Head of School Search

Dear Maret Community,

As we head into spring, I write to thank you once again for taking part in our community input survey and the community outreach sessions that took place in February for our head of school search. We were inspired by and appreciative of your commitment to the enduring values of Maret, as well as your input on the most important qualities desired in our next head of school.

Position Description
Your input helped our consultants at Carney, Sandoe & Associates, in concert with the Search Committee, to craft a position description that will be circulated to prospective candidates. We believe this description — which provides a brief overview of Maret, our history, the current and future needs of our school, as well as desired qualifications and qualities of the next head of school — will both inform and compel the best candidates to engage in our search process. The position description is now available on our Head of School Search page.

The Path Forward
With the pre-search phase completed, our next phase of active outreach and recruitment is underway. Over the coming months, our consultants will work diligently to attract and assess interested and qualified candidates from a broad range of sources in the school world. The consultants and Search Committee will review candidate application materials and invite the most promising candidates to interview during the summer. Based on these interviews, the Search Committee will select a number of candidates to come to Maret as finalists for extensive interviews and meetings after the start of school in September. At this phase of the search, we will engage in an extensive reference checking process.

This fall, the Maret community, including a Faculty Advisory Group, will have the opportunity to engage with finalist candidates in open Q&A sessions. You will be invited to share your feedback through a community survey so that we may factor your insights into our decision-making process and ultimate recommendation to the Board for our next head of school. The Search Committee’s goal is to appoint our new head of school by late fall 2026. 

The robust engagement of the Maret community has directly shaped the work of the Search Committee and demonstrated to our consultants the shared values, strong commitment, and caring that make our school community so special. Members of the Search Committee will be available at the MPA meeting on April 10 to answer any questions or gather any feedback you may have on the search process. In the meantime, please remember you can share questions, suggestions, feedback, or head of school recommendations through our portal. You may also contact our consultants directly: Allison Gaines Pell, Darryl Ford, and Burke Zalosh.

Thank you for your continued support and engagement in this important process.

Sincerely,

McLean Quinn
Chair, Search Committee

Members of the Search Committee:
McLean Quinn, Parent ’35, ’33, Chair
Lisa Brown, Parent ’27, ’22
Ayesha Flaherty, Parent ’25 and ’28
Paige Hoffman, Alum ’06 
Heidi Kong, Parent ’27, ’25 
Joshua Lipshutz, Parent ’35, ’33, ’31 
Vadim Nikitine, Parent ’32, ’26

Dear Maret Community,

We are On behalf of the Head of School Search Committee, thank you for participating in Carney Sandoe’s community survey and campus visit. We are grateful to everyone who shared their candid feedback, aspirations, and perspectives as we prepare to launch the search for our next head of school.

Our consultants came away with a strong and consistent impression: Maret is a school and a community that people care about deeply. They heard pride in the school’s many strengths, deep appreciation for our exceptional faculty, and a sincere commitment to helping Maret move forward successfully. They also saw a community that is highly engaged and wants to get this search right.

Across the survey responses and listening sessions, several key themes emerged as priorities for the community:

• Mission and Values: Maret’s holistic approach to student development, academic excellence, strong sense of community, joyful learning, and close faculty-student relationships are foundational to Maret’s identity.
• Faculty Support: Maret’s exceptional faculty bring the school’s mission to life, and recruiting, retaining, developing, and supporting our faculty must be a top priority.
• Academic Excellence: Maret must continue to evaluate and adapt its curriculum to deliver an inspiring and challenging academic experience.
• Communication and Trust: Clear, transparent communication (both internal and external) and leadership that builds trust across the community will be essential to Maret’s next chapter.
• Campus Facilities: Maret must continue to evaluate and invest in the Woodley campus to ensure we can deliver on our mission and best meet the needs of our students and faculty.

The community also described the qualities it hopes to see in Maret’s next head of school. The strongest themes included:

• Decisive Leadership: A decisive and confident leader
• Transparent Communication: A transparent and trustworthy communicator
• Academic Vision: A champion of academic excellence and joyful learning
• Faculty Leadership: An advocate for faculty
• Mission Alignment: A leader who can articulate and advance Maret’s mission and long-term direction
• Community Leadership: A community builder who can bring people together across difference and foster a strong sense of belonging for the entire community

Many of the themes raised by our community align closely with Maret’s new strategic plan, Advancing with Purpose. These themes and the strategic plan will serve as a roadmap for our next head of school, providing clear direction that will require both stewardship of what makes Maret special and leadership to move us forward.

In a few weeks, we will be sharing the consultant’s position profile for Maret’s next head of school. This document will reflect the community’s input and will capture the needs and aspirations surfaced in the pre-search process. It will serve as the detailed job description for the position and as an evaluative rubric to help guide the Committee in our review of candidates.

Thank you again for the care, thoughtfulness, and commitment to Maret that so many of you brought to this process. We look forward to sharing the position profile soon. In the meantime, please remember that you can always provide feedback or ask questions through our portal. 

