Founded by a woman, run by a woman, designed with a curriculum that focuses on the way women learn, Miss Oliver's School for Girls will always be true to its defining mission, the single-sex education of girls, as long as Marjorie Boyd is the headmistress. It is her vivid leadership and deep understanding of progressive education that has made this New England boarding school a home away from home where girls, free of the presumptive dominance of boys, learn how capable they really are, how expansive their potential is. But Marjorie Boyd has just been fired. She's paid too little attention to the business side of her job, to marketing and finances, and the school's in financial crisis. The board has had no choice but to save the school from the impractical nature of the very woman who has made it so worth saving.
The novel opens on Graduation Day, as Marjorie makes her final speech, saying goodbye to the assembled students, their parents and the alumnae, who love her for the school that's changed their lives. Hiding her bitterness, she's handing the school over to the young educator whose job it will be to save what she has built.
And who happens to be male!
What an egregious error to appoint a male to lead this very feminist -some would say sexist- environment! And how naive can this young headmaster, Fred Kindler be to believe he can survive, not only as a male but as the usurper of the position that everyone but the board wants Marjorie to hold forever?
On the other hand, why shouldn't the board trust the school community to set prejudice aside in favor of a sensible approach? Fred Kindler is as fine an educator as Marjorie Boyd, though less charismatic, and unlike her, he's good at finances and marketing. What's more he's passionate and knowledgeable about single-sex education for women, is already in love with the school, and longs to share the lives of girls the age his daughter would be if he hadn't lost her to a tragic accident two years ago. All Fred Kindler has to do to cool the animosity - and quell the rumor that he's been appointed to admit boys to save the school - is secure the loyalty and public support of the legendary teacher, Francis Plummer, whose well earned reputation has made him second only to Marjorie in power and influence. Fred knows how loyally Francis, the school's most gifted teacher, served Marjorie, but he's confident a person so bright as Francis will work hand in hand with him to save the school he loves.
What Fred doesn't know is that Francis is more than loyal to Marjorie; he's dependent on her, made her a kind of surrogate parent. Everything about Fred Kindler, so unlike Marjorie Boyd, offends Francis and he resists Fred's every initiative. Instead, Peggy Plummer, Francis' wife, the school's librarian, steps forward to support Fred Kindler, usurping her husband's position at the head's right hand, and bringing long buried problems in their marriage flying to the surface.
Thus this change that comes to Miss Oliver's School for Girls puts not only the school at risk, but its single-sex mission, the girls' faith that what they love can last, Fred Kindler's career, and the Plummers' marriage. The novel ends as it begins, on Graduation Day, one year after Marjorie's final speech. It takes right to that final moment for the reader to learn what prevails and what does not.
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