Last week, Jenny Abramson ’95, a member of the head of school search committee, who is a GDS parent, met with Student Staff Council representatives to hear their feedback about the four head of school candidates who visited GDS.
The council had already met with each candidate during lunch meetings. Abramson said the search committee wanted to hear what the council thought of each candidate because representatives spent more time than other students meeting with the candidates.
The Bit is not publishing the names of the first, second or fourth candidates, nor the names of their schools. Those candidates said widespread knowledge of their visits to GDS could harm their work at their current schools because their school communities, beyond a few individuals, do not know they are applying for the head of school position at GDS. The third candidate, Victoria Jueds, was most recently the director of schools—equivalent to head of school at GDS—at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools.
Several representatives said their peers liked the second candidate, from Oakland, and Jueds best. The Bit interviewed all 16 council representatives about whom their favorite candidate was. Ten representatives said Jueds was their favorite candidate. Two representatives said the fourth candidate, from New York City, was their favorite.
Senior representative Sarah Sakr and junior representative Matias Sevak said they did not have a favorite among the candidates, and SSC president Grace Khuzami and sophomore representative Ella Maas declined to comment on their favorite candidate. Maas is Abramson’s daughter.
Maas said she could picture both the second candidate and Jueds as the next head of school. She said she could not picture the first candidate in the role and that, while she could envision the fourth candidate in the role after his meeting with SSC, she was unsure if she still thought he would do a good job as head of school after his high school assembly.
Several representatives said they thought the fourth candidate was not an engaging speaker. Maas said the fourth candidate told the council he was not good at one-on-one conversations during their meeting, which freshman representative Cassidy Holmwood disliked. Holmwood added that Head of School Russell Shaw knows her by name and is comfortable in one-on-one conversations.
Representatives additionally criticized the fourth candidate for his lack of experience as a head of school and said they thought he spoke to the high school as if they were middle-schoolers. “GDS thrives on this idea of autonomy and relationships between adults and students,” sophomore representative Zach Prober said. “It did make me feel childish,” he said about the way the fourth candidate spoke to the student body.
(Prober is a reporter for the Bit.)
Sevak said he could not envision the fourth candidate singing a song at GDS’ annual Christmas assembly like Shaw does. Shaw sings an original work, “The GDS Christmas Blues,” each year.
According to the GDS website, when Shaw interviewed for the GDS head of school position in 2009, a student at his high school assembly asked whether Shaw would follow then–Head of School Peter Branch’s tradition of reading How the Grinch Stole Christmas at the annual Christmas assembly. Shaw answered that he would instead create a new tradition, which is how he came up with the idea for “The GDS Christmas Blues.”
Khuzami said she did not think the first candidate fit the role of head of school because he used examples from his own school to answer several GDS-oriented questions during the assembly. The students asked the candidate about press freedom, GDS’ AI policy and GDS’ phone ban. “I think he knew the least about GDS of any of the candidates,” Khuzami said.
Freshman representative Roque Gistau said he disliked that the first candidate was hesitant to directly answer questions from students. During the assembly, the first candidate often said he would hear community feedback before making decisions. Gistau added that when representatives asked the first candidate about the GDS phone policy, he said he did not know much about the policy.
Sakr praised the second candidate for her willingness to sing “Yesterday” by The Beatles in front of the high school after senior Oliver Wolin asked her to sing a song of her choice.
Sophomore representative Elliott Etter said many of his peers thought the second candidate was more reserved than the other candidates, and several council members agreed with Etter.
Khuzami said she disliked that the second candidate did not have any teaching experience. The second candidate was a lawyer and a consultant prior to working in education as an administrator. Khuzami said having teaching experience was important because it could help the second candidate better understand the student body.
Gistau said Jueds made the SSC meeting and the high school assembly feel like a conversation with the students by demonstrating interest in students’ lives. “She was able to make sure everyone was heard,” he said. Gistau compared Jueds to the first candidate, who Gistau said did not demonstrate the ability to listen to students during the SSC meeting and the assembly.
Both Sakr and Etter said Jueds was the most transparent. During her introduction, Jueds told students about when she applied and did not get hired for a job as an English teacher at GDS in 2006. Etter said he appreciated that Jueds was honest about her past experience with GDS.
Sakr said she liked that Jueds gave an explanation about why she left her previous position at Lab, which Sakr said “showed an admirable level of vulnerability.” Jueds cited disagreements with her boss, University of Chicago president Paul Alivisatos, as a reason for leaving the role. Jueds did not specify what disagreements caused her to leave her previous job. Sakr said that because one’s reasons for leaving a job can be personal, she appreciated that Jueds gave an explanation at all, even if it was limited.