2 min read June 2023 — Invest: spoke with Joseph Seivold, headmaster of Berkeley Preparatory School, to discuss the growth of Tampa Bay and how the school is uniquely positioned to serve that growth. “People are seeking out Florida for a lot of reasons, especially the business environment, and they want to find a great school for their kids,” he said.
What have been your key highlights from the past year?
We’ve added more square footage, opening two new buildings in the past year. The first is the Forsyth Center for Elementary Education for grades 2 through 5 and the other is our brand-new Berkeley Chapel, which is a key component to the school’s identity. We’ve also added Bisk-Turkel Field in our stadium, a state-of-the-art turf field. Our enrollment has also grown. We expect to begin the 2023-2024 academic year with 1,420 fully enrolled students. We set a new record with incoming applications from Pre-K all the way up. It has become a very competitive field for students and their families who want to attend. On top of that, our attrition rate is under 2%. This shows the growth of our brand and reputation over the years. We are stronger than ever in the services we can provide our students and are proud of the breadth and depth of our programs.
How would you describe the educational landscape in Tampa Bay right now?
The growth in Tampa Bay and in Florida overall has been phenomenal and a key driver to our admissions. This is beyond a pandemic bump, too. People are seeking out Florida for a lot of reasons, especially the business environment, and they want to find a great school for their kids. A lot of schools in the state are filling up, with record admissions across the board. That bodes well for us, but with the increased popularity comes increased responsibility, for both independent and public schools. As the population grows, schools will need more teachers and more staff, jobs like bus drivers, for example, so we have to make sure we match the demand with the proper resources and staffing. There are great teachers everywhere; we need to attract and retain the highest-quality faculty available.
How is Berkeley different from other religious-based schools?
Even though we are an Episcopal school, Berkeley doesn’t provide a faith-based education per se. We provide an environment where diversity and inclusion are non-negotiable. We have students from dozens of faiths and embrace all of those. Berkeley sends the message that all children are welcome here, regardless of their spiritual formation. We will help them on their journey. Eight different faith traditions are represented in the Chapel’s fused glass windows, so that openness to individual spiritual journeys is clear in a visible way. It’s fundamentally about meeting students and their families where they are.
How are students engaging in inclusive learning environments?
A lot of initiatives are student-led. We have an Islamic Student club that was formed a few years ago and has over 20 members meeting every week. And these are also attended by students from all backgrounds. Our Sacred Texts club is led by the chaplain and has readings from all sorts of religious texts and gives students a chance to engage in critical dialogue across differences. It helps everyone walk away with a new understanding and perspective. We have the expectation that everyone treats each other with kindness and respect and to remember that we are all allies. It is a way to create cultural competency that reflects our student population, 40% of which are people of color.
There’s a misunderstanding that independent schools exist in a bubble that shields students from the real world. Nothing could be further from the truth at Berkeley. We run a summer program called The Berkeley Academy, which admits seventh-grade students from under-resourced backgrounds in Tampa Bay to learn over an intensive six-week program with a focus on college readiness. That program is underpinned by hundreds of our own students working with and mentoring these under-resourced children as they move through the program. And our students gain every bit as much from those interactions.
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