A Final Conversation and Goodbye to Mrs. Bett

By Quinn Martindale ‘27 and Rawnie Sun ‘25, Contributor and Head Editor-in-Chief; Edited by Kat Willson ‘26, Staff Editor

In celebration of Mr. and Mrs. Bett’s time at Ridley College now that they are leaving, The Tiger Times felt it would be very important to have a final interview with them to recap what Ridley has meant to them, what they will miss the most, and what adventures they are on to next!

The following is a transcript of the interview with Mrs. Bett. It has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

Quinn: Hi Mrs. Bett, today's interview marks a significant moment as we bid farewell to you and Mr. Bett. To start, could you share what you consider to be your most memorable experiences as the deputy headmaster at Ridley College?

Mrs. Bett: Wow, that's so difficult. There are a lot of great memories and different high notes. I will say that I love the fact that we are a singing school; I really love that we come together in chapel. We find that time in the middle of all the madness of academics, athletics, co-curriculars, and clubs, but we still find the time to come together as a community. Whether that's in the Chapel or when we eat together in the great hall. When you eat together and sing together, that draws us together, and they're such an important part of our school’s DNA.

Rawnie: Thanks, Mrs. Bett. That leads us nicely to our next question. What initially attracted you to Ridley, and how did your perception change over time?

Mrs. Bett: So, I first interviewed for Ridley College in 2015. At the time, I came from a very prestigious international school just outside of London. It was a fantastic community, but it only offered the last two years of the IB program. What attracted me most to Ridley was a) a boarding school, and I'd always worked in boarding schools, and b) an IB continuum school. I also loved that it continued to be an international community even though it was in Niagara. So, it was all of those things that ticked the boxes. Before coming to Ridley and when we were at TASIS (a family of international boarding and day schools), Mr. Bett and I had been part of a group that had been doing lots of research into the work of Marty Seligman, wellbeing, and PERMAV. So, when I found out that this school was like that and Mr. Kidd had already begun that journey at Ridley, it was like, wow, this school seems to resonate with me on a lot of different levels.

Quinn: Awesome! Now that your time here is coming to a close and you can reflect, how has the school’s environment changed or given you a new perspective on your work?

Mrs. Bett: It hasn't really given me a different outlook because Mr. Bett and I came from a boarding school. But I have seen the school as a very nurturing community, and over the last eight years, I've seen the school continue to push the needle on not just students being the best academic students they can be, but also what it means to be a good person. There's a lot of emphasis on that, developing the character inside each of us. Also, teaching the students those skills, habits, and rituals has become critical. I've seen the school garner momentum when it comes to understanding everything you need to know or to be committed to learning before you leave high school.

Rawnie: So, the next question is, were/are there any specific initiatives or programs that you are particularly proud or fond of at Ridley?

Mrs. Bett: Yeah, I think so. Even though I'm the deputy headmaster, I've never seen my role as being a single person who launches initiatives. But I'm a good team player and collaborator. So, I've been in charge of strategy number one: the learning community. I believe we have seen an increase in professional development among our teachers. We've seen the role of heads of house professionalized, being very different from where it had come from. We took our evaluation model of teachers, and we turned it on its head and said we want to continue to grow. So how do we implement a system that helps teachers grow as professionals rather than having a teacher that comes in, watches a class, writes it up and says, “It's a great class,” and that’s it? No, we want something more systematic and ongoing to inform teachers of their students’ learning based on professional development. And I’m proud of the work that we’ve done. And I’m proud of the way that we deal with students, this whole emphasis on restorative practices. You commit a faux pas with some schools, and it’s a strike. And we're much more of a learning community than that. The emphasis for us is very much on if you did something wrong, what harm did you cause to others? How are you going to approach that? So, the idea is that we're all good people, but occasionally we make bad choices. How do we help people in those circumstances? I'm proud of the community. It seems like history now, but we migrated over the March Break from being an in-person school to a virtual school. And I could put my hand on my heart and honestly say we didn't leave a student behind in their learning. So, I am incredibly proud of everyone in the community, including teachers, parents, and students.

Quinn: Last question! What is the mark or legacy you would like to leave on Ridley?

Mrs. Bett: My top VIA character strength has consistently been love every time I take it. And sometimes, we underestimate how important that is. We see ourselves as insignificant, a tiny dot in the mighty universe. That might be the case, but we're an essential dot, and it is absolutely possible for love to flourish. And I hope that I will be remembered as somebody who believes that human relationships are very important. Teachers have to have relationships with their students; they have to care about them and know who they are before any learning can take place. So, I truly hope that I'll be remembered as somebody who thinks there is a huge place for love and compassion and that those relationships are crucial to learning.

Rawnie: Okay, that wraps it up, and thank you so much for meeting with us. Before we go, I wanted to ask where you and Mr. Bett are headed next.

Mrs. Bett: Yes, so we will be moving to Manhattan, New York, where I will be the Assistant Executive Director of the United Nations School. It is right next door to the United Nations. It's fantastic. It has 103 different nationalities with over 1,600 students. We are going to their graduation ceremony tomorrow (Friday, May 31, 2024), which is in the General Assembly of the United Nations building, so it is a new adventure. And this one goodbye, for me, is very bittersweet. I'm going to be crying the whole drive there because I will miss everybody here. This is — if you don't know, you should know — a very special place.

Quinn: Well, thank you very much for your time, Mrs. Bett. We will miss you here, but we are very excited for you and Mr. Bett and all the new adventures you will have. And from all of Ridley, I want to tell you how grateful we are to both of you.

The Tiger Times Team would like to thank and express our deepest gratitude to Mrs. and Mr. Bett for their years of dedication and service, dating all the way back to 2016. Mrs. Bett’s emphasis on human relationships has no doubt touched on everyone within the Ridley community. Mr. Bett has always made an effort to connect with students on a personal level and as we bid them a fond farewell, we are all celebrating the incredible impact they have made on all of us as humans, students, and members of the Ridley community.