Sincerely,

McLean Quinn
Chair, Search Committee

Members of the Search Committee:
McLean Quinn, Parent ’35, ’33, Chair
Lisa Brown, Parent ’27, ’22
Paige Hoffman, Alum ’06 
Rick Juneja, Parent ’33, ’30
Heidi Kong, Parent ’27, ’25 
Joshua Lipshutz, Parent ’35, ’33, ’31 
Vadim Nikitine, Parent ’32, ’26

Dear Maret Community,

We are writing to share opportunities for you to help shape our head of school search process. As you know, we have recently retained Carney, Sandoe & Associates to lead the search for our next head of school. Our consultants will be on campus to meet with the community next week and have prepared a community survey to gather as much feedback from Maret’s stakeholders as possible. We are eager to hear from you.

Campus Visit
Our consultants Allison Gaines Pell, Darryl Ford, and Burke Zalosh will be on campus Monday, February 23 and Tuesday, February 24 to meet with parents, faculty, administrators, trustees, alumni, and students to develop a highly informed profile of the qualities and abilities that our school community is seeking in its next leader.

It is critically important that we hear your thoughts and receive your input throughout this search process. These meetings will be an excellent opportunity for you to voice your ideas about the qualities you value in our next head of school. Please mark your calendars to attend one of these sessions.

Parents are invited to attend one of three open sessions:
February 23: 6:00–7:00pm (Theatre)
February 24: 8:30–9:15am (AB Conference Room) and 11:00–11:45am (ZOOM)

Faculty are invited to attend the following drop-in sessions:
February 23: 7:30–8:15am (AB Conference Room) and 3:15–4:15pm (Theatre)
February 24: 1:15–2:00pm (AB Conference Room)

Additional sessions for faculty, alumni, students, and parent affinity groups to meet with the Carney Sandoe team will be scheduled for the next two weeks.

Online Survey
To capture the broadest feedback and insights from as many members of the Maret community as possible, we have worked with our consultants to develop a brief online survey. We are asking faculty, parents, and trustees to share their candid feedback and ideas using this method. All responses are confidential and anonymous and go directly to our consultants who will consolidate the feedback and use it to ensure we have considered all points of view from our key constituents. The survey will be open through 5:00pm on Friday, February 27.

Position Profile and Next Steps
With the input from our on-campus meetings and the community survey, we will complete a head of school position profile tailored to Maret. This document will shape our consultant’s preliminary recruitment and candidate screening efforts over the course of this spring. It will also serve as an evaluation rubric as the Search Committee moves into preliminary and semi-finalist interviews in the late spring and summer.

If you have any questions or concerns about this process, or if you have someone to recommend for the head of school position, please contact the Search Committee via our feedback portal. Please also feel free to contact our consultants directly, Allison Gaines Pell, Darryl Ford, or Burke Zalosh. The Board is committed to finding an extraordinary leader who embraces Maret’s mission and values and who can lead our school into an exciting future. Thank you in advance for your participation and support in this important initiative. 

Sincerely,

McLean Quinn
Chair, Search Committee

Members of the Search Committee:
McLean Quinn, Parent ’35, ’33, Chair
Lisa Brown, Parent ’27, ’22
Paige Hoffman, Alum ’06 
Rick Juneja, Parent ’33, ’30
Heidi Kong, Parent ’27, ’25 
Joshua Lipshutz, Parent ’35, ’33, ’31 
Vadim Nikitine, Parent ’32, ’26

Dear Maret Community,

We write today to update you on the head of school search process, expanding on the brief update we shared at the State of the School address last week. Hiring a head of school is one of the most important responsibilities of the Board of Trustees, and we are committed to ensuring a transparent, robust, and inclusive process. We are reading and responding to any input that comes into our portal, and we appreciate your active engagement and your commitment to Maret’s continuing excellence. We genuinely welcome your thoughts, ideas, and questions along the way.

Our Search Consultants
We are delighted to share that, after an extensive vetting process, we have partnered with Carney Sandoe & Associates (CS&A) for this search. With over 40 years of experience placing school leaders across the country, they bring expertise, wide-ranging perspective, and a deep network of relationships with school leaders across the country and around the world. The Search Committee will work closely with our consultants Darryl Ford, Allison Gaines Pell, and Burke Zalosh, and we're looking forward to learning from their experience. 

The Pre-Search Process: Community Engagement and Shaping the Leadership Profile
We are working with our search consultant partners to develop a pre-search process that engages our community and honors Maret’s distinct needs at this moment in time. Darryl, Allison, and Burke will be coming to campus on Monday, February 23 and Tuesday, February 24. During that visit, they will spend time in listening sessions with faculty, students, families, alumni, and trustees, learning what community members cherish about the school, what we see as the work ahead, and what qualities will be important in our next head of school. They will benefit from the information that the Search Committee has already collected through our feedback portal and stakeholder touchpoints, and they will share a community survey that will coincide with their campus visit.  

