After 10 years at the Sewanee Children’s Center (six as director) Sandy Glacet has stepped down to become the assistant to the academic dean and registrar at St. Andrew’s-Sewanee. Parents and SCC board members agree that Glacet leaves behind a much stronger institution: one more organized, more financially stable, functioning with greater cooperation among parents, teachers, and board members, and garnering the highest DHS ratings in the state year after year. In many ways, Glacet’s story epitomizes the best outcome of a cooperative preschool like the SCC. Her relationship began as a parent, deeply involved in the education of her two sons at SCC; then Glacet became a teacher, working to create curriculum guided by the children’s curiosity at play; and finally, when SCC needed her most, she stepped up as director.

Over the past 70 years, the SCC has been deeply rooted in this community; however, Glacet was never content to rely on the past. Every year she instituted major improvements, which not only benefited the center but improved the lives of our families: creating a toddler class and a summer camp program, seeking out grants to support enrichments like music, dance, yoga, and fitness, as well as improvements to the playground, committing herself and the board to envisioning the future of the center in ambitious and achievable ways, and collaborating with the board on fundraising opportunities that gave back to the community, while raising money for curriculum and salaries.

Guiding the Center safely—and with the promise of a future—through the COVID pandemic was one of the most important achievements of her tenure. Those who have worked with Glacet knows she does not shy away from tough but necessary decisions, and when COVID hit she implemented a new vision for the SCC that met CDC and DHS requirements as well as the needs of teachers, parents and children.

Glacet recognized SCC’s need and potential and she fulfilled both with love, intelligence and humor. The parents and children of SCC say it best. Julie Elrod, parent of three SCC children, says that Glacet was “able to create what truly feels like a family environment within a school. I hope Sandy can look at the youth of this beautiful community and see all of the lives she has touched and what she has inspired to thrive in their bright futures!”

Kindhearted, calm, consistent, empathetic, practical, conscientious, and loving are all words used to describe Glacet. But perhaps Iris Hopwood-Meyer, a five-year-old alumnus of the SCC preschool, says it best: “My favorite thing about Ms. Sandy is that when I ask her something or talk to her, she always listens to me.”