In the 2025-26 school year, GDS will implement a new two-dean system. The new deans will be year-round employees who work during summer break. The new deans will no longer teach core academic classes, and deans will focus solely on their decanal responsibilities.
The two-dean system will replace the current structure with one dean for each grade, and each new dean will be in charge of two grades. The school is in the process of hiring both deans. According to High School Principal Yom Fox, the change will increase the accessibility of the deans by reducing their non-decanal responsibilities, and having one dean for two grades will allow for more familiarity between deans and their students because the students will have the same dean for two years.
The deans’ responsibilities include supporting students’ mental health, organizing grade-wide events and overnight trips, teaching seminar, a freshman class dedicated to learning about social justice, and more.
According to Assistant Principal for School Life Quinn Killy, in the current dean system, the deans take on decanal responsibilities in addition to teaching two core academic classes. “What we’ve been seeing over the past couple of years is that there’s really just not enough time for them to [teach classes and be deans],” Killy said.
In the new system, the deans will not teach classes other than seminar. “The deans not having to manage a teaching schedule outside of seminar will contribute to increased accessibility of deans for parents and for students,” Fox said.
“I love the idea of deans who are completely dedicated to serving kids and not being tied down by classes,” Director of Student Community Programming and former Dean of Students Bobby Asher said. Asher said the system that was in place when he was a dean was not “sustainable” because he was the only dean of students, so he was in charge of hundreds of kids.
Currently, the deans only work for ten months, during the school year. With the change, deans will become full-time employees and work over summer break. Killy said an advantage of the new deans being full-time employees is that he will be able to work with them to plan grade-wide events for the following school year over the summer.
“I think [the new dean system] will allow for deeper student–dean connections by having the same dean for two years,” Fox said. “Familiarity and knowing what’s coming next can be very important.”
Job listings for the dean positions were posted internally and externally, inviting current staff and applicants from outside the school to apply for dean positions. The job listing is no longer available on Indeed and LinkedIn, but Fox and Killy said that the hiring process is still incomplete.
All four current deans declined to comment on the new dean system.
“I’ve been at the high school for eleven years, and there has been conversation every year about the dean structure,” Killy said.
According to Fox, former high school principal Katie Gibson discussed changing the current “pilot” dean system before Fox worked at GDS. “The pilot dean structure was supposed to change the year after COVID, but it didn’t work out because my predecessor [Gibson] left,” Fox said. Fox said she heard from deans that balancing teaching classes and decanal responsibilities under the current dean system was difficult. “The shift seemed like it was the right move to respond,” Fox said.
The hiring process for the new deans includes demo seminar lessons, meetings with members of the student support team, meetings with DEI staff and discussions with a student focus group. The focus groups consisted of four to eight students from different grades who asked questions of the dean candidates. After each discussion, the students submitted a feedback form to provide their opinion about the candidate.
“The main themes of the questions were about character and personality,” sophomore Natalie Ogden, who attended two of the meetings for the focus group, said. “We asked about how they would adapt to a new school and what they would bring to help the student body.”
All four students interviewed by the Bit who participated in the focus group appreciated the opportunity to represent the student body.
“I think it’s important that the candidates were able to get a sense of us [the students], and we got a sense of them so we can tell if it’s a good fit,” junior Fiona McDermott, who attended one meeting, said.
However, seven of ten students interviewed voiced concern about the incoming change.
“I think that there could be some challenges because sharing one dean between grades could be less personal,” Ogden said.
“It’s fun that the deans now are able to cheer for their grade at [high school] grade versus grade competition events,” senior Wyatt Grace said. “I don’t know if we’ll have that anymore with only two deans.”