New Head of Upper School Tracy Bonday has always loved and been involved in education. From petitioning for and becoming one of the original members of the honor council at the University of Miami to changing career paths from law to education, Bonday has not left school since she started as a child.
The journey began when she earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in economics from the University of Miami. From there she went directly into law school to receive her JD from the University of Miami. After teaching for some time, Bonday went back to school once more to earn her Masters of Science and Educational Leadership at Nova Southeastern University.
As an undergraduate student at the University of Miami, Bonday said that she was very involved in student leadership on campus as the vice president of the student council and an inaugural member of the honor council.
“One of the things that drew me to the honor council situation was a sense of making sure that there was equity and fairness in grades,” Bonday said. “There seemed to be an opportunity to not only educate students in patterns and changes of behavior…but also [give] the professors an opportunity to not have to engage directly with the students in making those final decisions.”
Bonday is often spotted around campus enforcing Trinity’s dress code, and this is no coincidence. She believes that a dress code is very important to prepare for success in the future in a business environment.
“It’s really here to learn and to support each other, and therefore I think it’s important to not have the distraction of what people are wearing,” Bonday said.
At Bonday’s previous job, she was the head of an all girls school with 300 students in New Orleans, but she decided to come to Trinity for a more dynamic environment.
“Trinity had a fabulous reputation,” Bonday said. “One of my math faculty members had several friends that live in the Orlando area and said … this was the best place to land in Central Florida.”
Bonday said that her favorite part of her new position is getting the opportunity to be in a school setting that never gets boring and allows her to engage and talk with lots of different types of people. As the head of upper school, she gets to do just that. Her responsibilities range across a wide variety of duties, with some of these jobs including assisting the dean with student discipline, discussing academic concerns with parents and students and working with the administrative team.
Outside of school, Bonday enjoys spending time with her family which includes her two daughters, aged 28 and 26, and a petite golden doodle named Reagan. Her older daughter teaches high school math, and her younger daughter graduated from the Naval Academy where she currently works for the Department of Defense.
Bonday is also an avid traveler and has plans to both visit family and see many other places around the world, especially ones surrounded by nature. She currently has plans to visit her sister who lives in Okinawa, Japan, and also revisit Hawaii to see her daughter.
“I’ve been to Hawaii once, [but] I want to get back there because I had hoped to do more in the way of actual trail hiking,” Bonday said.
To keep busy over quarantine, Bonday engaged in one of her recently reclaimed hobbies: scrapbooking. She keeps a book for each of her daughters, but before the pandemic Bonday said that she hadn’t had the chance to work on their books in years.
“I went from second grade through college during the pandemic, so I felt like I had overcome a monumental task there and felt really good about what I had accomplished while I was in isolation,” Bonday said.
Other hobbies that she enjoys in her free time are cooking and baking. Bonday specifically mentioned her favorite dish for large parties as lasagna, and chocolate chip cookies for any occasion because of her love for chocolate. She always keeps a jar full of chocolates in her room in the upper school office, and she hopes that everyone on campus will get the chance to greet her and enjoy some candy.
“I love having people stop in, and if that little enticement is the reason to get them to stop, I am all about keeping the candy jar full,” Bonday said.
