student Life

At Hewitt, our mission—to inspire girls and young women to become game changers and ethical leaders who forge an equitable, sustainable, and joyous future—informs our commitment to designing learning experiences that reflect the complexity of the world in which we live.

The Hewitt community marked the final weeks of the 2020-2021 school year with several joyful celebrations, including Field Day in Central Park, a visit from the Mister Softee ice cream truck, and Commencement Exercises for the Class of 2021.

I am forever grateful for my 13 years at Hewitt. I am grateful for the lifelong relationships I have nurtured here, the lessons learned, the best successes, and the greatest failures. I am grateful to all of you — my brilliant teachers and friends, our community, and our families — for shaping me into the young woman I am proud to be today. 

Over this past year, it struck me that there is not all that big a difference between you, me, and the superheroes we see in movies. True, we cannot snap our fingers and expect half the universe to evaporate to dust, but there is a tremendous amount that we can do both as individuals and even more so as a community to improve the world, one small action at a time. 

Our work as News Decoder Student Ambassadors has been one of the most significant extracurriculars of our high school careers. It has enabled us to engage with people from different areas of the world on broad, real-world topics that affect our immediate and extended community.

By incorporating social-emotional learning standards into English courses, teachers are building a classroom culture that prepares students to apply their developing emotional intelligence to the academic, interpersonal, and, eventually, professional areas of their lives. 

We are delighted to announce that Sarah Odell will be Hewitt’s inaugural learning and innovation researcher. This new position will play an essential role in the research and design of an ethical leadership program for young women that centers equity, sustainability, and joy, and that is rooted in transdisciplinary, real-world learning.

We are dedicated to providing students with consistent and individualized feedback not only because it ultimately improves their outcomes on essays and exams, but also because the ability to process ongoing feedback and work iteratively toward larger goals will be critical to their success beyond Hewitt.

In our first year running the BSU, we decided to take on a leadership opportunity by creating an original Black History Month curriculum for students in middle and high school. Through our lessons and activities, students explored the Black experience and what it means to be an empathetic and active ally.

Participating in performing arts at Hewitt has given me the chance to develop new skills and make countless memories. Performing on stage has helped build my confidence, stage management has refined my organizational abilities, and being dance captain has given me the chance to be a leader and use my dance training in a new way.