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Q&A
Question: What prompted Watershed to create the new Director of Family and Alumni Relations position?
Taylor Replane: Focusing on the holistic Watershed experience has always been a goal of the admissions office. We put a lot of effort into enrollment and want to make sure that same level of effort (or more) goes into the entire student journey. We created the Director of Family and Alumni Relations position to help us keep our finger on the pulse of the Watershed family experience throughout the year. This new position gives us the bandwidth to create more community touch-points by making sure families are happy, the culture of the school is healthy, and the community feels strong.
Q: To have somebody dedicated to nurturing the family experience says a lot about Watershed...that you as a team recognize the importance of the whole Watershed community and not just getting new families in the door and forgetting about them.
TR: One of Tim’s initiatives over the past couple of years has been to do work that really matters. In order to do that, we need strong community partnerships. To that end, we rely on local experts in the field--if we’re studying food systems, we look for local farmers and scientists who understand the food ecosystem. We’ve realized that we’re missing out on one of our best, untapped resources--the expertise and professional experiences of the Watershed community. We are committed to making sure we understand the relationships we have closer to home before seeking them outside of school.
Q: What is your role in creating these family partnerships?
TR: Part of my role is to revamp the Watershed Parent Association with the goal of solidifying family partnerships. I want the school to feel like an extension of your family. Our school is where you can go to socialize and learn, not just the students, but the whole family. Families are dedicating so much time and money to put their kids in school, they should feel good showing up as a parent and have similar experiences as their kids.
Q: How did you come up with the idea of solidifying relationships with the whole family of your students?
TR: We realized there’s so much more we could offer our families. I learned about expanding our relationships with parents and the rest of our Watershed families from other independent schools that are doing this and through the Association of Colorado Independent Schools. I also attended a great conference last fall where the keynote speaker talked a lot about solidifying family partnerships and relationships. She said if a family can get everything they need in their life from a school—socializing, sports, education, all of the kid’s needs—then they will never leave that school. It’s more like a university experience where you get the whole package.
Q: How is this new position at Watershed influenced by COVID-19 and what’s going on in the world?
TR: We’ve had so much more contact with parents because they were home with their kids. Since everyone was Zooming we had a more intimate view into their world. This actually made the community feel tighter.
Q: What will school look like this year and how will that differ from public schools?
TR: I’m not the person to talk about logistical details but just based on our size, we have a lot of flexibility with what we can do with the building. We’re knocking down walls to create enough space so all of our students can be on campus every day. Our teachers are used to teaching small groups so they don’t need to learn best practices in the classrooms because we’ve always thought small groups are best practice. Our classes will be made up of 10-12 students per teacher.
Q: Will students have any say in the courses they take?
TR: Students have a great deal of choice in the classes they choose this year. By changing the schedule to a quarterly structure, we are offering more courses throughout the year, so in the scope of an entire school year, students will take a variety of courses that they have chosen, some based on science, some based on humanities, and some an equal mix of both.
Q: What are you most excited about for this upcoming school year?
TR: I’m excited about having a lot of touchpoints with our Watershed community. My favorite thing to do in a school is to work with students and families on a community based curriculum. I love thinking about school culture and how we can be the best community we can be. So it’s fun for me because I get to think about student mentorship programs and how to make the parent community at Watershed really robust.
Q: OK, now let’s get personal. I know about your family, you’re from Indiana. Did you always know you were going to go into education?
TR: I’ve pretty much always been on this path. I studied art education in college and worked with kids at summer camps in college. And I come from a family of educators: my sister is an administrator helping plan and direct the curriculum of Jewish education in Howard County, outside of Baltimore, and she’s been a principal, assistant principal and a teacher; my dad has always taught Sunday school; and my mom helped with remedial work in school.
Q: What is your quirkiest hobby?
TR: I have a lot of hobbies but my quirkiest one is making spoons...wooden serving and cooking spoons. I’ve always been a practicing artist in some way, I was a sculpture major in college and I’ve always loved building stuff and making functional art.
Q: Do you have any outdoor activities you enjoy?
TR: I’m your typical Colorado outdoor sports dabbler. If you want a quirky one, Chris Carithers and I try to find the time to nature bathe together, not like bathing out in the woods with water! We sit in the woods quietly and bathe in the sounds and feeling of nature. I go ride my bike or hike in the morning then sit quietly in nature and take it in for about five minutes.
Q: What do you enjoy about being a dad to Martha Elizabeth?
TR: She’s 2 years and 3 months old so she’s exploding with new sentences and every day there’s a new word or facial expression. I just love being a part of it, what a cool experiment! When she lets me hug her and kiss her and cuddle her it’s the best but she’s such a mama’s girl that she says, “No, daddy! No, daddy!”
Q: Oh, that will change, she’ll become a daddy’s girl at some point. She’s just in a mama phase at the moment, it’ll flip-flop.
TR: I hope so! One thing about this baby is she’s so dang funny, she really understands comedy. She wants to make us laugh!
