"It's Great to Be Back"

It was 1995. The school was interviewing for the newly created position of director of technology, and headmaster Rob Hershey was sure that Loach was his man.

 

This young guy, Hershey clearly saw, was confident, energetic, bright, and resourceful. A Long Island native, he had an undergraduate degree in history (from SUNY Geneseo) and aspired to teach kids. The full-time job market in his home state was tight, though, so he’d accepted a variety of temporary positions – including long-term substitute. He’d assembled grills and lawn mowers for Walmart. He’d worked at a service station. He didn’t mind getting his hands dirty, that’s for sure. His attitude was…whatever it takes.

 

Along the way, Loach had become fascinated with the rapidly-growing world of computers, so he headed to Charlottesville and earned an M.Ed. in instructional technology from Virginia. He figured he’d end up at the AOL headquarters in Northern Virginia with many of his classmates, but here he was, at Collegiate on a summer Thursday afternoon, listening to Hershey’s pitch.

 

“I chuckle when I think about it now,” Loach said. “When I turned him down, he asked me to take the weekend to think about it.”

 

Loach considered his options. He envisioned his potentially lucrative opportunities in the private sector. Deep down, though, he knew education was his calling. He accepted the position, but with a caveat.

        

“I told Rob, ‘I’ll get you squared away with technology,’” Loach recalled, “but I told him I’d be here only three to five years.”

 

Famous last words. During his first stint on North Mooreland Road, Loach indeed got the campus “squared away with technology.” In the ensuing years, he earned an MS in information technology management from UVA and served as assistant head, then interim head, of the Upper School.

 

In 2011, he accepted the position as Upper School head at The Kinkaid School in Houston. In June, after a nationwide search, he returned to lead Collegiate’s Upper School.

 

“It’s great to be back,” he said one day recently as he geared up for the new term. “It’s great to see old friends and pick up those relationships right where they left off. And there’s a chance to get to know the new folks, hearing about their journey, what they’re excited about professionally, and where they think there’re opportunities for the Upper School to be better.”

 

Leaving Collegiate five years ago was tough for Loach. He had long since grown to love the school. His family (wife Emily and their son Charlie) was very happy. Richmond and the school community were definitely home. Gaining another perspective, seeing the world outside the confines of North Mooreland Road were important to his professional growth, however.

 

“A piece of advice (former headmaster) Keith (Evans) gave me when I was getting ready to leave was that you don’t have to figure it all out – or fix it –

in the first year,” Loach said. “Whenever I had that desire at Kinkaid, I sat back and recognized that moving more deliberately and slowly would be a good thing.

 

“Experience has given me wisdom. Everybody has strengths and weaknesses. See people for their strengths. Patience wasn’t necessarily a virtue of mine, so I’ve had to be cognizant to be more patient.

 

“I’ve also learned that most people actually have the answers to the questions they ask you. When I first got to Kinkaid, I thought my job was actually to answer questions when they came to me. What I realized was that my job was to help them figure out the answer rather than just letting them know what I thought.”

 

There are challenges ahead. The eight-day schedule, now in its third year, seems always to be a topic of discussion. Technology is as well.

 

“To me,” Loach said, “the most important thing is the relationship between the teacher and student. I don’t want a screen getting between that. There’re opportunities to do things with technology that make sense. We have to take time to figure out what those things are, but I don’t want it to be a disruption in terms of the culture of the Upper School.”

 

There’s more.

 

“I need to take the time to get to know the faculty and build relationships so they know I believe in them, support them, and help them do the best they can to support the students,” Loach said. “When you want to get something done, you’ll never get unanimity, but you want to build consensus. You build consensus by building trust. If people trust you, they’re willing to move forward with you.

 

“Some long-time faculty members – Ann Griffin, Bubba Lawson, Roger Hailes – have retired. They represented a lot of the school’s institutional memory. It’s important that the new faculty understand who Collegiate is. You can’t just tell them. You have to show them. I want to make sure the soul of the school is very much alive in the Upper School.”

 

What would Loach like to tell the Collegiate community?

 

“Collegiate is a special place,” he said. “Five years helped me put into perspective things I had taken for granted. The excellence of the faculty, how good they are, and how deeply they care about the kids. The forethought, insight, and vision of the administration.   The parents are appropriately supportive. They trust the school to do its job.

 

“And the kids are just great. When people lament about the next generation, I’ve never felt that way about the kids at Collegiate.”

         -- Weldon Bradshaw