With input and information gained from the on-campus meetings and from the survey, we will complete a final Maret School Head of School position profile, which will reflect the key themes, as well as qualities that our community is seeking in our next head of school. Please mark your calendars now and watch your email during the week of February 16 for more details about their visit and the survey. We want to ensure opportunities for all community members to provide input. 

Staying in Touch
Shortly after the visit is complete and community input is analyzed, we will report out the consultants’ key learnings from our community, and we will craft and post the position profile. 

We hope to continue hearing from you, so please reach out to the Search Committee with your feedback, questions, or concerns. You can also find more information about the search on the Head of School Search page of our website. 

The Board of Trustees is committed to finding an exceptional leader who will embrace Maret’s mission, strengthen our wonderful community, and lead us into the exciting years ahead. Thank you for your participation and support.

Sincerely,

McLean Quinn
Chair, Search Committee

Members of the Search Committee:
McLean Quinn, Parent ’35, ’33, Chair
Lisa Brown, Parent ’27, ’22
Paige Hoffman, Alum ’06 
Rick Juneja, Parent ’33, ’30
Heidi Kong, Parent ’27, ’25 
Joshua Lipshutz, Parent ’35, ’33, ’31 
Vadim Nikitine, Parent ’32, ’26

Dear Maret Community, 

It is an exciting time of year at Maret. Seniors are just beginning to hear back on college admissions, our talented musicians are filling campus with music during winter concerts, and the entire community eagerly anticipates time with family and friends over the upcoming break. Before the year winds down, the Board would like to share its first update on the search process for Maret’s next long-term head of school.

In the weeks since Dennis shared news of his departure and the Board announced Sue Bosland as interim head of school beginning July 1, 2026, we have formed the Head of School Search Committee, begun to vet experienced consultants to guide us in the search process, and created a webpage to keep you informed about our progress.

We have also started planning opportunities for the community to meet Sue Bosland in January; more details about those events are coming soon.

The Search Committee
The Board has selected a Search Committee composed of seven current trustees to lead an open, inclusive, and thorough search process. The Committee’s membership reflects the diversity and values of the Maret community and includes current parents, past parents, an educator, and an alum.

The Committee is responsible for running a process grounded in Maret’s mission and core values and informed by Maret’s current needs and future aspirations. Ultimately, the Search Committee will be responsible for making a head of school recommendation to the Board. The members are:

McLean Quinn, Parent ’35, ’33, Chair
Lisa Brown, Parent ’27, ’22
Paige Hoffman, Alum ’06 
Rick Juneja, Parent ’33, ’30
Heidi Kong, Parent ’27, ’25 
Joshua Lipshutz, Parent ’35, ’33, ’31 
Vadim Nikitine, Parent ’32, ’26

Read Committee member bios here.

The Role of the Search Firm
One of the Committee’s first tasks is to hire a consulting firm to expertly guide us through our search. The selection process is already underway, and we expect to announce the firm in January. Once retained, the consultants will:

• Guide a community engagement process to hear directly from faculty, students, parents, and alumni
• Define Maret’s leadership needs and vision
• Tailor the search plan for our school
• Recruit candidates
• Manage logistics
• Advise the committee, Board, and school leadership throughout the decision-making, hiring, and transition phases

Establishing a clear vision of Maret’s needs will be critical to crafting a leadership profile that attracts the right head of school candidates. This work will involve broad engagement with the Maret community, honest assessment of the school’s current strengths and challenges, and thoughtful analysis of the leadership attributes and qualifications needed to implement the strategic plan and guide Maret into the future. This Pre-Search process will begin this winter.

Process Overview and Timeline
The 18 months between the launch of our head of school search and our target start date of summer 2027 is an ideal time frame to conduct a comprehensive search. While our consultant will help us craft a process that best fits Maret’s unique needs, most head of school searches follow a similar trajectory. We expect our process to follow the general path outlined below:

Pre-Search (Winter 2026)
Form Search Committee 
Select consultant
Engage community
Develop leadership profile

Search (Spring – Summer 2026)
Announce position 
Recruit candidates
Select, interview, and reference semifinalists

Selection (Fall 2026)
Host finalists on campus; introduce them to the community 
Gather community feedback; vet finalists 
Board selects new head of school

Transition (Winter – Summer 2027)
New head and interim head prepare for transition
New head starts

The Search Committee and the Board have and will reflect deeply on the last search — what went well, what did not, and what we will do differently this time. We are eager to begin our work with our consultants, and we look forward to sharing more about how you can participate in the months to come.

In the meantime, we have created a page on the Maret website that shares current information about our search and answers to FAQs. You will be able to return to the page throughout the process for more information and updates. Opportunities to share questions and feedback will also be made available on this page.

We look forward to finding the next exceptional leader to carry our wonderful school forward and to continue our legacy of providing a transformative education that builds a better world, one student at a time.

On behalf of the Board of Trustees and the Search Committee, we thank you for your engagement and support, and we hope you have a wonderful winter break.

Sincerely,

Leigh Comas, P ’28, ’21, ’15
President, Board of Trustees

McLean Quinn, P ’35, ’33
Trustee and Chair, Head of School Search Committee