In Novem­ber 2020, Heidi Johnson announced her inten­tion to retire as head of The Waverly School at the end of the 2020 – 2021 school year. Heidi has been our long-serving Head of School, and we are tremen­dously grate­ful for all that she has accom­plished during her 25 years of service to Waverly. A national search is now under­way to find Waverly’s next Head of School. Consis­tent with NAIS best prac­tices, the Board of Trustees has assem­bled a Head of School Search Commit­tee and retained Carney, Sandoe & Asso­ciates, a highly regarded inter­na­tional search firm, to work with the Search Commit­tee. This page will be updated as the Head of School search progresses.

We welcome your sugges­tions and ques­tions. For all inquiries regard­ing the Head of School search please contact us at headofschoolsearch@​thewaverlyschool.​org. In addi­tion, please take a look at these Frequently Asked Ques­tions concern­ing the search process.

Infor­ma­tion about the Interim Head of School Search for candi­dates from our search firm Carney, Sandoe & Asso­ciates: Posi­tion profile (PDF).

• Maria Brown (Parent of Aaliyah ​’26 & Natalie ​’24/​Elementary School Teacher)
• Leo Glazé (Middle School Teacher/​MS Basketball Coach)
• Jason Gottlieb (Parent of Sam ​’20, Patrick ​’16, & Eamonn ​’15/​Assistant Head of School at Elementary School)
• Greg Harri­son (Parent of Eiji ​’23 & Kazuo ​’21/​High School Teacher)
• Debbie Lennon (Parent of Megan ​’11/​Trustee)
• Wendy Lopata (Parent of Murray ​’25 & Nolan ​’22/​Trustee)
• Noah Mayer (Parent of Lucy ​’28, Charlie ​’30, & Frankie ​’33/​Board of Trustees Chair): Non-Voting, Ex-Officio
• Vijay Natraj (Parent of Siddarth ​’33 & Avan­tika ​’31/​Trustee)
• Jeanny Tafoya (Preschool Direc­tor & Teacher)
• Nadine Tanio (Parent of Isaac ​’21/​Trustee): Search Committee Co-Chair
• Joanne Toll (Parent of Jamie ​’22/​Trustee)
• Serita Young (Parent of Aaron ​’29 & Riley ​’28/​Board of Trustees Vice Chair): Search Committee Co-Chair

Febru­ary 11, 2021

Dear Waverly community,

We are writing on behalf of the Search Commit­tee to provide you with an update on the Head of School search process.

Over the past several weeks, our prin­ci­pal consul­tants from Carney Sandoe & Asso­ciates, Bob Fricker and Jennifer Chris­tensen, have been working with the Search Commit­tee to prepare the Head of School posi­tion profile. This docu­ment serves as a tool in the recruit­ment process, offer­ing poten­tial candi­dates a glimpse into our school commu­nity and culture.

Incor­po­rat­ing the feed­back received from the virtual visits, surveys, and other commu­ni­ca­tions, our consul­tants have devel­oped a posi­tion profile that they will be sharing with prospec­tive candi­dates. You can find the Interim posi­tion profile here.

So far, we are pleased that our work closely paral­lels our time­line and we look forward to review­ing candi­date mate­ri­als in the coming weeks. Over the next few weeks we will likely not have substan­tive news to announce as our consul­tants work to recruit, inter­view, and vet the strongest candi­dates for the interim and perma­nent Head of School posi­tions. Bob and Jennifer have already begun the process of reach­ing out to their network and to the indi­vid­u­als recom­mended by our commu­nity and are thrilled to report that inter­est in this posi­tion is strong.

We expect that our consul­tants will present the Search Commit­tee with candi­dates for the interim posi­tion in late Febru­ary from which we will select a group for semi-final­ist inter­views.. We expect that they will present the Search Commit­tee with candi­dates for the perma­nent posi­tion in late July from which we will select a group of semi-final­ist inter­views some­time in August. Please note that the Search Committee’s work, inter­views, and inter­ac­tions with poten­tial candi­dates is done on a confi­den­tial basis to protect the candi­dates until the final­ist stages for both the interim and permanent positions.

The Search Commit­tee, in consul­ta­tion with our Bob and Jennifer, will then select the interim final­ists who will meet with our commu­nity in March and perma­nent final­ists who will meet with our commu­nity in Septem­ber. After vetting all the feed­back, the Search Commit­tee will make recom­men­da­tions to the Board of Trustees for the next interim and perma­nent Heads of School. We would hope to be in a posi­tion to announce the interim Head of School by April and the next perma­nent Head of School by October. The time­line outlined above is also summa­rized here on the school’s Head of School search webpage.

This is a new process for most of us, and while it may feel a bit unset­tling, we assure you the Search Commit­tee is listen­ing to your feed­back, taking our respon­si­bil­ity to our commu­nity very seri­ously, and is grounded in Waverly’s values.

As always, if you have any ques­tions or comments for the Search Commit­tee, we invite you to reach out via email at headofschoolsearch@​thewaverlyschool.​org. Thank you all for the input and partic­i­pa­tion to date.

Warmly,

Nadine Tanio and Serita Young
Head of School Search Committee Co-Chair

Please click on the links below for commu­ni­ca­tions to the Waverly commu­nity that share infor­ma­tion about where we currently are in the search process as well as what is ahead.

Febru­ary 11, 2021 — Search Update (PDF) & Interim Posi­tion Profile (PDF)

January 26, 2021 — Search Update (PDF) & Attach­ment (PDF)

Decem­ber 21, 2020 — Search Process Announce­ment (PDF)

Decem­ber 17, 2020 — Search Commit­tee Announce­ment (PDF)

Novem­ber 18, 2020 — Board Chair Update and Announce­ment of Engage­ment of Carney, Sandoe & Asso­ciates (PDF)

Novem­ber 18, 2020 — Retire­ment Announce­ment (PDF)

Down­load a PDF of the search process time­line here.