With Mr. Garman heading off to Sidwell Friends at the end of the semester, the school board was faced with the challenge of finding someone to fill his shoes as Head of Wilmington Friends School. After a long, meticulous process, the school board found that the best person for the job was right in the building: Mr. Ken Aldridge, the school’s current Assistant Head of School for Academics.
New to WFS this fall, Mr. Aldridge has been working in a variety of areas within the school. As the International Baccalaureate (IB) Coordinator, he works with outside sources, faculty members, and students with matters relating to the program.
He is the Quest Director and the one in charge of both professional development and overlooking the curriculum across all three divisions (Lower, Middle, and Upper Schools). Needless to say, Mr. Aldridge is a busy and hard worker who is ready to successfully take on another challenge: “I’m excited… to build off of Mr. Garman’s leadership and work for the school,” he says. He will begin his journey as Headmaster on July 1st, 2015.
Although new to the Wilmington area, Mr. Aldridge is no stranger to the Quaker life; he has twenty-five years of experience working in Quaker schools, and has long since been a Quaker himself, regularly attending Germantown Meeting. For six years he worked at the George School in Newtown, Pennsylvania, where he taught physics and chemistry, an ethics course, and also coached swimming and tennis.
Mr. Aldridge’s friendly charisma came in handy, as he was a dorm parent at the boarding school for five out of his six years there. For one year, he served as the Assistant Dean for Students. Following his time at the George School, Mr. Aldridge transitioned to Germantown Friends School. Over the course of eighteen years, he was the Science Department Chair, and taught an assortment of science courses, including; physics, chemistry, and environmental studies. On top of this, he instructed a seventh grade Quakerism class and was the Middle School Principal for his last seven years there. Talk about qualified.
While having lived in Philadelphia for twenty-four years, Mr. Aldridge says that he has had friendly connections with WFS faculty members for years prior to today. He and Mr. Garman got to know each other through the Friends Council, and he met both Mrs. Zug and Mr. Rhodewalt through the George School.
Mrs. Zug and him were both teachers there at the same time, and kept close ties since. She provided an inside perspective on the choosing process; what it was about Mr. Aldridge that stood out among the other contestants:
“Ken is a great listener. He interviewed as someone with impressive administrative experience, who understands Friends schools and combined what he heard from us with innovative ideas of his own. He believes in the IB program, in global education and the value of the Friends school community.” She adds that past students loved taking his chemistry classes, and that he has always offered spectacular leadership.
The students and faculty here at Wilmington Friends are more than happy to welcome Mr. Aldridge, just as he is ready and looking forward to taking on the challenge. He says he is most excited about the opportunity to serve at and learn about another, new Quaker school, and to build off of Mr. Garman’s strong leadership.
Also hinting at his plans for the future of Friends, Mr. Aldridge remarks that he is “really excited about what we say about global education… [I] want to consider international exchanges with other schools.” There is no doubt that Mr. Aldridge will bring a new, fresh perspective to the WFS community, as well as conserving and executing the school’s core, time-honored values.