During the academic year, there were plenty of "lasts" on campus: an emotional last faculty meeting, the last Quaker meeting for worship, and the last time Ball handed out diplomas, to about 100 seniors.
"It was poignant," Ball said. "I was determined that the graduation should be about the graduates and not about me."
Pinned to his academic robe was a button he had made that read: "Thank You Class of 2007."
Ball is proud of what the school has accomplished.
"When you sit some place for 30 years you see a lot of evolutionary changes," he said. "The most dramatic here was the coeducational movement."
Ball oversaw the arrival of the first girls on campus in 1981. He has seen minority student enrollment grow from 8 percent to 24 percent. The students also are more economically diverse. Penn Charter awards about $4 million in financial aid each year, and about 30 percent of students receive some aid.
"I have no illusions about my contribution here," Ball said. " . . . I have always felt that teaching is the central part of the school and the job of people in positions like mine is to create the most positive environment for teaching."
In the spring, Ball and his wife moved from the school-owned house adjacent to the campus where they had raised their two sons to a new home in Conshohocken.
For years, Ball has been on the board of the White-Williams Scholars, a nonprofit that helps high-achieving public high school students in the city. He hopes to become involved in mentoring students.
His major concern at the moment is where to spend the Tuesday after Labor Day. He and his family will be somewhere other than in Philadelphia - probably either Maine or on the Chesapeake.
"Since I was 6, there's never been a year when I haven't been going to school," Ball said. "So something different has to happen."
Founded: 1689 under a charter signed by William Penn authorizing the first Quaker school in colonial America.
Enrollment: 900 students K-12.
Tuition: Ranges from $14,250 for kindergarten to $21,900 for grades 9-12.
