RG175 Blog

Board Chair: Jill, we’re so pleased you have accepted our invitation to join the Board of Trustees. We believe our Board plays a vital role in the success of the school in obvious and not so obvious ways, in what we do and what we don’t do, and most importantly, in our unswerving commitment to the m... read more

The ProblemA major culprit in the enrollment woes so many independent schools are facing today is the absence of clarity surrounding their identities. To be sure, there are other drivers conspiring to depress enrollment: demographics, charter school competition, and unaffordable tuitions to name a f... read more

In an interview for school headship by a search committee, it is an exercise in futility to walk a candidate through their resume if you are trying to understand whether someone is ready for leadership. It is easy to fall into this trap. The resume is readily at hand – it is simple and obvious to ut... read more

There are several reasons why so many heads of school are being dismissed early in their respective tenures—declining enrollments, undisciplined boards of trustees, entitled and entrenched faculty, a disconnect between leadership style and the culture of the school, a failure to properly calibrate t... read more

Independent school education is facing a leadership crisis. The median tenure of a head at his or her present schools is less than six years (Mitchell). Abrupt departures of heads within two months of the end of the school year are increasing at an alarming rate according to ISACS Executive Director... read more

True story. In 1998 as Head of School, I was interviewing candidates for the Middle School Head position. At the time, the Middle School operated like an old junior high school, essentially treating early adolescents as if they were smaller versions of 18-year-old students. The program was stale, an... read more