AROUND THE PARK AGAIN By Sharon Lee Tegler
Looking into a sea of faces as he began his remarks during the dedication of St. Martin’s-in-the-Field Episcopal School’s new Student Learning Center on December 5, 2019, Jamey Hein felt the excitement of the students, parents, teachers, and members of the clergy gathered round him. The dedication represented the culmination of years of planning, fundraising and execution for all who made the building’s construction possible. For Hein the occasion represented one of the crowning achievements of his seven-year career as St. Martin’s Head of School.
Shortly after being hired in April 2014, the amiable young educator and Connecticut native had an opportunity to explore the campus and meet with his predecessor, Rev. Frank Sawyer. While there, he looked into living arrangements and attended one of the school’s Festive Field Party fundraisers where he was warmly welcomed.
In July, Hein and his family arrived from Ann Arbor, Michigan where he’d spent seven years as a division head at Greenhills School.
“When I arrived, the school looked and felt very different, in every way, from they way it looks and feels today, Hein said. “It had a sense of soul but had not been innovated or modernized in any way so it felt a bit old fashioned.”
“For a very long time, it had been run by St. Martin’s Church as a parish preschool but it evolved into an elementary school in the late 1990’s and continued it’s evolution by adding a middle school in 2008. As one board member put it, the school had good bones but was a fixer-upper.”
Hein’s main mission as Head of School was to encourage child-centered learning. He observed that this involved teachers moving from “sage on the stage” to “guide on the side” as a way of allowing children’s voices and ideas to surface.
Almost immediately he instituted “Java With Jamey” gatherings to communicate his ideas to parents and get their feedback.
He mentioned his devotion to developing skill sets important for children’s futures – skills he considers keys to critical thinking like reading, writing and oral communication.
He also highlighted the significance of St. Martin’s acceptance into the Association of Independent Schools following a multiyear process to gain accreditation.
Parents, in turn, voiced desires that classes remain small and requested the school continue teaching cursive.
Meeting with parents, grandparents and supporters is an important part of how Hein brings them along with his ideas and innovations. He’s always been enthusiastic about meeting, greeting and speaking at events like the school’s annual Festive Field Party fundraisers.
From the outset of his seven-year journey, Hein realized his major concern was construction of a long dreamed of new learning center. But he considered that goal part of a larger equation.
“What I feel we’ve accomplished here is putting the school on an entirely new trajectory,” he said. “We’ve deepened its Episcopal identity, updated, modernized and advanced every facility, and by the end of summer, the renovation of the preschool will complete the renewal.”
An early indicator of new directions was a complete renovation of the playground and the creation of an iLab. The iLab project was launched with help from Norm Snyder, the grandfather of several St. Martin’s students and a major donor. Snyder had been the founder of Conquest, a computer technology company he later sold to Boeing.
Students helped raise $1,300 to build the lab by duct-taping their good-natured headmaster to a wall for $1 per piece of tape. They loved the lab. Who knew you could create a piano by wiring together half a dozen bananas or build a fully prosthetic hand using a 3-D printer?
Board of trustees chair Louise Knight was fascinated by 6th-grader Alex Treff’s cleverly wired banana keyboard. 
8th-grader Andrew Knight showed off a prosthetic hand made by his classmate Brandon Shin.
As chairman of the board of trustees, Snyder was at Hein’s side when St. Martin’s launched its major capital campaign for the learning center during the 2017 Field Party.
They also unveiled construction plans for the center – a 6,500 square foot facility that would house K-8 science and art classes and middle school core classes.
“There had been three different efforts at designing a building for the middle school but, when I arrived here, we scaled it back. We realized that we’d not done this before and needed to be realistic with our goals, aspirations and funding,” Hein said.
By Thanksgiving of 2018, construction was well along under the supervision of project manager Lynda Snyder. As usual, the school’s annual Children’s Thanksgiving Feast took place with food and decorations prepared by students from each grade. Always a good sport, Hein presided over the feast wearing a turkey on his head. Students from kindergarten and fourth grade offered prayers of thanksgiving and then were led by eighth-grade “buddies” to a buffet served by parent volunteers.
The end of 2019 saw the completion of the middle school construction and an impressive dedication ceremony. It began with a religious service in St. Martin’s Church followed by a procession to the learning center, a ribbon cutting by the entrance, and a blessing by The Right Reverend Eugene Taylor Sutton, 14th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland.
Students couldn’t wait to show off their new classrooms to the parents and church members in attendance. Having just moved from their old mobile classrooms, they were eager to settle in and appreciate their new surroundings.
Visitors filing through the building that afternoon couldn’t help being impressed by science labs, art rooms and new classrooms.
Not only was the Student Learning Center open and accommodating but the school, in general, had been upgraded. The once-meager administrative staff was augmented by hiring true professionals for positions in admissions, finance, and marketing and development to provide a solid structure moving forward. There was a marked improvement in teacher salaries and an effort to broaden the curriculum to include more diversity.
St. Martin’s was becoming known across a wider geographical area, in part due to membership in the Mid-Atlantic Episcopal School Association of which Hein is president.
On dedication day, however, he had no idea that the biggest challenge of his tenure as Head of School still lay ahead. Following school closures and a switch to remote learning from late March through June of 2020, St. Martin’s board of trustees’ met through the summer. They made a decision to fully reopen the campus in September of 2020 for in-person learning (while public schools remained closed). It fell to Hein to implement the decision.
Bringing the students back to school went smoothly and was extremely successful. With COVID guidelines in place, children wearing masks, and the teachers wholeheartedly onboard, there were no problems with the exception of a few positive tests. Classes were quickly back to normal five days a week.
” It was completely worth it,” Hein said. “One unexpected silver lining of the COVID pandemic was enrollment. A year ago, we were projecting an enrollment of 160 students. Instead, because of our ability to stay open, we now have an enrollment of 230 and we’ll start next fall with an enrollments of 280 students. We hope we can keep all those students in our school family and we’re now second-guessing if we should have made the learning center bigger after all.”
He added that COVID innovations , the opening of the learning center, and the ongoing renovations and educational upgrades combined to transform the school. He observed that Internet technology has become an integrated part of learning – a part he believes the school has used wisely.
Hein’s time as Head of School for St. Martin’s-in-the-Field Episcopal School will come to a close at the end of June. He’ll be moving on to become Interim Head of School of The Calverton School in Huntingtown, Calvert County – a Pre-K through 12th grade International Baccalaureate School with a student body of 300. Founded in the 1950’s, Calverton School’s 150 acre campus is a busy one and includes a boarding facility for some of it’s international students.
Charles Sachs, Hein’s successor as Interim Head of School will not arrive until July. Meantime, Hein will continue as before and find time to do many more of his much-loved readings with the smaller children.
