About D-E

Head of School Office

Learn About our Strategic Plan Process

In May 2023, Head of School Mr. Jeremy Gregersen announced a new Strategic Plan process underway for D-E. Click here to link to our Strategic Plan website and additional details.

Welcome

Welcome to Dwight-Englewood School!  It’s a pleasure to welcome you to get to know our dynamic, inspiring, and inclusive community.  I hope that you’ll take some time to explore our website to learn more about the school and our mission.  
As a community of learners, we are most excited about how we can inspire young people to become the very best versions of themselves.  We do this by inviting them to invest in and develop what we call “HumanEd Qualities,” which are meant to be both “Humane,” insofar as they allow our caring educators to treat each student with dignity and compassion while helping them grow, and to be “Human” insofar as they are the uniquely human characteristics that will allow students to grow into their best selves. We feel that, in the face of rapid technological and societal change, the very best way to prepare students to meet the challenges of a changing world is to invest in helping them develop such distinctly human qualities as collaboration, initiative, creativity, critical thinking, risk-taking, perseverance, engagement, and curiosity.
We hope to inspire a love of learning by giving students the chance to learn what they love.  We do this by exposing students to a wide variety of rigorous academic content and approaches, by offering the finest performing and visual arts experiences, and by encouraging athletic excellence in a broad range of sports teams and clubs.  We are committed to the belief that a top-flight education is a “both/and” proposition, and we strive to serve the student with a passion for playing basketball and the violin, the chemist with a love of lacrosse, and the musical theater star fascinated by world history.
The aim of everything we do is to ultimately inspire students to, as our mission states, “make it better.”  We believe that a great educational experience equips students to go out into the world and make a positive impact and it is our hope that by positively impacting the lives of our students we can positively impact their current and future communities.
We hope you will take the time to get to know us, and give us the opportunity to get to know you, by visiting our admissions page and beginning the process of becoming a Bulldog!  Seeing who we are and what we do firsthand is the best way to get to know Dwight-Englewood School.

Sincerely, 
Jeremy Gregersen, Head of School

Commencement Address 2023

Head of School Video Archive: View Remarks by Jeremy Gregersen

A D-E Community Milestone: The Installation Ceremony for Head of School Jeremy Gregersen

Mr. Jeremy Gregersen began his role as the sixth Head of School for D-E on January 1, 2023. Dwight-Englewood School then celebrated a community milestone on May 7, 2023, when Jeremy Gregersen was officially installed as our new Head of School. 
 
The Installation Ceremony welcomed more than 400 guests to Leggett Field's "big tent" and which was made even more memorable thanks to picture-perfect sunny skies. The event's attendees included current students and their families, current and former faculty/staff members, Trustees and Trustees Emeriti, alumni of Dwight School, Englewood School for Boys, and D-E, and friends of the School.
 
The program was centered on the themes of honoring D-E's past, present and future, and commenced with the ringing of the D-E Bell, bagpipers, and a procession which included a clear crowd favorite: flags carried by students and family members representing all 15 of the School's class years (2023-2037!)
 
The appreciative audience was treated to nostalgic glimpses into the School's rich history and hopes for an ongoing legacy of learning, hearing from alumni, student and faculty readers and speakers, and executive officers of the Board including President Rob Miller and First Vice President Josh Peirez. Additionally, the program provided a fantastic showcase of our D-E student music ensembles: the All-School Orchestra, Upper School Orchestra, and Jazz Rock all were featured, the last of which provided a soulful performance of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough."
 
A highlight of the ceremony was when Mr. Gregersen provided his Installation Address remarks. Mr. Gregersen spoke eloquently to the ideas captured in the D-E mission statement and his own vision for D-E going forward, as well as sharing personal reflections.
 
Having served as Head of School since January 1, 2023, Mr. Gregersen expressed sincere gratitude to all who have welcomed him and his family thus far to D-E and for "... truly making this year of transition a joy."
 
Then, thoughtfully weaving together his perspectives as both a poet and teacher as well as an experienced school leader, Mr. Gregersen spoke to the writers who have inspired him and prompted a recent family trip to Concord's Sleepy Hollow Cemetery... "Thoreau is buried there.  So is Nathaniel Hawthorne and Louisa May Alcott.  And so is Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau’s friend and mentor.  Their graves sit near one another and I imagined for a moment myself in conversation with them about this great school and about what I hoped it could be... And I thought of some lines of Emerson I’ve highlighted for my students for years: 

'There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.'

There is a moment, Emerson is saying, when we realize that what others do is simply that–what others do.  We must carve out an independent path for ourselves.  And I continued to think about Dwight-Englewood School in this light."
 
"I began to understand that all of my hopes for the school and its students were wrapped up in this notion of counter-culturalism. I’ve come to believe that a truly great school, a school like Dwight-Englewood School, can and must offer a counterpoint to every serious ill our society suffers.  Indeed, isn’t the only way to truly “meet the challenge of a changing world and make it better” to stand as a counterpoint to the parts of our world that run counter to our values?"
 
Mr. Gregersen then went on to speak both comprehensively and meaningfully to how, through instilling leadership and defying "conventional notions"... as well as through DEIB work, the arts, athletics, and academic programs... "we have to remain consistent only in our consistent desire to adapt... in the years to come, again we will survey the needs of the students in our care and do what is right to prepare them to meet the challenges of a changing world that has changed, and will remain changing."
 
Mr. Gregersen concluded his remarks by quoting from poet Alice Fulton, and then noting "...Like poetry, like education, the building of a school unique as ours is never finished.  Which means there’s no time like now to get started..."
 
 
Sincere congratulations to Mr. Gregersen and welcome again to him and his family!

And to all in our community who were involved in the Installation Ceremony, thank you for being a part of this important moment in the life of Dwight-Englewood School!
 
 

Installation Ceremony Photo Highlights

Installation Ceremony Video Highlights

Getting to Know Mr. Gregersen

Getting to Know Mr. Gregersen
Mailing Address: 315 East Palisade Avenue Englewood, NJ 07631
gps: 81 Lincoln Street, Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-9500 Email: d-e@d-e.org
Located in Englewood, New Jersey, Dwight-Englewood is a greater New York City area private school with a rigorous college prep curriculum for boys and girls in preschool through grade 12.