By Jacky Hayward '02

John Taylor, the academic dean of Deerfield, will leave this January to take the position of headmaster at St. Andrew's, a school in Olizos, which is just outside of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Although born in Peru, John Taylor is from Argentina and his family still lives there. His wife was born in Argentina, where her family also resides. Mr. Taylor said, "We are primarily leaving to be close to our families. As great as Deerfield has been to us over the years, it has been hard to be away from our families for twelve years."

This decision was a difficult one for him to make: "We've raised our children in this wonderful community. Deerfield has been a very special place for us. We have developed wonderful relationships with both students and faculty, and the school has given me a remarkable chance to grow professionally. But, ultimately, this job offer gave me the opportunity to go back home and to work in a very good school."

Mr. Taylor has been the academic dean at Deerfield for the past two years and has had a large impact on the school. Headmaster Eric Widmer said, "We are very proud of Mr. Taylor. . . Whenever someone goes off to take on headmastership elsewhere, Deerfield takes it as a feather in its cap as well. Still, the fact is Mr. Taylor leaves a vacancy behind him which will be hard to fill. In just a few years as academic dean he has had a large impact on the school."

Mr. Taylor's position as academic dean is an important one and must be filled. There will be a search conducted during the fall of this year for a replacement.

St. Andrew's, a co-ed, K-12 school, has about 2,000 students. It has a bilingual student body; at age three, students start to learn English along with their native Spanish. By the time they graduate, they are fluent in both English and Spanish.

St. Andrew's is a school with a great deal of academic rigor; not only does it observe the national requirements but also the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme.

The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme is a rigorous preuniversity course of studies, leading to examinations. Similar to AP's the tests are taken during the junior and senior years at the end of the year and each test is graded on a scale of 1 to 7.

Students at St. Andrew's take the IB's in English; it is one of two schools in the world that takes it in a second language. Eighty percent of St. Andrew's students pass the exam, showing a high level of scholastic achievement in the student body.

As published in the September 9, 2000 issue of the Deerfield Scroll, the monthly newspaper of Deerfield Academy.