As he prepared to enter the RCDS Upper School, Peter Quagliaroli had three things at the forefront of his mind: kindness, trust, and joy. These qualities, he stressed in an early interview, were necessities within a community. 

With the student body back on campus, Quagliaroli is now fully immersed in the Rye Country Day community and ready to tackle the first few months of school. “I’ve felt very welcomed and supported,” the principal said, noting the warmth and kindness he has received thus far. 

Upper schoolers feel the same way about his arrival, Student Body President Tyler Moyer, ‘23, noting his clear enthusiasm to prioritize and work with the students. “Mr. Q knows that we have been through a lot in the last few years,” Moyer said, “and he wants to bring new liveliness into RCDS.”

Post-pandemic, Quagliaroli hopes to continue the dialogue around expectations and community norms. “Communities and cultures are living organisms, and we hold each other to standards not because the principal said so but because your friend next to you expects that of you,” he explained. 

After a heavy emphasis on restorative justice in the past two and a half years, Quagliaroli is prepared to clarify what this system is–and is not. “It’s not really for behavior modification,” he said. “It’s a way of bringing parties together after an incident, where instead of skipping to discipline, we work through the why behind the event itself.” Though detentions will remain in RCDS’s past, restorative justice is not an effective response to lateness, nor does it hold the same weight as a detention. “There are certain elements to being a student that are just the rules of the road,” Quagliaroli said, but asserted that these expectations live in a different realm than restorative justice. “Violation of those community norms can result in losses of privileges and ‘if, then’ statements and Draconian measures,” he said, but ultimately the punishment will fit the crime– and being late to class will not result in a restorative justice circle.

Punctuality, in Quagliaroli’s eyes, is a way for students to show up for their peers and teachers; his hope for this year is for the community to start off on the same page about refocusing on expectations, and for students and faculty alike to show up for each other. “I hope that as busy as the students are, they find time to go see their friends compete [and] go take the time to be in the space between periods.” 

Getting a sense of the “rhythm and flow” of the community, Quagliaroli described the RCDS environment as a “busy, high-functioning, [and] high achieving place.” His concern is that students will pursue “everything at a break-neck, chicken-with-head-off pace” as opposed to pursuing what they find important, having already encountered students with extremely heavy course loads. Similarly, Quagliaroli detailed the concept of “have-tos and want-tos” in April, or responsibilities and genuine passions. He emphasized the importance of balance between the two, something high school students may lack. “When I think about high school students today […], there’s a ton of pressure to pursue, there’s a ton of pressure to succeed, achieve,” he said. Quagliaroli now envisions being able to “leave certain things on the cutting room floor and feel good about that.” 

In the spring, Quagliaroli also defined the role of a principal as “the narrator of the values of the school for the division.” Looking at the new schedule, the principal revealed its reflection of the faculty’s values: longer blocks, an every-other day rhythm, and Z block. Although Z block is a source of apprehension for many students, “what we’re finding is that a lot lives in Z,” Quagliaroli said. “There’s a lot of flexibility, [though] some students are scheduled all the way through everything.”

The new schedule also reflects the RCDS Upper School’s emphasis on community, with weekly morning meetings, club meetings, and advisory meetings. Most importantly, the schedule contains “in-between” times, as Quagliaroli dubbed them, where “the real beauty and art of a community happens.”

As he experiences the excitement of the student body returning to the halls, Quagliaroli looks forward to the in-between times most: being at lunch, meeting students, and walking through the halls. He demonstrates excitement, compassion, and curiosity as he continues to acclimate to the upper school. “It’s interesting to be in a new space that you know you’re going to build to be your new home.”

Read Quagliaroli’s first interview from April 2022 here.