When did you first feel the time was right to move on from your present position?
After six years in my present role, I have decided it is time to move on.
What were the events which precipitated this feeling?
Ultimately, I would like to be a Head of School, and to do this, I need to have considerable administrative experience. I believe that it is also important to gain experience in a variety of schools. In my fourteen years in independent schools, I have worked at an independent co-educational day school, a boys' boarding school and a co-educational boarding school. Being in these different settings has allowed me to experience different educational philosophies, see how students learn differently in a co-ed classroom compared to a single sex classroom and to see the great differences between a day school and a boarding school education. Although I have taught for fourteen years, I only have a few years' experience as a Dean of Students. I feel that I am ready to be an Assistant Head of School, and although I love working in my present environment, I must leave to advance.
How do you go about finding a new position? Is networking an important part of this process? Ads? Agencies?
Networking is an extremely important aspect to finding a new position. I go to every possible conference for my position not only for professional development but also to meet great people in similar positions at other independent schools. You never know when those contacts can help you. Interestingly, this is my fourth school and I found my first teaching job through networking, and the other two schools I found by sending out cover letter after cover letter. I was registered with two placement agencies, but I was very frustrated by the experience. Although these agencies are extremely useful for many, my hunch is that through the contacts that I have already established, I will be able to land an Assistant Head of School's job by doing my own search. We shall see.
What is your assessment of the current private school job market? Is it saturated with capable, qualified candidates?
This is an interesting question. I am very interested in the private school job market. Out of sheer curiosity, I bookmark private school job sites (yours obviously included) to see what openings exist in administration. The wonderful thing about independent schools is that in most cases, one can experience a different part of the country or the world, stay in the vocation that he or she loves and, best of all, take his or her TIAA/CREF retirement portfolio to the next location.
My sense is that there are plenty of qualified candidates for teaching positions currently, but soon there will be a great teacher shortage, and schools, particularly private schools, are going to have to do a better job with salary and benefits to keep good educators in schools. Science and math vacancies seem to be the most difficult to fill. So, long story short, I think the market is far from saturated, and schools will be competing with each other more and more for the best available educators.
