Mrs. Coy on Detours, Character, and Second Chances

In Episode 1 of Season Three of The Late Start Show, we open the new year with Mrs. Betsy Coy, Upper School Dean of Students, Freshman Class Dean, business law teacher, and a lawyer turned educator who has been on the US faculty since 2009. Mrs. Coy takes us back to a suburban street in South Euclid, where five people shared three bedrooms and one bathroom and where she stayed outside with her friends until dark. She talks about the younger brother with Down syndrome who made her want to teach long before she knew what teaching was, the senior project that put her in a special education classroom, and the special education degree she earned at Bowling Green. She also tells the story of the crisis that followed: an honest opinion about inclusion she was sure would cost her every interview, a father who pointed out she was good at arguing, education certification tests one weekend and the LSAT the next, and a first semester of law school that redirected her from advocacy toward corporate law. Four years at a firm, a rejected business plan to train young associates, an in-house move to Applied Industrial Technologies, and the loss of her father eventually brought her back to the work she had wanted all along.

From a part-time learning specialist role, the first US ever hired, and a summer interview where a student tour convinced her she had to work here, Mrs. Coy traces her path through director of learning services, head of Sanders House, and finally the Dean of Students job she had wanted since 2012. She opens up about a disciplinary process built around character rather than consequence, why she spends as little time in her office as possible, and what changes between the freshman she meets in September and the senior whose hand she shakes at graduation. She discusses integrity and respect as the pillars beneath responsibility, loyalty, and consideration, the humility she has learned from students, her son's senior speech about growing up at the school where his mom worked, and the off-duty Mrs. Coy who bakes chocolate chip cookies for the neighborhood kids and cannot get anyone in her family to play board games with her anymore. Seventeen years in, her why is straightforward: the relationships she gets to build here, and the hope that students remember her as tough but fair, and as someone who made them feel seen.

Credits to Theo Walter for Production and Editing, Russ Nobles for the Intro and Outro songs, Mr. Wickboldt for being our advisor, and you for listening to our podcast and keeping up with the latest US news.