St. Luke’s School New York, New York Upper School Head July 2017 www.stlukeschool.org
The Position Mission Statement At St. Luke’s, we seek to give our students a sound cognitive foundation for their lives and prepare them for admission to and continuing success in future schools. As an Episcopal Church School, and through our relationship with the Church of St. Luke in the Fields, we also seek to do something more. St. Luke’s is a small school, deliberately. Its size enables us to focus on each child as an individual. Its size also allows everyone to know everyone else. It fosters a feeling of family - a supportive climate of trust and understanding, communicating values and building community. In this environment, children form positive relationships with classmates and teachers, with older children and with younger ones. St. Luke’s is coeducational and heterogeneous. Its students and faculty come from a variety of backgrounds - racial, ethnic, economic, religious. We value and actively encourage this mutually enriching diversity. It is part of the process of helping each child discover his or her own uniqueness and infinite worth as a human being - and at the same time, that of others. St. Luke’s is a traditional school, in that it has a strong academic curriculum, high standards, clear and consistent boundaries and expectations. Within that structure, we emphasize freedom. We use varied educational approaches and techniques to help stimulate independent thinking - to free the children to question, challenge, explore, and pursue truth wherever it leads. We encourage them to express their imagination and creative powers, in science and mathematics as well as in words, music, and art. Interdisciplinary teaching allows content from one subject area to reinforce another and open up fresh insights. Above all, St. Luke’s seeks to awaken in children a lifelong love of learning, a sense of joy and wonder at God’s universe, and a deep feeling of connection to the natural world. We hope that whatever they go on to do and be, we will have prepared them to be good stewards of the world’s resources - responsible, caring members of one global human community.
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St. Luke’s School is a distinctively warm and nurturing school community located in the Greenwich Village section of New York City. Within the fastpaced world that is New York, St. Luke’s provides a respite and safe haven; it is a place where kids can be kids. As one school leader put it, “you can get a fine education at most independent schools in NYC. At St. Luke’s, the heart is just as important. The school is known in the city as a school for good students and good hearts.” St. Luke’s warm and nurturing atmosphere complements its rigorous academic program; parents here expect a high-quality education, and the school delivers. Small by intent and design, St. Luke’s size promotes openness, accessibility, and collaboration. Each of its 274 students is encouraged to become an active, responsible, and contributing member of the school community. Honesty, respect, excellence, compassion, and dignity constitute the school’s community standards. At this time, the school seeks a new Upper School Head to shepherd students in grades five through eight. This is an exciting opportunity for a talented, passionate, and nurturing educator. The current Upper School Head says, “I love my job. I love our children. I love the faculty I work with.” The next Upper School Head will join a school community in the midst of exciting growth and change. The successful candidate will be a committed and capable leader who can embrace the St. Luke’s Way while implementing change, who has a deep understanding of middle school and its pedagogy, and who is ready for the sophistication, pace, and expectations of New York City. Constituents of the school already know that the next Upper School Head will, like all members of his new community, fall in love with this special school.
School History Though St. Luke’s School in its current iteration is relatively young, its history is rich and long. In 1820, the Church of St. Luke in the Fields was constructed in New York City. Through the years, several iterations
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of a parish day school served the community. The current school opened in 1945 with four grades. Beginning in 1947, the school expanded, adding one grade per year. Over the years, the school and church grew and developed together with the City of New York. In 2012, St. Luke’s became an independent school, maintaining its Episcopal identity but separate from the church. That independence generated ongoing change—the school is now growing in terms of enrollment and physical facilities and has begun an ambitious building project to add much-needed classroom and extracurricular space. Over the years, St. Luke’s has maintained a spirit of joy and faith that distinguishes it from other schools. It is the unique “St. Luke’s Way,” an ineffable kind of genuineness, community, and care, which compels constituents to declare that “from the moment you leave the chaos of the street for the peace of the enclosure where children ebb and flow like wavelets, this is a place that embraces.”
The School As an Episcopal School, St. Luke’s prides itself on openness and flexibility. Faculty members are committed to helping students learn how to live well within diverse communities, and they encourage them to develop self-respect, respect for others, and joy in the surrounding world. As they progress throughout the school, students learn how to use their gifts to help others. Service is an integral part of daily life at St. Luke’s, whether through classroom jobs, partnering with younger students, or participating in community service activities for charitable organizations such as UNICEF, City Harvest, Habitat for Humanity, the GO Project, or the Church of St. Luke in the Fields. St. Luke’s commitment to nurturing students who flourish both academically and socially begins in the lower
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school (JK-Grade 4), where grade-level teachers and specialists work as an instructional team to promote a balance between academic fundamentals and enrichment. The lower school program fosters intellectual risk-taking so students can develop confidence and competence in all areas of school life to ensure academic success in the upper school (Grades 5-8) and beyond.
