Weekly Message from Head of School 2023/12/15-2024/1/5

Dear Keystonians,   

I am writing this week with sad news that some of you may have heard already: Keystone Academy’s Founding Dean of Faculty and Associate Head of School, David Beare, passed away in late December after an eight-month battle with brain cancer. David is survived by his wife, Rachel, the founding Dean of Admissions at Keystone Academy, and their two children.   

As a member of Keystone’s founding team, David had an outsized impact on the school’s history. Many faculty members who arrived at Keystone prior to his departure four years ago cite a conversation with David as the reason they chose to come to Keystone, and in many cases, to come to Beijing and China. To find the teachers is to shape the culture of a school. David was extraordinarily talented at teacher recruitment. He also served as Keystone’s Acting Head of School in 2018 for several months. He left Beijing to become the Head of School at Middlesex Academy in the United States.   

David was a deep thinker, a thoughtful and spiritually powerful leader, and an enduringly warm presence on campus. In honor of David’s memory, and his family’s commitment to and impact on our school, we will soon be dedicating the Beare Family Rose Garden. Long-time Keystone employees will remember David inviting them to take a guess as to which day in spring the first roses would bloom—building in the community a giddy anticipation for warmer days that replaced the final chills of winter with excitement and hope. Today, we temper the chills of sadness with that same hope. And we send gratitude to David and his enduring legacy–a legacy that serves each of us in different ways, as it will for everyone who has the good fortune to benefit from the magic of the Keystone community in the many years to come.     

With love, 

Emily