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Meet Christina Kyong, Associate Head of School

Christina Kyong comes from a family of educators. Her grandfather ran a preschool in Korea, her mother taught at the U.S. State Department, and Christina regularly made her three younger siblings sit around the kitchen table doing workbook exercises that she “graded.”

“Education is so important to my culture,” says Christina. “My parents sacrificed anything and everything for us to move into better school districts and better schools. It was always about making sure we were always trying our best, doing our best.”

After graduating from Smith College, Christina earned a master’s in education in Teaching and Curriculum at Harvard's Graduate School of Education. She earned a graduate certificate in administration and supervision from the School of Business and Education at Johns Hopkins University. After a few years of teaching in both private- and public-school settings, Christina took a five-year hiatus to focus on raising her two young sons.

I chose Wildwood because I knew it would give me the opportunity to work with great people. The kids were so friendly, approachable and excited—and they wanted to do all these fun things.- Christina Kyong, Associate Head of School

When she re-entered the workforce, she became the Director of Studies and then the Assistant Head of Upper School at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda, Md., followed by a 10-year stint as the Director of Middle School at Maret School in Washington, D.C. In 2020, she joined Wildwood. 

As Associate Head of School, Christina helps spearhead the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) work being done at Wildwood. 

“I feel like, as one of the leaders of this community, I have to walk the walk and talk the talk,” says Christina. “It's part of my life's work, to make sure that our kids have the ability to be themselves in our classrooms and see themselves in the curriculum and to find a voice that a lot of people, including me, never had when they were growing up.”

When asked about her top five values, Christina doesn’t hesitate in her choices: optimism, wholeheartedness, parenting, responsibility, and hope.

One of her favorite strategies, even before the pandemic, has been “procrastibaking.”

“We all just need to find something that brings us joy,” says Christina, who has also served as Wildwood’s lead pandemic coordinator during COVID-19. “With procrastibaking, I can procrastinate from the heavy lift of life by baking cookies. For 30 minutes, I can stop thinking about the world’s problems and enjoy the escape and release of baking. Because at the end of this challenging chapter, we know that things will be better.”