The fourth and final head of school candidate, a middle school principal from a private school in the Bronx, New York, visited GDS on Thursday, Oct. 16 and Friday, Oct. 17. During his visit, he met with students, faculty and parents across the GDS lower, middle and high schools.
The candidate spoke about his background as an administrator, teacher and varsity basketball coach during the high school assembly on Oct. 17. He answered students’ questions about autonomy and school culture. He explained how he plans to adapt to the school culture prior to making impactful decisions and how he values protecting students from danger.
The Bit is not publishing the candidate’s name nor the name of his current school because he said widespread knowledge of his visit to GDS could hurt his work at his current school. The candidate’s current school community, beyond a few individuals in leadership, is not aware that he is applying for the GDS head of school position.
The candidate has been middle school principal at his current school since 2018. He has worked as a director of student life and as a learning services department chair since 2010 at two different schools. He was an English teacher and learning specialist for ten years prior to becoming an administrator. The candidate is the only finalist who has never been a head of school.
Of the 17 students the Bit interviewed, 14 of them said they did not want the candidate to be the next head of school. Three students said they did not know whether the candidate should be the next head of school because they did not have a preference among the four candidates. The 14 students who said they did not want the candidate to be the next head of school said the candidate was not engaging and did not fully answer students’ questions. Multiple students also said they strongly preferred another candidate.
He has a master’s degree in education with a concentration in independent school leadership from Columbia University, a Master of Science in education from Simmons College and a Bachelor of Arts in English from Haverford College.
The candidate, who coached varsity basketball for 12 years, used coaching as an example to illustrate his leadership style. “My goal is always to look at the team I have,” he said during the assembly. He said he would assess GDS’ culture before making decisions rather than treating every situation the same way he would at his current school. “You cannot run the same offense every year,” the candidate said.
History teacher Topher Dunne said he did not think the candidate’s lack of experience as a head of school would impact his ability to lead the school. Dunne noted that Head of School Russell Shaw had similarly not been a head of school until he came to GDS. Shaw was also a middle school principal prior to serving at GDS.
Freshman Charlie Smith said he would prefer a candidate with experience as a head of school. He said that because GDS is a well developed institution, the leader of the school needs to have prior experience as a head of school.
The candidate said his current position in the middle school at his school requires him to have strong working knowledge of both the lower and upper school. Though, the candidate said he would have to change his leadership approach to serve as head of school. “I would need to focus on a narrower set of high-level priorities and delegate responsibility appropriately,” the candidate wrote in an email to the Bit. “One of those priorities in year one would definitely be building relationships across all constituencies.”
The candidate said the most difficult decisions he has made in his career are ones that students do not understand. “I had to cut a musical number from a musical that was really dated. The preview show went really badly with some folks,” he said in the assembly. The candidate said the sixth-grade students who were performing in that musical could not understand the reasoning behind his decision, which made the choice more difficult. In an email to the Bit, the candidate did not specify what musical he censored nor what song he cut from the performance.
“I’m really protective of students, for better and worse,” the candidate said. “I want the entire community to feel respected and heard, so when a kid is about to do something that I think is gonna land really badly, I want to stop them.”
In 2009, the GDS theater department put on The Producers for that year’s spring musical. The musical is a satire about Broadway; it features Adolf Hitler and lots of Nazi iconography. Adam Trebach ’09—who played Roger DeBris, a gay musical theater director who then plays Hitler in the play within the play—told the Bit that the head of school at the time, Peter Branch, tried to interfere with the production of the play. According to Trebach, Branch said he was opposed to bigotry and therefore didn’t want to have a play featuring Nazi iconography such as swastikas and Nazi salutes.
According to Trebach, students, parents and then theater director Laura Rosberg argued for the play to appear in its original form because it is a satire. “It’s very clear that the show is not pro-Nazi,” Trebach said. Branch eventually allowed the students to perform the show with the Nazi iconography. “If there were restrictions, they did not meaningfully affect the content or style of the show as far as I could tell,” Trebach said.
Sophomore Student Staff Council representative Elliott Etter said he was not sure if the candidate’s protective approach towards the student body would suit GDS’ culture. “GDS prides itself on students having a really influential and powerful voice in the community. I’m curious to see how the two would counteract each other,” Etter said, referring to GDS culture and the candidate’s views on school culture.
The SSC met with the candidate during lunch on Oct. 16. Etter said he did not think the candidate’s lack of experience would make a difference in whether he would be a successful head of school. “Given that GDS is such a different experience from any other school, I don’t think it’s such a big setback that I wouldn’t even consider him for the position,” Etter said. “That’s not make or break for me.”
