THE March 12, 2021 POSTSCRIPTTHE PARK SCHOOL OF BALTIMORE | 2425 Old Court Road, Baltimore MD 21208 Volume 78 Issue No. 6 Weekly on campus testing begins by JACOB HIRSCHHORN ’21 In an email to the community on Feb- p.m. each Saturday in the Athletic Center, ruary 25, Head of School Dan Paradis and community members will sign up for announced information regarding the 15-minute time slots. school’s plans surrounding spring break The testing will continue throughout the and Covid-19 safety. The plans include spring, but extra measures will be put in testing protocols and quarantine regimens, place after break, as well as over Passover ensuring that students are able to quickly and Easter. and safely return to campus after spring Similar to the end of the Thanksgiving break and stay in person throughout the and winter breaks, after spring break ends spring. there will be a few days of virtual school In his communication, Paradis notified for all students. the community that Park was going to con- There are two different plans, one for tinue with the surveillance testing that had students who travel over break and one for been introduced over the last month in or- those who do not. der to ensure the safety of in-person learn- According to Paradis, “Thursday, ing throughout the rest of the year. March 25 and Friday, March 26 will be vir- Starting February 27, students began tual days for all students,” but those who conducting the surveillance tests at school travel will be online for the following week on Saturdays, instead of at home over the as well. week. Psomagen, a laboratory located in In addition, students who are celebrat- Rockville, will be analyzing the tests. ing Passover or Easter in person with oth- “Surveillance testing will include all ers outside their immediate family will spring Upper School athletes each week, as have to quarantine after the holiday. well as a rotating sample of students from Passover begins March 27 and Easter is Image courtesy S. Renbaum ’21 across the three divisions, and employees,” on April 4, so these students will be able to Paradis wrote. “Approximately 400 mem- return to in-person learning on April 6 and Weekly testing has allowed spring sports teams to begin a full contact season. Girls’ bers of the school population will typically April 12, respectively. Lacrosse played their first game of the season on March 10. It was the first interscholastic be tested.” These precautionary and testing mea- match up Park Athletics has participated in since the spring of 2020, nearly a full year ago. The testing will be held from 9 a.m. to 2 sures will allow students to stay in school Acheson to depart after 26 years Jacoby to leave history department by AARON HIRSCHHORN ’21 by LUCY DEMSKY ’21 After 26 years at Park, Upper School After 19 years teaching at Park, Upper think outside of the box and to question history teacher and librarian Jon Acheson School history teacher Daniel Jacoby an- their beliefs. “Daniel has been one of my will be leaving at the end of this academic nounced that he will depart at the end of favorite people to argue with. We’ve had year. this school year. these amazing discussions, and the respect Acheson first considered retiring in A beloved member of the Upper School he shows is immense,” Upper School his- 2015 after his youngest son, Baird, grad- community, Jacoby’s presence will be tory teacher Peter Warren said. uated from Upper School. However, Su- missed, especially in the history depart- Many teachers throughout the Upper san Weintraub, former Director or Library ment. Known for his critical thinking, School–Warren included–admire Jacoby’s Services, asked him to become a faculty Jacoby constantly pushes his students to dedication to his students. “For [Jacoby], adviser for the Postscript, and then later to it wasn’t enough to just give an assign- become part-time Upper School Librarian ment or an essay out, but he had to figure as well. “I was refreshed at work, learn- out how he was going to use it to engage ing new skills and enjoying Park’s Upper the students,” Warren said. “He spends so School again,” he said, so he decided to much time outside of the classroom think- stay. With 35 years of teaching under his ing about how he can help the students.” belt, he feels the time is right to move on to Image courtesy J. Acheson Jacoby taught many history electives new adventures. throughout his time at Park, but his favor- “When Jon and I started working together as He announced his departure in October, co-advisers for Postscript in 2015, I discov- ite classes to teach were “The Ottoman 2020, “In the fall, I am visiting friends in ered that he is brilliant, truly progressive, Empire,” “Ethics,” “Modern