Teachers Dipping By The Dozen?

Rumors have swirled around campus recently that a large number of Deerfield faculty are preparing to leave the Academy after the 2024–2025 school year. Versions of this hearsay put the exact number as high as 20. {Acton suggested checking with Andren to get the real # of people leaving.} Students are continuing to swim in a sea of panic and confusion as they wonder about the status of their favorite teachers and ponder how they will move forward without them in the coming year.

“There’s a lot of speculation among the students as to why some teachers are leaving,” said Jean Lukas Meza ’26. To him, many of these encompass “not necessarily high-profile teachers but teachers and people that we connect with a lot,” he stated—”people that help guide you during difficult times.”

Some teachers cited familial reasons for their departure. English Teacher Alexandra Carter, for instance, stated that hers was “a family decision to head back to Houston (where [her] husband’s job is),” where she will work at a day school.

Science Teacher Caleb Corliss echoed Dr. Carter’s sentiment, saying, “I’m moving to northern Vermont to live in the same place as my wife.” For him, the move coincides with “potentially a shift in my career in education, or my career in science more broadly,” he said.

Regarding the rumor mill, Mr. Corliss said that while students might see “a single-year change like this... like a really big deal,” the faculty perspective is less dramatic. “We had very little turnover last year,” he described. “So, in some ways, you could think of

“If you look at a bigger sample size than the one year, you don’t see a big trend,” he continued.

Although faculty like retiring English Teacher Mark Scandling have been at Deerfield for decades, multiple departing teachers are on the younger end.

“If anything is happening,” Mr. Corliss said, “it’s not a Deerfield thing. It’s a boarding school thing.” He stated that it seems to him that young people are choosing to forgo the physical isolation of many boarding schools for life closer to cities. He continued, “and... when you are on at a boarding school, there’s not a ton of space in your life for a lot of other things.”