Julia Kepniss ’93, parent of a junior and an eighth grader, who attended a parent meeting with the candidate over Zoom on Oct. 16, said she liked that the candidate had experience as a middle school principal. “I would have concern in the converse, which is thinking about somebody to be head of school who didn’t have that active educator perspective,” Kepniss said. “I think that this candidate had that in spades.”
The candidate said during the assembly that his upbringing impacted his focus on belonging. He went to a boarding school near Boston, Massachusetts, for high school. “I started to see some systems I hadn’t seen before—systems of inequity, systems of injustice,” the candidate said about his time at boarding school. “Schools aren’t always the most welcoming environments to everyone, so that’s informed the way I educate. I try to create environments that are inclusive and welcoming to everyone.”
Kepniss said the candidate’s commitment to inclusivity set him apart from the other candidates. “Different students have different needs, and it seemed to me that he brings that approach very intentionally to the way that he administers and educates,” she said, referring to how the candidate described his leadership approach. “I thought that particular point came through stronger than the other candidates.” Kepniss attended parent meetings with all four of the candidates.
During the assembly, junior Sam Gross, the Bit’s editor-in-chief, asked the candidate about his statements about student press freedom at the Oct. 16 parent meeting. At the meeting, the candidate said outside publications can weaponize words in school newspapers, and he said that could lead to financial shortfall and hinder enrollment. The candidate had suggested password-locking school newspapers’ websites from the public to prevent those issues.
“I have seen individuals suffer reputational damage and experience harassment for words that were taken out of context and attributed a meaning that was never intended,” the candidate wrote to the Bit. During the assembly, the candidate said publications had used an adult at his school’s words out of context and emphasized that he did not want any students to face the same issue.
The New York Times and The New York Post both reported on internal division at the candidate’s current school about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The Bronx Times and The New York Post also both reported on various lawsuits for discrimination against the candidate’s school. In a 2023 case, a mother and her two children sued the school for racism after a teacher accused the older child of cheating and after the school dismissed the younger child.
“I’m trying to protect you,” the candidate said in the assembly, referring to students. “It’s not necessarily anything I’m afraid of in terms of criticism of the school; it’s not anything I’m afraid of in terms of disagreement.”
In an email to the Bit, the candidate said he did not know of any instances in which his school’s publication was quoted in outside publications. “I want students to feel freedom to report on what they choose,” he wrote. “I would also want student journalists to be aware of the potential for their publicly visible words to be intentionally taken out of context to spark outrage within adult media outlets, as that is not an experience I would wish on any student journalist.”
During Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings in March of 2022, Texas Senator Ted Cruz questioned Jackson about her position on GDS’ Board of Trustees and criticized GDS for teaching what he called critical race theory. The Washington Post, The New York Times and other newspapers published articles about Cruz’s criticism of the school. Additionally, a Breitbart article from that March quoted a Bit story about GDS’ production of the musical Spring Awakening. The far-right outlet criticized the production for its “adult sexual content.” GDS did not attempt to censor the Bit’s article on Spring Awakening following the Breitbart coverage.
Earlier in the assembly, the candidate said GDS has a “different tolerance for risk here than what I’m used to.” He said if he were chosen to be the next head of school, he would want to have a conversation with the Bit’s editors about the paper’s ethical standards prior to making any decisions about student press freedom.
Smith was not sure if he agreed with the candidate’s stance on protecting students. “There are certain issues that students can be attacked for that can harm our community and our students,” he said, referring to the candidate’s negative experience with outside publications. “On the other hand, I think that papers should have the freedom to publish whatever they want.”
“What I would hope, if he was the one that was selected,” Kepniss said, “is that he could marry the necessity to protect the community and students while honoring the tradition of GDS, which respects freedom of speech and has such strong self-advocacy and student body voice.”
During the assembly, no students asked the candidate about his stance on GDS’ phone policy. Each of the past three candidates were asked at least one question about the phone policy. “I would not change policy right away, but would be curious to know how this policy has been received by students, teachers and parents,” the candidate wrote to the Bit.
After reviewing feedback from members of the GDS community, the head of school search committee will recommend a candidate to the Board by early November. In an email to the Bit, search committee co-chair Donald Saelinger said the committee will share the Board’s decision with the GDS community as soon as possible, although they do not know how long it will take for the Board to reach a decision.