Board Memories

Our family entered TPS forty years ago. Zach started Kindergarten in 1983. Three years later in 1986, Lenny joined the TPS Board of Trustees, where he served for 19 consecutive years, his last two years as Board Chair, and then transitioned off the Board in 2005. Lenny remains the longest serving TPS board member of all time. In 2005, Bob Adelson, the incoming Board Chair, asked Zach to join the Board. Eighteen years later, Zach has two sons at TPS, served as Board Treasurer for seven years, and is in his second year as Board Chair.

When we compare notes about our board service (which, candidly, we don’t do often), Zach is often struck by how many of the opportunities and challenges facing the school have remained the same. Lenny is often struck by how much has changed. Both of us hold in deep appreciation the work and commitment of Lynne and Peter Berman and Cal Simon and Richard Laden, who founded the school. Michael Berman, Lynne and Peter’s youngest son, a TPS graduate, current parent, and a long-time trustee in his own right, often quips that early board meetings were simply called “dinner” in his home while growing up.

The Board in the early years faced existential threats to the school: could we meet payroll for our teachers, would our lease be renewed at terms we could afford, would parents take the “risk” of keeping their families in Center City and sending them to an unaccredited, start-up, progressive school that spent one day a week at a farm, called teachers by their first name, and didn’t have grades? AND…at the same time the Board had to do the mundane, everyday tasks of running a school that didn’t have the means to support an adequate administrative team.

Through the work of the Board, in partnership with the Head of School, all of those existential issues have been addressed and answered. During Jack Adler’s leadership as Board Chair, TPS expanded to include Middle School and completed our independent school accreditation. The Board, under the leadership of Jean Mason and Robert Altman, was able to move the school from a short-term lease at Rodeph Shalom to a longer-term lease at 2503 Lombard. Then under the leadership of Paul Dry, the school acquired 2503 and 2503 Lombard and the nearby parking lots. During Phil Korb and Marianne Emmett’s tenures as Board Chair there was a renewed focus on financial sustainability, the importance of the annual fund, and the long-term resilience of the school.

With our permanent home secured and the recognition of the differentiated education that TPS provided its students, the Board was able to focus on growth and expansion. We leaned on many superb board members, who brought their professional talents to bear, including Phil Franks, Gene LeFevre, and Frank Gould. Frank Gould, who it seemed held every volunteer position, including both TPSA President and Board Chair, oversaw the construction of the Gym.

In 2002, under Hope Comisky’s leadership, the Board undertook a Strategic Planning Retreat focusing on five issues: technology, facilities, school constitutency, finance, and high school. In 2006, the opportunity to purchase a nearby City of Philadelphia Licenses & Inspections “clean and seal” lot and garage presented itself. Bob Adelson, seeing a one-time, irreplaceable opportunity for the school, led the Board as we acquired 2501 South Street, creating a campus for TPS, and an opportunity for future development. Under Dan Diadul’s leadership the school completed a successful endowment campaign, and the Board helped the transition to a new Head of School, Amy Vorenberg. Under Harry Roth’s leadership, we completed the Schwartz-Siegel Early Childhood Education Center, a state of the art, indoor/outdoor space tailor-made for our youngest learners and the Garage Theater, made possible through an extraordinary gift from the Forman/Rice Family, a multi-use facility that in any given day provides space for movement classes, music recitals, Shakespeare performances, all-school assemblies, TPSA dance parties, and so much more.

Despite this recent focus on growth, there have been significant challenges and crises the Board has had to address to protect and sustain the school. Again, the Board rose to the occasion. In 2008, led by our Board Treasurer and a future Board Chair, Gina Moore, with legal advice and assistance from former Board Chair Phil Korb, the Board moved quickly to protect access to our cash reserves, renegotiate our debt, and survive what could have been a calamitous situation. In 2020, COVID hit TPS particularly hard, both as an urban school with limited outdoor space and as one of the first schools to suffer an outbreak in our area. Derek Jokelson, an alumni parent serving as Board Chair, provided calm and steady leadership, and marshalled the talent and resources of our community.

Now, as we emerge from the disruption of the last few years, we are able to refocus our attention on our strategic priorities. In the years just prior to COVID, Jennifer Rice as Board Chair led the school and our broader community through a comprehensive strategic visioning process. Under Jen’s leadership, we refreshed our mission and vision statement, “The Philadelphia School educates children for a future that is impossible to know but not impossible to shape. Learn here. Go anywhere.” The process established three core tenets to ground our school going forward: a doubling down on progressive education, a commitment to remain centered on recruiting, supporting, and mentoring outstanding teachers and enhancing our connection to the city through service opportunities, community and cultural partnerships, and place-based learning.

While we highlight many of the strategic initiatives the Board has overseen, it is important to both of us to note that the day-to-day leadership of the school is not done by the Board.

Its primary role is to hire, support, and evaluate the Head of School in executing the strategic plan and upholding the mission and values set by the Board (we use ‘she’ as over our 40 years at the school, the Head of School has always identified as a ‘she’). We have both been fortunate to serve with outstanding Heads of School, each of whom has made TPS what it is today.

Lenny’s entire 19 years on the board was during Sandy Dean’s extraordinary 23-year tenure as our Head. Her commitment to progressive education, the development of our program, and her exceptional ability to hire, train and retain remarkable teachers was foundational to the school we have today. Amy Vorenberg, who succeeded her, refreshed our curriculum, built out our administrative team, and oversaw the development and completion of the Schwartz-Siegel Early Childhood Education Center. Justine Hoffman’s tenure was marked by her skill in communicating the value and differentiated nature of a TPS education, her ability to bring families more deeply into the TPS experience and build our broader community outside of the teacher-student experience in the classroom. Carlyle Nelson-Major was uniquely positioned to serve as our Interim Head of School given her prior experience as a head of school and her depth of knowledge of TPS, progressive education and our community. Lisa Sun, in her fifth year as our Head of School, has navigated our community through the challenges of COVID and is now leading the implementation of Ours to Shape, our strategic vision, which has an ambitious and exciting plan for broadening our place-based learning, starting on our own campus and expanding beyond, increasing our commitment to experiential learning and leading the way in progressive education. The Board fully supports this plan and has partnered with Lisa, our faculty, and staff in working towards bringing this vision to life.

We have shared the names of some individuals in recounting the role of the Board at TPS. To be clear, the Board is more than the Board Chair or any individual trustee. In fact, the authority of the Board is only vested in the Board as a whole. Over the school’s 50 years, we have had over 200 individuals serve as trustees, led by 19 board chairs, who have hired and supported eight different heads of school. However, we have always had One Board. The Board has provided continuity and served as a stabilizing ballast throughout the school’s five decades of evolution, driving for change when needed and staying the course when appropriate. Having collectively served as trustees for over 34 years (and counting…), we are both amazed and deeply gratified by the dedication and commitment our fellow board members bring to their work and their responsibilities as trustees. It has been an honor to serve as trustees and Board Chairs, we are grateful for those who built and guided the school before us, we are thankful we have been able to contribute to the legacy of TPS, and we are confident in those who will come after us to continue the excellent stewardship of this special and precious school.