The Upper School In the Upper School, teachers continue to challenge students while providing a strong foundation of support. The program builds strong academic skills, promotes responsible study habits, and helps students reason logically and communicate their thoughts clearly, concisely, and effectively in speech and in writing. Group work and cooperative learning foster a climate of respect and appreciation for the unique contributions of each child. Teachers involve students in learning activities, requiring them to manage their time and develop an awareness/understanding of how they learn best. In recent years, St. Luke’s has implemented a socialemotional learning curriculum, as they believe in focusing on the emotional well-being of all students. The Upper School environment provides consistent structure, clear expectations, and predictable routines. Through this period of intense growth, self-definition, and self-awareness, the homeroom base serves as an anchor for the students.
Arts and Athletics St. Luke’s School embraces fine arts education as an essential component of a curriculum that celebrates the whole child. The fine arts program is grounded in experience and exposure; children are encouraged to take risks and explore creative expression in multiple forms. Children develop artistic literacy through the music, art, and drama programs, uncovering and discovering their own musicality, inner artist, and theatricality. The interdisciplinary curriculum provides vital learning opportunities that promote individual development while fostering cooperative learning experiences. Participation in athletics is an integral part of each student’s life at St. Luke’s. The core values of respect, honesty, compassion, excellence, and dignity are carefully woven throughout the school’s athletic teams. Offerings include coed soccer, coed volleyball, boys’ basketball, girls’ basketball, and coed softball.
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A hallmark of the interscholastic program is that it is inclusive and supportive of all students. Athletes compete against other New York City independent schools such as Village Community School, Friends Seminary, City & Country, Little Red/Elisabeth Irwin, Packer Collegiate, and Berkeley Carroll, Cathedral, and Bank Street.
New York, New York New York City offers something for every type of resident with every range of interests. New York is home to some of the best entertainment venues in the country, including Broadway theaters, music halls, and sports stadiums. With every type of culture represented in its expansive boroughs, New York truly is an American melting pot. As the most populous city in the United States, New York is a global power city with significant influence in nearly every sector. Residents may select from five different boroughs in which to live: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, or Staten Island, each of which has a distinct identity, and all of which combine to form a proud, cohesive city. St. Luke’s is located in Manhattan, which is home to some of the city’s most famous attractions: the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Center, Broadway, and Times Square. It is the busiest commercial district in the United States and contains the majority of New York City’s skyscrapers. It is a bustling center for finance, education, tourism, retail, media, and theater in New York. Greenwich Village, the neighborhood that surrounds St. Luke’s, has earned deserved fame as an artists’ haven, a bohemian capital, the cradle of the modern LGBT movement, and the East Coast birthplace of both the Beat and ’60’s counterculture movements. Although Greenwich Village has undergone significant gentrification and commercialization more recently, St. Luke’s School remains committed to employing and enrolling a population that reflects the rich diversity of the larger city. New York remains a vibrant city full of educational, cultural, and recreational opportunities. A true “melting pot” of the country, New York provides something for every type of resident and visitor, from cultural attractions to outdoor amusements to competitive sports teams.
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Opportunities and Challenges The new Upper School Head will join a vibrant and warm school community filled with people who are committed to the school’s mission and the St. Luke’s Way. Few schools operate with so much consistency of vision. Becoming a part of this wonderful school community in the heart of the greatest city in the world is, itself, an extraordinary opportunity. St. Luke’s is in the midst of significant enrollment growth, expanding enrollment from 200 to 320 by 2020. The school is also engaged in an ambitious building project to expand and improve the facility. The new Upper School Head will take charge just as the Upper School students and faculty move into new space. This growth and change represent additional opportunity and exciting challenges. The new Upper School Head will succeed a long-term and revered predecessor. A challenge for the appointee and for the school community will be to build the trusting relationships that form the backbone of a small school community. St. Luke’s boasts committed and long-serving administrative leaders. Bart Baldwin, the Head of School, is particularly well-regarded for his empathetic and energetic leadership of the school through a time of significant change.
Qualifications and Qualities of the Next Head of Upper School • Advanced degree required along with evidence of a career distinguished by a clear growth trajectory • A deep understanding of and appreciation for the middle school years and the associated opportunities and challenges • Welcoming of parents, students, and faculty • A desire to collaborate with, encourage, and mentor a dynamic and growing faculty • An understanding of and appreciation for aspects of the school that are positive and stable, coupled with a willingness to implement change • A curriculum generalist • An understanding and comfort with the high school application process or placement processes in general • A willingness to challenge and question in a spirit of collaboration and teamwork • Experience with the complexities of a small school schedule • Teaching and leadership experience • Excellent communication skills • Calmness, patience, and confidence • Appreciation and respect for the school’s Episcopal heritage • Creativity, problem-solving skills, and an ability to think both strategically and operationally • Readiness for the sophistication, the expectations, and the pace of NYC • Joy The successful candidate will demonstrate substantial capacity to become passionate about St. Luke’s School and its mission. The Search Group | Carney, Sandoe & Associates
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To Apply
Submit electronically and as separate documents the following materials: • Cover letter expressing interest in the St. Luke’s School position • Current résumé • List of 5 references with name, phone number, and email address of each to: Peter Philip peter.philip@carneysandoe.com Senior Search Consultant Carney, Sandoe & Associates 44 Bromfield Street, Boston, MA 02138 www.carneysandoe.com
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