By Josh Spivey

On December 14, 2018, Collegiate announced its new Middle School Head, Tung Trinh, to replace Charlie Blair, who will be retiring this year after over 40 years at Collegiate. Trinh comes to Collegiate from Garrison Forest School, an all-girls school near Baltimore, Maryland.

Trinh has served as the Head of the Middle School at Garrison Forest for the past four years, and before that he was Garrison Forest’s Middle School Dean of Students. He has also taught at Shore Country Day School in Beverly, Massachusetts. His wife Ashley Clevenger Trinh (‘99) will also be teaching at Collegiate next year, as a 4th grade assistant.

In an interview with The Match last month, Trinh talked being excited to learn all about Collegiate. One of the things he is most excited about is watching students at extra-curricular events. Collegiate “is larger in size and in breadth” than his previous schools, so he’s looking forward to seeing students in even more football games, plays, and recitals. He said, “Having taught at small schools, I’ve never had the experience of a homecoming game or football games on Friday nights, and being able to watch my students participate in something like that is what I’m really excited to see.” The wide variety of Collegiate’s extra-curricular activities, performances, and sports events will keep him busy as he gets to know the students. 

Since becoming a teacher, Trinh has worked exclusively in middle schools. “Sometimes Middle School gets left out of the conversation, and people focus more on the importance of high school grades and getting into college, instead of trying to create an inclusive learning environment throughout all years of education. Middle school is one of the last times you get to figure out who you are. After you leave, everything becomes so much more stressful—especially in your freshman year of high school. Middle school should be a good time, a special, informative time.”

While looking at Trinh’s twitter, one of the things that caught my eye was a picture of his office door covered in sticky notes, captioned “Well-played, @GarrisonForest 7th Grade. Well-played.” When I saw this image, I wanted to learn more—I’d never seen anything like this happen at Collegiate.

In his first year at Garrison Forest, a student found out that Trinh hated April Fools’ Day, and as a prank set off a glitter-bomb in his office. Trinh described the prank as “soul crushing,” and each year since students have pulled off some form of prank on him for April Fools. The sticky note stunt was the newest rendition, where 7th graders covered his office in sticky notes. Trinh hopes to bring the same sort of environment and light-heartedness to Collegiate, “It’s been sort of a small way for me to connect with my students over the past couple of years”.

Trinh does not plan on coaching any sports his first year at Collegiate, but looks forward to doing so in the future. His favorite sport is basketball, even though he admittedly was cut from the team in high school.

If you see Trinh in the hallways next year, make sure to ask him about his love for basketball, or for some great prank ideas!