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August 14, 2008
Interim Director Announcement
August 13, 2008
Dear PHS Community Members,
I am so pleased to send this letter on behalf of the Board of Trustees announcing the appointment of Susan Andrews as Interim Director for the upcoming academic year. Susan knows our school well, having served as Director of the school for sixteen years and a Board member for the past eight years. As you will glean from her letter, Susan is a forward-looking individual who will lead the school with grace, maturity, and a deep knowledge of schools in general and ours in particular.
The Board acted quickly this summer to convene an interim director search committee and to hire a search consultant. The interim director search committee, with the input of the search consultant, developed criteria for the interim director and the priorities for the school in the coming year. Susan Andrews emerged as a possible candidate, and in evaluating her it became clear that she was the most qualified candidate we could hope for. We, on the Board, feel extremely fortunate that Susan has agreed to take a leave from her otherwise demanding work schedule in order to assume the Interim Director position.
I first met Susan, over five years ago when I traveled to pick up my then 2nd grader, Jacob, from the Camp Valley of the Moon overnight (he is now entering 8th grade). I was struck by her wisdom, thoughtfulness, patience, insight, humor, and her deep love of children and our school (why else would she choose to spend a night on a thin mattress on a bunk bed). My positive first impression has been enhanced by the dedication, strategic thinking and intellect she has demonstrated as a board member. Welcome, Susan! We are thrilled to have you assume this leadership role!
The Board is also pleased to inform you that we have retained Clay Stites, a consultant with the nationally known search firm Resource Group 175. Clay will be working to help the school recruit and hire a long term Director to begin in the 2009–2010 academic year. He will also provide counsel to the Board and Susan during this transition year. In addition, he will work into the next academic year to support a smooth and successful transition with a new Director.
Clay was a school Head for twenty years and has been a search consultant for the past eleven years. He comes highly recommended and knows Bay Area schools well, having done numerous successful head searches for schools in Northern California.
We, on the Board, recognize that the community may have questions about this transition year and the process the school will follow to hire a new permanent Director. For that reason, we are planning a coffee talk from 5:00–5:45pm on September 16th and from 8:00–8:45am on September 17th at which Board members and Clay will be available to answer questions as we look ahead. We look forward to seeing you in the fall.
Sincerely,
Anne Regenstein
Chair, Board of Trustees
August 13, 2008
Dear Presidio Hill School Community,
The PHS Board of Directors has asked me, and I have agreed, to take on the Interim Head position during the 2008–2009 school year, as we conduct a guided head search and, most importantly, continue our esteemed program under the seasoned management of our administrative team and highly qualified and diverse faculty. Honored to step into this role for one year, I greet you with an understanding of the school’s past as well as an investment in its future.
Some of you may know me; many don’t. Currently an eight-year community member of the Presidio Hill School Board, I was the PHS director from 1980 until 1996. I retired to give my full attention to a diagnosis of advanced non-Hodgkins lymphoma. After some pretty amazing attention from modern medicine, I have survived cancer-free.
During the period since my retirement and cancer treatments, I served as interim director of Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley, helped start Oak Hill School for students with autism and other developmental differences, and taken on partnership in the family business, Buddy Rhodes Artisan Concrete, as Vice President of Marketing. I have served on the Board of Trustees of San Francisco School, as well as Oak Hill School, and I remain on the Board of the Eva Gunther Foundation, Chez Panisse Foundation and, though my role will be changing, Presidio Hill School. While I am no magician, I do have experience relevant to our community, and the will to put it to good use.
I view my assignment this year as an opportunity to help move the school forward in preparation for new leadership, as well as to support current operations while providing loving care and guidance to a school community that has undergone many transitions in the last 12 years. Despite our disruptions in leadership, many of those transitions have been very positive: the new building, the growth of the middle school, development of a strong administrative structure, extensive technology enhancement, and the development of a cadre of youthful new teachers to partner with the core of wise veterans.
I believe that we can look forward to this newest transition together with the support of a strong Board, the aforementioned excellent teachers and administrators, and the guidance of Clay Stites, our expert independent school search consultant. The parents and students that make up the current Presidio Hill community are as active and inspired as ever, and I come back to full-time immersion in the PHS family confident in our powers. Presidio Hill School is in its 90th year; crises have come and gone, and we have survived and prospered throughout the continuum. Our history buoys us. We are charged with both respecting it and learning from it as we move forward. We are participants in an amazing educational practice. I look forward to this exciting and remarkable time to work together.
Best wishes,
Susan Andrews
Interim Director