On Tuesday, Board of Trustees Chair Donald Saelinger announced that Victoria Jueds will be the sixth head of school in GDS history. She will succeed Russell Shaw and assume the role on July 1, 2026.
After Head of School Russell Shaw announced in March that he would retire after the 2025-2026 school year, the Board of Trustees formed a search committee that selected four finalists for the head of school position. During her visit to the school, Jueds spoke about her work at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, which included increasing accessibility and addressing students’ mental health.
Jueds will be the fourth woman head of school. Gladys Stern was the last woman to be head of school; she retired in 1996.
From 2021 to 2025, Jueds served as the director of schools at Lab, an equivalent position to head of school at GDS. Lab runs from nursery to 12th grade and has a student population of over 2,000 students.
In an interview with the Bit, Jueds said her first priority as head of school will be to get to know the community. “You all know the school so much better than I do, so I’m going to be looking to you to tell me and show me a lot of what I need to learn in order to be helpful,” Jueds said.
Jueds added that she hopes to sit in on classes, attend practices and watch rehearsals to grow a stronger understanding of the school. “I’ll be listening for those insights and deeper truths about how the community functions,” Jueds said.
Each of the four head of school candidates visited GDS in September and October. Each candidate met with students, faculty and parents over the course of their two-day visit.
Jueds said she found out that she got the role of head of school in late November. She said search committee co-chairs Donald Saelinger and Otey Smith shared the news with her on a Zoom call. During the nearly two months before the search committee announced their decision, Jueds said she sporadically spoke with Saelinger and Smith about how to approach the transition and worked with the two co-chairs to write the announcement email.
The head of school search page on GDS’ website originally said the search committee would recommend a candidate to the Board by early November. In a Dec. 18 email to the GDS community, Saelinger and Smith said the announcement would come several weeks later than originally planned. “The additional time reflects our commitment to completing the final stages of the process with care and diligence,” they wrote.
In an interview with the Bit, Saelinger said the search committee spent the final stages of the process finalizing a contract with Jueds, conducting reference checks and structuring the announcement email. “We wanted to make sure that we gave proper time to all of those steps and that we were able to announce in a way where we could maximize community engagement and enthusiasm instead of announcing just prior to winter break, when everyone was scattering to the winds,” Saelinger said.
Saelinger said making the announcement after winter break allowed the community to be fully present to hear the news and ask questions.
“It made me and a couple of my colleagues really nervous, especially my colleagues that also have kids at the school,” lower/middle school PE teacher and GDS parent Marquis Bell said about the delayed announcement. “I didn’t know if we were opening up the whole process again, if we’d found the right candidate, if we didn’t know if we saw the things that we wanted or not.”
Freshman Eliana Elias said she was surprised to receive the head of school announcement. “I kind of forgot about it because we’ve been waiting for so long,” she said.
“It wasn’t really clear what was happening, why it was being moved back,” junior Izzy Choudhary said. “I wish it were a bit more of a transparent process.”
High school jazz teacher Brad Linde said the delay concerned him because it may have meant that the Board could not reach a decision. “I thought that [the announcement] would be much faster,” Linde said. “That was the only thing that was shocking to me.”
Director of Student Community Programming Bobby Asher said he thinks Jueds will be a both effective and engaging leader. “There’s a degree of gravitas that I want leadership to have, but I also want them to be able to let their hair down and have a laugh, and I feel like she checks both of those boxes,” Asher said.
Asher was a member of the faculty search committee. The committee met with all four candidates during their respective school visits and comprised faculty from the lower, middle and high school divisions.
“[Jueds] has just a great way of engaging and building relationships with people,” Saelinger said. “She has this really rare combination of intellectual rigor and empathy and decisiveness, and I think she will build trust very, very easily with different members of the community.”
Bell said his daughter, fourth-grader Lola Bell, asked Jueds a question during her meeting with fourth-grade students. “The very next morning, [Jueds] was out in front of the lower/middle school, greeting every student,” Bell said. “She stopped Lola and talked about the question that she asked. We sat there for five minutes and had a really engaging, really good conversation.
“I think Tori [Jueds] is going to continue the inward-facing work that Russell [Shaw] did,” Bell continued. “The way she engaged, the way she loved, the way she poured into kids, you could just see where her feet want to be.”
Senior Andrew Bennett said that of the four candidates, Jueds reminded him the most of Shaw. “I thought she was just very kind and warm. She especially felt like someone I could get to know and talk to, [like] she would walk around the school and know my name,” Bennett said.
Jueds said she hopes to support student autonomy as head of school. “One of the things that really impressed me about GDS from the beginning is the independence, the thoughtfulness [and] the maturity of the student body,” she said. “You’ll find me really welcoming all manifestations of that independence.”
Senior Sarah Sakr said she was impressed by Jueds’ transparency during her high school assembly. “I really liked that in front of the school, she talked about integrity and how she felt that she could make the right decision, even if it felt unpopular,” Sakr said.
“I was very encouraged by her deep experience across different educational settings and her enthusiasm for GDS and for its history, its community and what GDS represents,” GDS parent Amy Pollick said. “She said she lived by integrity, humor and empathy, and I think those words also describe Russell [Shaw] very well.”
During the State of the School Address on Jan. 27, 2025, Shaw unveiled GDS’ strategic vision, which focuses on achieving educational excellence, supporting faculty and adopting innovative financial practices. Jueds said the strategic plan will guide her transition into the head of school position.
“That’s a huge guidepost for me, to see all of the output of all of the conversation that I’m sure went into that process and defining those particular goals and initiatives,” Jueds said. “I did engage in that same process at both Westtown and Labs, so that’s why it means a lot to me.”
High school history teacher Kim Nguyen, who was a member of the faculty search committee, said he appreciated Jueds’ commitment to learning from the GDS community. “That’s something that Russell [Shaw] does, so I think she’s starting off on the right track,” Nguyen said.
“The key to succeeding here is understanding the community and having some sort of canonic information,” Linde said.
“I hope Tori [Jueds] continues the same cute traditions that Russell [Shaw] does,” freshman Maya Rand said. Rand said one tradition of Shaw’s that she enjoys is his annual Christmas Assembly performance of “The GDS Christmas Blues,” an original song about each year’s events at GDS. “I hope she keeps the whimsicalness of Russell at GDS,” Rand said.
Gavin Solomon contributed reporting.
This article was updated on Jan. 22, Jan. 27 and Feb. 9.
This is a developing story. Check back later for more updates.