Even by boarding school standards, Proctor's educational model is relatively expensive, due to the size of the teaching faculty. Depending how you count them up, we have about seventy-five teachers for 346 students. One of them, Derek Mansell, is picture here with the winter Proctor in Spain group at the extraordinary Guggenheim Museum on a recent excursion to Bilbao, in Basque country, northern Spain.

The advantages of such a large teaching population may seem obvious--in terms of low student/teacher ratios and the availability of personal attention.

One arena in which the ratio is witnessed is advisee groupings. Each teacher is an advisor to a small group, that averages five students. We sit together in advisee groups in assemblies three times per week, and huddle on Tuesday mornings for about a half hour to discuss issues and plan student schedules.

But another way that the size of the faculty benefits students is less obvious. Beyond the usual liberal arts-type of curriculum (which requires that each student takes a minimum of three years of math and science, a year of US history plus five social science electives, two years of foreign language, etc.) there's still room for remarkable concentration and even specialization. These students are studying music recording.

My point is that the wealth of elective opportunities reflects the size and talents of the teaching faculty.

The arts are a great strength at Proctor, attracting students with specific interests in advancing individualized passions. Here's Ben with the cedar strip canoe he's building in the boathouse.

In summary, the size of the faculty enables Proctor students an opportunity that is rare in American high schools--to design curricula that are as individualized as the student population, itself.