6 One of Us
Ponte Vedra Recorder ·September 10, 2015
Did you ever think you’d end up in Florida?
No. I never thought I’d be living in
Alabama and never thought I’d be living
in Florida! I’m married with three kids —
they’re all students here also — and we
love Florida. We love the southern culture.
My wife is from northern Virginia and
went to University of Richmond and was
a lower school teacher in Richmond for a
number of years. She loved Richmond. We
knew we were going to love this kind of
feel to a town. Her brother lives outside
of Orlando in Winter Park — so we’ve
spent some time in Florida and we are
thrilled to be here.
Tell me about your children.
They are going into seventh, eighth and
ninth grade at Bolles. This is a great lower
school campus and they feed into our
middle school campus. The middle school
has its own campus. I have two there — a
boy in seventh grade, Beau, and a daughter, Campbell, in eighth grade. And then I
have a son, Wyatt, on the big campus —
the San Jose Campus — in ninth grade.
I’ve loved that middle school experience. They really can just be middle
school students there. They don’t have to
worry about what the big kids are up to.
That’s my crew and they’re enjoying it. It’s
been a good transition for all of us.
What is your vision for this year at the
Bolles School?
David Farace is the new Head of School at the Bolles School’s four campuses, including Ponte Vedra Beach. The Bolles Board of Trustees named Farace Head of
School in October 2014 after a yearlong search process which fielded candidates from all over
the world. Farace took over the school’s top leadership position this semester from Bradley
R. Johnson ,‘79, who served Bolles most recently as Interim Head of School. Originally from
Maryland, Farace received his bachelor’s degree in economics from Washington and Lee
University and a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University. He attended high school at
McDonogh School in Owings Mills, Maryland, where he was a boarding student and later returned to launch his career. Farace—whose role as Head of School has him involved in every
Bolles campus—comes to Bolles with more than 20 years of independent school leadership,
most recently as Head of School at The Montgomery Academy preparatory school In Montgomery, Alabama. To learn more about the Bolles School, visit www.bolles.org.
I was a headmaster before, and in year
one I really do like to spend a lot of time
listening. I’ll be doing that on all of our
campuses — this campus in particular.
Spending time with the faculty and the
parents, with the administration. Just
spending time listening and learning the
culture. Then taking it from there. We are
engaged in our reaccreditation with the
Florida Council of Independent Schools,
FCIS. That happens once every 10 years.
We are required to go through that this
year, and as part of that we do strategic
planning. I’ll be listening but we also are
developing a strategic plan. We have lots
of constituent members from the community involved in that. Some of those plans
will roll out in a month or two.
What sets Bolles apart from other schools
where you have worked?
I think it’s the mission. Our motto is:
‘The Bolles Way: Pursuing excellence
through courage, integrity and passion.’
When I was a candidate for the job and
saw that on the website, that really got me
excited. I dug a little deeper and now that
I’m here, it’s more than a motto — it’s an
ethos that permeates every corner of every campus. I love that. I love that we are
academically an outstanding school and
these kids are going to be exceptionally
well prepared. When they go from lower
school to middle school to upper school,
they’ll be exceptionally well prepared for
college — no doubt. I’ve talked to alums
and parents of alums and they all say that
to a person.
— Kelly H. McDermott