Head of School
Fayerweather speaks.
When I try to describe what Fayerweather actually is, I come back to the same thing: a school built on a particular belief about children. That they are intelligent and curious long before we give them anything to prove. That they are capable of real thinking, real work, and real community, right now, at four and at eight and at thirteen, not someday when they have grown into it. This belief shapes everything we do: how we teach, who we hire, what we ask of children, and the kind of community we are building alongside them.
Fayerweather is a PK–8 progressive school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We are made for families who share this belief about children. Families who would rather their child go deep than go fast. Families who want a school that meets each child where they actually are. Families who understand that belonging and intellectual seriousness are not opposing values but the same commitment. What we hope our students carry with them after eighth grade is something specific: the habit of real thinking, the capacity to build something alongside people unlike themselves, and a self they actually recognize. That kind of formation does not arrive in a year or two. It accumulates.
If this is the education you want for your child, I would love for you to come and see it. Spend time on our site: meet our teachers, read about our practices, look closely at how children spend their days. Then come visit us. Walk the hallways. Listen at the open doors. The school will tell you most of what you need to know.
In partnership,
Kim Ridley, Ph.D.
Head of School
Kim Ridley, Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology
Head of School
Kimberly Ridley, Ph.D., is Head of School at Fayerweather Street School. She has led the school since July 2018.
Kim holds an M.A. in School-Clinical Psychology from Adelphi University and a B.A. in Psychology from Spelman College. She is also an ICF-credentialed leadership coach (ACC) and principal of KTR Coaching/Consulting Services, a practice that shapes how she approaches the growth and formation of teachers and school leaders.
Kim's Corner
Strong Beams, Wobbly Moments
April 2, 2026
Welcome to April! On this past Monday, the Parent/Caregiver Association read a passage from the book Scaffold Parenting by Harold S. Koplewicz of the Child Mind Institute. We read chapter 8, “Building Strength.” After sending recent communications to the FSS community, I found it ironic that we would be talking about resilience and grit. It was a timely subject!
One of the quiet truths of childhood is that it is, in many ways, a long series of transitions. New classrooms, shifting friendships, growing expectations, small failures, and big feelings, all unfolding in rapid succession. From the outside, it can look like a steady march forward. From the inside, for a child, it often feels like constant change.
This is where the role of the parent becomes both essential and profound. If childhood is the movement, then parenting is the container. It is the steady structure around the change, the consistency, the rhythm, the “we’ve got you” that allows a child to wobble, stretch, fall apart a little, and come back together again. Schools, too, play a role in building that container, but it is at home where the beams are reinforced daily.
In our recent parent gathering, as we reflected on Scaffold Parenting, we discussed what it means to build those internal beams, courage, confidence, resilience, and tenacity. Not the kind that looks shiny and effortless, but the kind that gets tested when things don’t go as planned (which, as we all know, is…often). The image of a “fortress” came up, a structure that can withstand weather, as what we are aiming to cultivate in our parenting journey. And if you’ve spent any time with children, you know there is no shortage of weather-related shifts and changes.
What struck me most in our conversation was not just what we hope to build in our children, but what we carry ourselves. Many of us grew up in environments where strength meant pushing through, staying quiet, or “grinning and bearing it,” which was my parents' belief system. Some of us were given responsibility early; others learned to manage stress without much language or support. We bring all of that with us into our parenting, sometimes intentionally, sometimes without realizing it.
And yet, what we articulated so clearly is a hope for something more expansive for our children: that they can fall and get back up, yes, but also that they can ask for help, name what they feel, adapt, and move forward with greater awareness and self-compassion. That they develop not just endurance, but staying power, tenacity with reflection.
Of course, here’s the humbling part: children don’t learn this because we say it. They learn it because we live it. They watch how we handle frustration, how we repair after conflict, and how we respond when things don’t go our way (including when we step on one too many Legos or send an email we wish we could unsend). They are, quite inconveniently, always observing.
So the work, it turns out, is ours as much as theirs. To keep nailing down the planks of patience, warmth, awareness, a bit of healthy detachment, and the metacognitive muscle to pause and reflect. To model what it looks like to lose footing and find it again.
Because in the end, childhood is not the only season of transition. Life continues to ask this of us, again and again. And the more we practice finding our footing, the more we become that steady ground not only for our children, but for ourselves.
And perhaps that is the real goal: not to raise children who never struggle, but to raise humans, ourselves included, who know how to keep going, keep learning, and keep rebuilding, one beam at a time.