spence School.

She also sat down with the current Student Council and had lunch with the leaders of the incoming 2019-20 Student Council. 

 

Q&A with the Middle School

One of the highlights of her visit was a Middle School Chapel, when she sat down for a rapid-fire interview with Eighth Grade members of the Student Council. 

Krislyn M. ’23 introduced Dr. Weyburn, who is currently the head of school at the Copenhagen International School, a K through 12 school in Denmark. “When she's not busy in her roles as a school leader and parent, Dr. Weyburn is an avid reader and lover of the theater,” said Krislyn, to whoops scattered across the Chapel.  

Rohan P. ’23 and Gianna L. ’23 then posed to Dr. Weyburn ten questions that had been suggested by fellow Eighth Graders (and vetted by the Middle School Office).

Their conversation follows — along with some attempts to capture the students’ responses.

In the Middle School, a lot of us are wondering: do you prefer cats or dogs?

This is a very big issue in my family. I love cats [loud cheers] but my husband and children like dogs [louder cheers].

Another big question: what's your favorite sports team?

My favorite sports team when I was in middle school was the Yankees [cheers]. This is the longer answer: my brother defected to the Mets in '86. And I when I lived in New York in my twenties, it was cheaper to get tickets to Shea, so I became a Mets fan [cheers].

I'm not a huge fan of sports in my daily life but the last fervent sports-watching I did was the Danish World Cup Team for soccer [tentative cheers]. So I love watching football — meaning soccer.

What's your favorite ice cream flavor?

Anything with chocolate [cheers]. 

Pineapple on pizza, yay or nay?

Will I offend anyone if I say yay? But I would also say, rather than pizza, I prefer Japanese noodles [cheers].

What's your favorite karaoke song?

Anything by Whitney Houston [cheers].

Here at Packer we take our snacks very seriously. Cheezits or Goldfish?

I don't even recognize Cheezits [loud cheers].

We also have cereal at Break. So what's your favorite cereal?

So this a European answer: my favorite cereal is muesli [not so many cheers].

If you could name a favorite book series, what would you pick?

That's a really hard one because I was a middle school English teacher so I SHOULD say all the stuff you guys love. But my favorite book series is actually a British one called Swallows and Amazons [scattered oohs].

But I did like binge reading The Hunger Games [loud cheers].

What's your favorite holiday?

Thanksgiving [cheers].

As you know, many of us in this room are avid social media users, so would you say that you prefer Instagram or Snapchat?

I have to admit I have never been on Snapchat. But I love Instagram and Twitter [cheers].

Thank you for having us. 

Thank you so much. It was such a pleasure to get to answer those questions. Thank you to everybody who prepared them.

I'm so excited to get to know you next year. I wonder if you would allow me in one of the first chapels next year to poll you on some of things that you have strong feelings about. Would you be open to that? [cheers, applause] Okay, good!

Also, I know that there aren't all that many new students in Packer’s [Middle School] every year, but I hope that you will extend all your kindness to my own children next year. Louise will be in sixth grade [oohs] and Will will be in eighth grade [oohs]. But maybe pretend that they're not related to me! 

I look forward to hearing how the rest of your year goes, and before I see you next, hopefully you'll also have an amazing summer.

I can't wait to see you back here in September. Have a great rest of the year! [applause]

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Dr. Weyburn will become Packer's tenth Head of School on July 1, 2019.