Coming Full Circle

New Head of School Heather Mock shares Prep’s lasting influence on her career as she returns to where it all began.

On July 1, Heather Bushnell Mock will join Sandia Prep as its new Head of School. In September 2021, she was unanimously voted into the position by the school’s Head of School Search Committee from a highly competitive field of candidates. Three years prior, Heather founded Compositive Primary in Aurora, Colorado and before that, she was Associate Head of School at Dawson School in Lafayette, Colorado. But before those lauded administrative turns and prior to years of shepherding faculty and students at eminent schools, Heather began her career in academia right here at Prep. Almost 30 years ago, she started as an on-call substitute teacher, then taught social studies, English, and drama. She also coached volleyball and led Outdoor Leadership Program (OLP) trips.

Heather remarks that her visit during the vetting process was very welcoming. “I felt like I was coming home. The same strong sense of community that I remember pervades every corner and came through in every conversation I had, whether with parents, faculty, or students.”

As Heather rejoins the Prep community, she wonders if new administrative traits necessitated by the pandemic will remain the new norm. For example, she and her Compositive administrators began making quick transitions and taking on new responsibilities at a moment’s notice. As a result of the hastened decision-making process, everyone realized that administrative change in schools is too often glacial. The pandemic demanded unprecedented flexibility with schools’ curriculum delivery, scheduling, and attendance. So, school administrators became more accepting of less deliberation, real-time assessments, and speedy decision-making. Out of necessity, changes that usually took years happened literally overnight. “I'm hopeful people will be more open to change. Because we can also recognize that if a change isn’t working, we can change it back.” Heather learned that Prep changed to longer class periods, for example, and she’s a big proponent of them. She also realized the mixed blessing of Zoom meetings. “People are tired of Zoom, but at the same time, the app has opened up a lot of possibilities.” Zoom cuts commute times for parents and teachers and allows for more discussion in advisories and conferences. She even used the app to host parent movie trivia nights, as a reprieve from everyone’s shared stress.

During the initial lockdown, Heather kept a blog, remarking on her professional and personal experiences. Professionally, she monitored her children’s respective school’s actions, which provided interesting fodder. Personally, she and her family “ended up having a lot of really nice time at home playing Settlers of Catan, Trivial Pursuit, and Telestrations. We just got to be together.”  

She also loves how Prep encourages—and the students employ—the idea of individuation. “[At Prep] you’re not necessarily just a theater person or an OLP person or just an athlete, but if that’s what you’re super-passionate about, you can do just those things, too. What’s amazing about this ethos is that it’s not only about enjoyment but problem solving. When students put themselves out there in the arts or sports, they’re collaborating to achieve an outcome. They fall down repeatedly and pick themselves up and start over again.” All of which, Heather reminds, makes for fostering essential life skills, “which is why it’s great Prep encourages people to try everything.” Heather sees this Prep spirit as linked to the broader idea of a liberal arts education. “The longer you can keep doors open and try something, you might get really jazzed up by something that you never thought you would.”

As Heather joins Prep, she notes that, it’s been an arduous time to run a school and the cultural landscape is “just magnifying issues that have always been there.” She noted three concerns she’ll be mindful of as she starts as Prep’s Head of School. One, is bringing together multiple constituencies. “You want to make sure that everyone is working together for the kids, ultimately. That, to me, is one of the best strategies, which is simpler than you think. Just step back and say, ‘What do we actually think is best for the kids?’” Two, is paying close attention to the mental health concerns of our students. “It’s become a big issue everywhere.” Heather will focus on the best strategies to continue to care for our kids’ well-being. Three, are issues surrounding diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEI&B) which COVID has magnified. While Heather states that her current school is diverse, she’s well aware that students at other schools are voicing their discontent via Instagram and other platforms. School administrations are realizing “that they weren’t necessarily doing as good of a job as they thought, and that a lot of students were certainly not feeling a sense of belonging.” The challenge is to be sure to resolve questions of belonging, acceptance, and alienation. “And again, my strategy is, we can agree that we want everyone to feel like they belong. So, what are the things that we can do that will make everyone feel that way?”

 It seems an air of serendipity has pervaded this new opportunity for Heather and the Sandia Prep community. When Heather first heard of the Head of School opening, she thought the idea of coming “full circle” would be poetic, not only because she’d return to where her academic career began, but where her lifelong relationship began. Her husband, Jim Mock, was her boyfriend all those years ago and was attending the University of New Mexico’s School of Law while she was a grad student at Columbia University in New York City. They met while living thousands of miles apart and, in turn, she moved to New Mexico to join him. Heather fell in love with her husband and with the Land of Enchantment. Shortly after, she joined Prep. So, Albuquerque has doled out exciting beginnings for her.

When she visited at the beginning of the school year, Heather spoke with such a variety of people from her past at Prep, that the experience touched her. She interacted with former students who were now Prep parents and board members and thought, “That’s so crazy!” Former History Department Chair and new Dean of Students Dr. Scott Crago was an eighth- grader when she last taught him, and she reacquainted herself with Athletic Director Willie Owens, with whom she worked years ago. As she toured the campus, Heather remembered, more and more, how the community resonated with her. She recalled how being an on-call substitute teacher was the perfect job to start her career with “because I was teaching everything. For me, it was about helping kids develop skills to be good humans in this world,” no matter the class’s subject.  

She and Jim have been back a couple of times since she accepted the position. They drove past the house they lived in and went to a Flying Star (which was then called Double Rainbow). They had dinner at Il Vicino because that was their favorite restaurant back then. “There’s a lot of personal stuff, nostalgia, that got brought up that I hadn’t really anticipated.”

Heather realized how much her experience at Prep positively affected her belief that she wants to help kids grow. When she got her first administrative job as a dean, the students called her their “school mom,” and during this past challenging year, someone called her their “mother hen.” So, there’s a heartening ethic the new Head of School for Sandia Prep is bringing with her. “I’m about nurturing kids and meeting them where they are, helping them figure out what they love and who they want to be. Years ago, my time at Prep really was integral in that belief being such a part of who I am as an educator.”