Brazil,” and Ireland and the United Kingdom, and tak- deeply committed to research, reading, and “Research and Writing.” teaching, a tireless worker, and historian to ing a 192 mile hike from the Irish Sea to the core,” former Director of Library Services “Many of those electives were gener- the North Sea,” Acheson said. “After that, Susan Weintraub said. ated by events at the time or student in- I have some building projects back in Bal- es to teach were his electives, which have terests,” Jacoby said. “Ethics is always timore and possibly in New Mexico, too, ranged from courses on the Middle East fun because it’s so immediate, but when I that will take several months.” and Modern China, to a study of Italian taught Modern Brazil it was the year of the In addition to these exciting new oppor- Fascism, History by Hollywood, and the Image courtesy D. Jacoby Olympics and the World Cup in Brazil, or tunities, Acheson wants to take more time History of Park School. “Co-teaching and Chesapeake with Jeff Jennings, when there writing to complete three manuscripts he traveling with Kirk Wulf was also really Daniel Jacoby has been an active mem- was a lot of interest in the environment.” ber of the Upper School community for has in the works. wonderful,” Acheson said. 19 years, coaching Boys’ Cross Country, One of the aspects of Park that Jacoby Over the course of his two and a half In the early 2000s Acheson served as advising the Debate Team, and running the enjoyed the most was Upper School clubs decades at Park, Acheson’s favorite cours- See ACHESON P.3 Park Journal. See JACOBY P.3 EDITORIAL Community. A year ago today Park shut down. None we can feel it starting to return. THE of us knew it then, but it would be the be- Spring sports are in full swing, with ginning of six months away from campus. varsity teams practicing five days a week Through this time, our school community in hopes for a competitive season. Final- POSTSCRIPT has found many ways to be resilient, but ly, upper and underclassmen are able to has also lost so much of what tied us to- be and play together, an interaction both THE PARK SCHOOL OF BALTIMORE gether. Celebrations, games, performanc- groups have been longing for. 2425 OLD COURT ROAD, BALTIMORE, MD 21208 es, assemblies, and school traditions uni- Ninth and tenth graders are looking TEL. 410-339-7070 fied us more than we knew. Without them, forward to the option of being on campus PARKSCHOOL.NET/NEWS/POSTSCRIPT the distance between us widened. Faculty three days a week, attending meetings and MARCH 12, 2021 have departed at record rates, student en- assemblies from the building on Wednes- VOLUME 78 | ISSUE NO. 6 gagement has plummeted, and so has our days. willingness to engage as a community. Seniors are planning for their six week EDITORS-IN-CHIEF It has been a tough year. Walking into senior projects, now less than two months ADDIE FLEMING, CALLIE KROSIN, LIZA SHEEHY school feels empty and strange. We are away. Prom, graduation, and even summer drained and plagued by the past year. We vacation are on the horizon. can, and want to, move forward, but the With all of this said, students have tak- News Features Commentary weight of our community’s forced distance en advantage of the opportunities we do Sr. Jacob Hirschhorn Sr. Aaron Hirschhorn Sr. Ethan Adler has been hard to overcome. have. We are finding ways to build com- Sr. Lilah Lichtman Sr. Jesse Feller-Kopman Sylvie WolFF We recognize all that administrators munity again, restoring the feeling of unity John Apostolo Samantha Solomon and faculty have done to bring us back to through these activities. Alex Norbrook school. It has not gone unnoticed. We need to continue to find ways to en- But no amount of work can bring us gage with each other now. If this doesn’t Sports Faculty Advisers Arts and Culture Jon Acheson Sr. Darya Zarfeshan fully back to normal, until our communi- happen, the sense of community that Sr. Lucy Demsky ty’s connection is also restored. Really, we makes this school what it is will complete- Sr. Quinn Seidenman Leela Chantrelle Alina Glass are longing for what life was like a year ly disappear. We have to hold onto what Will Peres Eric Smith ago. Although normalcy is a long way off, makes Park, Park. School Population: Students—806; Employees—200 Distributed to Mailboxes of Upper School Students and Employees, and Lower and Middle School Students by Faculty Request Clarification Member of the Columbia Scholastic Press Assn. A clarification was made to the February 12 article “Misconduct Roils Upper School.” A question was raised about the wording of the final paragraph of the article, regarding the agency of the school in the investigation into the actions of John Kessinger.