On Thursday, Oct. 9, the head of school search committee introduced the third finalist for the position in a high school assembly. The candidate, Victoria Jueds, most recently served as the University of Chicago’s Laboratory Schools director of schools, an equivalent position to GDS’ head of school.
Over the course of her career, Jueds has worked as a lawyer, college administrator and head of school. Most recently at Lab, she led budget cuts, dealt with in-school racism and addressed students’ mental health.
Twenty-five of the 27 students the Bit interviewed for this article said that Jueds should be the next head of school. The two who didn’t said the second candidate communicated more clearly and listened more effectively than Jueds.
In an interview with the Bit, Jueds cited disagreements with her boss, Paul Alivisatos, the president of the University of Chicago, as a reason for leaving her position at Lab. “Suffice it to say that this is a person I respect greatly, but alas we did not see eye to eye,” she said.
Jueds did not specify what she disagreed with Alivistatos about. “There are some differences that are insurmountable,” she said in the assembly. “So that’s why I decided that as much success as we were having, as much fun as I was having, it was best to go for something different.”
Alivisatos did not respond to a request for comment.
In 2006, Jueds applied for a position teaching high school English at GDS. Jueds said that she was invited to teach a demo lesson about the novel Invisible Man. “The students were wonderful,” she said in the assembly. “I love learning, and I am drawn to people who love learning. I could really feel that in the room.” Jueds did not end up getting the job.
“Just as I did 20 years ago, I still feel that same connection to what GDS is and what GDS stands for,” Jueds said. “I’m vibing with this place.”
Jueds has a B.A. from Harvard University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. She was a law clerk from 2001 to 2002 and an attorney from 2004 to 2006. Jueds served as an adjunct professor of law at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Jueds tried, but failed due to bureaucratic issues, to resign from the New York Bar in 2006 because she did not want to be a lawyer by that time. “I had always had this thought in my heart that I wanted to be an educator,” Jueds said. From 2007 to 2017, she served as senior associate dean of undergraduate students at Princeton University.
“I was so certain that I would never again practice law that I contacted the D.C. Bar and the New York State courts and followed the instructions I was given to resign from the bar in both jurisdictions,” Jueds said. Jueds was also barred in D.C. “The process was easy in D.C., but in New York, for some mysterious reason, it took several years and two more good-faith attempts on my part to accomplish that simple task.” She officially left the New York Bar in 2024 after the New York State Attorney Grievance Committee for the Third Judicial Department approved her application.
Al Baker, a member of the New York Bar Office of Court Administration, did not respond to a request for comment.
From 2017 to 2021, Jueds was head of school at the Westtown School, a pre-K to 12th grade private school in West Chester, Pennsylvania, with about 700 students. She then served as director of schools at Lab from 2021 to 2025. Lab is a nursery to 12th grade private school with over 2,000 students.
Jueds also discussed difficult decisions she’s had to make as a head of school. In May 2024, due to budget constraints, she cut the sailing and squash teams and the German language program at Lab. Those cuts caused community members to publicly write in oppostion to the cuts because students liked the programs and enjoyed taking an annual trip to Germany.
“I think just the opportunity to be completely immersed in that culture with such a small and tight-knit group was, at least for me, a life-changing experience,” Adam Tapper, a Lab senior who participated in the exchange program, told the Chicago Maroon.
In a 121-page letter to Lab’s advisory board, Lab parents called the decision to cut the German program a violation of the school’s principles. “This decision grossly violates [Lab founder] John Dewey’s core values and fails to exemplify the tenets of progressive education, the foundations on which Lab is built and the ideals which Lab continually claims to live by,” the parents wrote.
“There arose a very urgent and very major need for me to cut the budget going into the ’24-25 school year,” Jueds said in the assembly. “I made a number of decisions that contributed to the budget goals that made some people unhappy. They weren’t just for the purpose of saving money. They were, in fact, strategic. As programs and the school expands, there are some places where it might be necessary to pull back.”
“Everything really worked out fine,” Jueds said at the assembly, referring to the athletic cuts. “Everyone’s got a place to do sport, develop their talents, and develop their teamwork skills. It was tough because it was a big change for folks. I did that because it was the right thing to do.”
“GDS is in very sound financial health,” Jueds said. “It is a very different situation [from Lab].”
A March 2022 article in the U-High Midway, the student newspaper at Lab, described instances of racism at Lab, both before and during Jueds’ tenure there. “Some faculty of color at the Laboratory Schools say that they are treated poorly by certain white colleagues in their daily experiences, and they say they have limited opportunities to resolve these issues,” the article read.
“[People] will perform incidents of racism and think it’s OK, you know what I mean? It is the lack of accountability at this place that makes it more racist than any place I’ve ever worked at,” a former Lab teacher told the Midway.
“Faculty of color shared with me and the community a number of serious concerns about racism, both specific and systemic,” Jueds wrote in an email to the Bit. “In the months and years that followed, I worked hard to address both by a variety of means. I feel we made solid progress at Lab during my time as Director and I’m very proud of that growth.”
In June 2020, two rising GDS sophomores started an Instagram account named @blackatgds. The account posted stories from anonymous Black students and alumni about racism they experienced at GDS. The account amassed over 1000 followers and posted over 200 accounts of racist experiences.
The U-High article and @blackatgds both sparked conversations about racism in their respective school communities.
Jueds answered questions during the assembly about three adjectives that describe her as a person and a quote she lives by. She said she lives by integrity, humor and empathy, and she quoted Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations: “Go straight on. Follow yourself and the universe and the way of both is one.”
Sophomore Mahalia Cruz-Hubbard asked Jueds in the assembly how she would accommodate students with physical disabilities. “I want accessibility for the whole range of the diverse student body,” Jueds said. Jueds said she added wheelchair ramps to the Westtown School Art Center to make it more accessible.
“I liked how she gave a real example of a change she made in response to the disability question,” senior Noah Kolker said. “Unlike the other candidates, she was very specific.” Cruz-Hubbard asked the same question at every assembly.
“She was very confident and outgoing,” freshman Bright Katwal said. Katwal said that Jueds was more engaging than the other candidates.
Kolker asked Jueds about how she would address student mental health issues. As head of school at Lab and Westtown, Jueds said she collected data about student mental health through surveys.
“We adopted a very rigorous, very scientific, survey instrument administered by a company,” Jueds said. The company’s staff consisted of mental health professionals and data scientists. After the students completed the surveys, the company sent out suggested action items to faculty, parents and students to help support students’ mental health. Jueds did not specify what actions she took in response to the surveys.
“She shares the most qualities with Russell Shaw that make him great,” Kolker said. “She was calm, she had a good sense of humor and she was not fake.”
Senior Natasha Rubinson asked Jueds, like senior Oliver Wolin with the second candidate, to sing a song during the assembly. Jueds was in an opera group in college, and she decided to sing “Pink Pony Club” by Chappell Roan. Jueds told the Bit someone warned her that she might be asked to sing because the second candidate was also asked to sing. She could not remember who had warned her.
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 he does not know how long it will take for the Board to reach a decision.