New City School Celebrated Tom Hoerr’s Twenty-Year Milestone

Historical Summer 2001 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.

Do you remember what you were doing in 1981?

To help put the question into perspective, twenty years ago IBM sold its first personal computer, Prince Charles and Princess Diana wed, and both Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul Il were the targets of assassination attempts. At New City School, parents not only celebrated the tenth anniversary of the school occupying the building at Waterman and Lake, they welcomed a new Director as well.

This spring, Thomas R. Hoerr, current director of New City School, celebrated 20 years of leadership, vision and devotion to the families of NCS. Tom was selected by a Search Committee which included Board members, parents and teachers. Led by then Dean of Law at St. Louis University, Rudy Hasl, the committee spent 6 months interviewing several candidates. What were they looking for? “New City needed someone who could articulate and put into practice a vision of excellence, someone who could move us beyond the status quo mentality,” according to Tina Short, the next president of the board. New City was in the unenviable position of looking for its fourth director in eleven years. Acting as head of a brand new school in the midst of marathon discussions about educational philosophy and the varied, and often untested, methodologies which ran rampant in the 70’s and ’80’s took its toll on three highly qualified and respected educators. “We needed someone who could rationalize and codify the curriculum into one with with a scope and sequence from year to year,” said board member John Weil.

As a student at Harris Teachers College, Tom’s earliest aspirations included not much more than being a football coach. That changed when he began to work with students. Reflecting on his days as a student teacher, Tom says, “I began to see how teachers could change the lives of kids.” He began his teaching career in the St. Louis City Public Schools and then returned to UM-St. Louis to earn his Masters Degree in school administration and earned his Ph.D. in Educational Policymaking and Program Development from Washington University in 1983. Tom served as principal at Pershing School in the University City School District for three years before New City was fortunate enough to win him away.

While there, Tom incorporated new reading programs into the daily fabric of the school.

He also worked at finding new ways to involve parents in their children’s education. So what brought Tom to search for a new spot to exercise his vision of what can make schools great? “I remember being interviewed by the search committee,” he says, “not really being sure I was interested in the job.

But the more I talked with them, the more excited I became about a mission that really does put kids first and encourages educators to be creative.” When he came on board at New City, there were 235 students, 25 teachers, and a boiler that kept everyone in suspense while choosing their clothes each morning. One of the legends about New City is the story of Jock Bartley, parent of Wizzie ’81 and Lulu ’83, coming to school at 4:30 every morning to light the boiler because it cost too much to keep it running all night. Clearly Tom had his work cut out for him! First on the agenda was to put New City on a more stable economic footing.

The Board strengthened its Annual Giving program (which had raised $14,000 the year before) and continued the strong relationship with the neighborhood. Simultaneously, Tom began bringing highly qualified teachers and administrators to New City.

A performance-based merit pay system was adopted in 1985. Alumni/ae parent Mimi Hirshberg feels that one of Tom’s major strengths is “his ability to direct the school while letting people grow within the boundaries of the vision he has for NCS.” As the financial picture and the educational program found their feet, it was time to turn to what was. both a giant asset and a huge liability – the building.

When the structure at Waterman and Lake was purchased by New City in 1971 it was 70 years old and had not received much gentle, loving care over recent years. Much of the space that today we call the lower level, or preprimary, was unusable due to flooding, and the same could be said of much of the second floor due to age and wearand-tear.

If New City was to grow, its space would have to improve – drastically. Thus began a fifteen year period of capital improvements which have changed the face of the school from what one newspaper correspondent called “hipply-tattered” to a setting our kids are eager to learn in.

With the “Building on a Dream” campaign, which renovated much of building in 1988, the “Urban Campus” campaign, which purchased the land to the west of the school and created the playground, soccer field and running track in 1992, and the “Theater Renovation” campaign, which brought the 90 year-old theater back to its original classical beauty in 1999, the New City community has raised over $3.3 million dollars. Additionally, four years ago, New City was awarded a $1 million grant for building maintenance, which included tuckpointing, new windows and air conditioning. New City School is now one of the architectural gems of the Central West End.

But more important than all the success with bricks and mortar is the commitment Tom has had to the educational excellence and diverse make-up of New City School.

The founders’ vision was to have a school where children of different races, religions and economic means would learn together, thereby learning about and from each other. That mission still drives New City School thirty-one years later, and it has been the prime mover in Tom Hoerr’s vision for the school. Putting good teachers together is the first step, according to Tom. “Good teachers make good schools; great teachers make great schools.” While focusing on the faculty’s professional standards and sense of collegiality, Tom and the board have worked to move us from the days that the winter payroll was sometimes paid in cash sticky from Tree Lot sap to a level of competitive salaries and benefits which help to retain our great teachers.

The more elusive challenge of maintaining an independent, tuition-based school with a student body reflective of many different economic levels in society has occupied Tom’s energy for much of the last decade. Fortunately, and due to careful nurturing and clearly-articulated goals, New City has been able to grow its endowment from less than $100,000 to nearly $2 million in the last nine years.

The endowment now provides almost 20% of the funds awarded , for financial aid. Tom’s commitment to the New City of the future is abundantly clear when he says, “The continued growth of the endowment will insure that, despite inevitable tuition increases, we will be able to maintain our socio-economic balance in future years.” One cannot attempt to summarize this 20 year love affair with New City without speaking of Tom’s prescience in introducing the Theory of Multiple Intelligences to our curriculum.

It has been thirteen years since Tom returned from a sabbatical burning with the answer for which he had been searching – the method to help kids find their best ways to learn!

In typical fashion, Tom convened a committee of faculty who showed interest in the concept and nurtured this grass roots effort to change the way teaching was done at New City. Not only has this revolutionized how kids learn at Waterman and Lake, but it has grown into a national and international movement, with New City recognized as one of the leaders. Tom’s book, Becoming A Multiple Intelligences School, has been translated into French and Chinese, and he has written more than 30 articles about MI and faculty collegiality. Tom travels to schools and conferences all over the world to share the New City magic.

But one of the easiest ways to bring a smile to Tom’s face is by passing on alumni/ae’s comments about how MI has changed their lives. “Better than any test score, more important than any achievement, is a student’s sense of self-knowledge and self-worth.

If they know who they are, their goals and accomplishments can be limitless.

This is how we change the world…one kid at a time.” The Board of Trustees has dedicated the fountain in the Centennial Garden to Tom in honor of his 20th year at NCS.

The Centennial Garden and fountain will be formally dedicated in October 2001.

Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, Summer 2001.

Read this article in the original newspaper issue.

Original source: SD_Times2001_06.pdf, printed page(s) 11, 12; PDF page(s) 11, 12.