SJS News

The following email was sent from Father Dunnan to the Saint James community on August 8, 2025, prior to the start of the 2025-2026 school year.

Dear Parents, Colleagues, and Supporters,
 
I write at the beginning of my 34th year with much good news from Saint James.
 
The last summer camp left last week, and we are busy preparing our buildings and grounds for the beginning of school on Saturday, August 16.  We welcomed our new faculty this past Monday, and full faculty meetings began on Wednesday.  Football players and prefects arrive next Wednesday, international students on Friday, and school starts on Saturday.
 
We have enjoyed the strongest enrollment in our history with close to 100 new students with many more having applied.  All our boys’ beds have been taken for some time, which is why we need a new dorm, and the second and fourth forms are over-enrolled.  Happily, we have been able to adjust and keep our smaller class sizes because the sixth form is smaller this year. Interestingly, theirs seems to be the year that was most affected by COVID, as their middle school education was so disrupted. 
 
I am happy to report that the interior of Powell Hall has been repainted, and the windows repaired, so it is now much brighter and more like the newer buildings which surround it, and Onderdonk and Claggett 3 have both received similar attention.  Several faculty apartments and Buckingham have also been repaired and repainted as part of our usual summer maintenance rotation.  The demolition work is well begun on the ground floor of Cotton which will be refashioned as our new exciting FabLab, and construction of the new boys’ dormitory is scheduled to begin in mid-August. 
 
Finally, we have welcomed four new faculty members, each in a different department, and I can report from my own meetings with them that we could not be more fortunate.
 
A graduate of Lake Forest Academy and Northwestern University, where she earned a BA in English, Lizzie Dozois will be teaching second and fourth form English, assisting with JV girls’ soccer and JV girls’ basketball, and living in Coors Hall.  Hai Hai Fisher comes to us with a BS from the University of Mississippi, where he majored in Computer Science and minored in Mathematics and Art.  He will teach Algebra 2 and Geometry, assist with strength and conditioning and the technical aspects of the musical, and live on Whittingham 2.  Both are children of schoolteachers who are friends of Ms. McDuffie, so we are grateful to her for “spreading the word.” 
 
Wilson Elder comes to us from the University of Virginia with a BA in History and an MA in European Studies.  He also was a counselor at the Kirk Family YMCA for two summers.  He will teach World History 1 and World History 2, assist with cross country and boys’ tennis, and live in Mattingly.  Our new Organist and Choirmaster, Paul Griffin comes to us with a Bachelor of Music from the University of Maine and a Masters in Sacred Music from Catholic University.  He has taught at St. Peter’s School on Capitol Hill for the past five years and served as the Organist and Director of Music at the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in DC for the last three.  He, his wife Sophia, and their one-year-old daughter Cecilia will live in Onderdonk, and he will teach Music Theory, piano and organ, and assist with second form Music and Drama, the musical, and boy’s third team basketball. 
 
As you can see, all four of our new colleagues are wonderfully qualified, and we are excited to welcome them to Saint James.  We are also excited to welcome our new and returning students and their families, and especially grateful to our returning faculty, staff, and administrators for their faithful, dedicated, and generous service.
 
Whether the distance be short or long or somewhere in between, I wish you all safe travels to Saint James and all our students a graceful year with many engaging adventures, new and deeper friendships, spiritual and moral growth, passions discovered, talents developed, challenges met, and triumphs shared with others.
 
Finally, let us all be sure to take this moment before the beginning of the year, like the moment at the beginning of every morning in chapel and before every seated meal in the refectory, to be grateful to God for all the blessings we enjoy: this beautiful campus and our elegant buildings, all who work so hard in the dorms, on the fields, and in the classrooms, and indeed the whole fellowship and community of the school, which supports and inspires us all. 
 
And let us not forget to be grateful to our generous benefactors in the past and in the present who have built and now improve and sustain our unique and thriving school.  Let us always be grateful for our blessings and mindful of the needs of others. 
 
For, as Saint James himself reminds us, “Every good gift and every perfect act of giving is from above.”
 
Yours faithfully,
 
The Revd. Dr. D. Stuart Dunnan
Headmaster