Earlier this spring, Michelle Parker shared with the community that the 2024-2025 school year would be her last year serving as Head of School. During her tenure, Dr. Parker has thoughtfully established and nurtured a remarkable faculty, staff, and administration; a meticulously maintained school infrastructure; and a thriving community of eager learners. We are grateful for her years of service to the Seneca Academy village. (Please see messages from both Dr. Parker and the Board of Trustees below.)
Following this announcement, the Seneca Academy Board of Trustees retained Carney, Sandoe & Associates (CS&A), an internationally recognized education search and recruitment, consulting, and coaching firm, to partner with us in the national search for our next Head of School. CS&A brings deep knowledge of independent schools from more than 45 years of experience guiding schools through their searches for exceptional heads of school, senior administrators, and faculty. Carney Sandoe is known for its highly personalized approach to understanding the particular strengths, needs, and cultures of schools and then supporting them through the identification, recruitment, and hiring of excellent leaders whose skills and experiences align with the school’s needs. We are excited to work with Senior Consultant Peter Barrett as our partner.
Updates will be provided on this page as the search committee moves through the timeline of hiring a new Head of School. If you have any questions about or input to add to the process, please email John McKew, Chair of the Board of Trustees, at senecaboard@gmail.com.
Head of School Search Committee
Lili Portilla Weingarten: Trustee, Search Committee Chair, Past Parent
John McKew: Board of Trustees Chair ex officio, Past Parent
Rhonda Anderson-Speight: Trustee
Jorge Thompson Araujo: Trustee, Immediate Past Parent
Janet de Moor: Trustee and Board Secretary, Past Parent
Sue Ann Salimbene: Preschool Director/Preschool 4s Teacher
Jennifer Serenyi: Immediate Past Board Chair, Past Parent
Olga Walker: Seneca Academy Parent Association (SAPA) Chair, Current Parent
Communications
Message from the Head of School Search Committee – April 12, 2024
Dear Seneca Academy Community:
We informed you last week of Michelle Parker’s intention to retire as Head of School at the conclusion of the 2024-2025 school year after nine years of gifted service. We would like to follow up today with information regarding the search process that will identify the next leader of Seneca Academy.
In particular, we are pleased to announce that Trustee Lili Portilla Weingarten will chair the Search Committee that will lead a national search for our next Head of School. While Lili joined the Board of Trustees this year, her association with Seneca Academy dates back to 2001, when her daughter enrolled here. A certified leadership coach, Lili has spent much of her career establishing collaborations and public-private partnerships at NIH. Similarly pleased to announce the Search Committee members, whose names you will find at the conclusion of this letter, we are grateful for their service to Seneca Academy in this critical role.
As you may recall from the April 4 letter, we have engaged Carney, Sandoe & Associates, an internationally recognized search and recruitment, consulting, and coaching firm, to partner with us in our Head of School search. Peter Barrett, a senior consultant with CS&A, will be on-campus on Tuesday and Wednesday, April 16 and 17, to engage our community in conversation about what makes Seneca special and to identify our leadership needs as we write our next chapter. The mix of individual and small-group meetings with members of the faculty, staff, and administration; parents; and Grades 4 and 5 students (over lunch) will enable Peter to understand more deeply the opportunities and challenges that await the next Head of School and the qualities and characteristics the community thinks are essential for that individual to be most effective. We are pleased to invite parents to join Peter on Wednesday, April 17, at 9:15 a.m. for just such a conversation. Peter will also meet with the Board of Trustees and Search Committee that evening.
In conjunction with Peter’s site visit, we invite your participation in an online Community Survey that explores many of the same topics. Even if you are able to meet with Peter on Tuesday and Wednesday, we encourage you to participate in the Community Survey, which will help shape the Search Committee’s deliberations about the emerging search and contribute to their work on the Position Description. It is open now and will close at midnight on Monday, April 22.
Excited about launching the search for our next Head of School, we hope that you will take these opportunities to share your thoughts about the future of Seneca Academy. As we begin this process in earnest, we do so with heartfelt thanks for Michelle’s service to our community since 2016.
Sincerely,
John McKew, Chair, Board of Trustees
Lili Portilla Weingarten, Trustee and Chair, Search Committee
Message from the Board of Trustees Chair – April 4, 2024
Dear Seneca Academy Community,
Over its more than 40 years of history, Seneca Academy has thrived under exceptional leadership that has shaped and propelled its mission and expansion. It began with Jodi Thurmond’s visionary establishment of a community preschool, which gradually evolved to include elementary education. Subsequently, under Brooke Carroll’s stewardship, the curriculum progressed to attain certification as an IB Primary Years Program. Most recently, during Michelle Parker’s eight-year tenure, Seneca Academy has seen the curriculum and culture seamlessly meld into a cohesive village of collaborative, inquiry-based learners. These remarkable educators have played an instrumental role in advancing Seneca’s trajectory.
I am writing today to express the Seneca Academy Board of Trustees’ deep gratitude for Michelle’s service to Seneca as she announces her retirement at the conclusion of the 2024-2025 school year, and to inform you of our next steps. On behalf of the Board, I would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Michelle for her invaluable contributions to Seneca Academy. Michelle has worn numerous hats—from providing day-to-day counseling and teaching Spanish to serving as a grant writer and even as a maintenance supervisor. Her strategic acumen has been instrumental in developing the school’s strategic plan, enhancing the curriculum, and navigating the challenges of a global pandemic while ensuring uninterrupted operations. Michelle has thoughtfully established and nurtured a remarkable faculty, staff, and administration; a meticulously maintained school infrastructure; and a thriving community of eager learners.
With Michelle’s announcement, the board will initiate a process to identify the next visionary educator to lead Seneca Academy to new heights. To this end, we have enlisted the expertise of Peter Barrett, a senior search consultant with Carney, Sandoe & Associates, an internationally recognized education search and recruitment, consulting, and coaching firm. With nearly three decades of leadership at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Day School in Washington, DC, and a longstanding affiliation with the Association of Independent Maryland & DC Schools (AIMS), Peter brings invaluable insight, connections, and resources to the process. His familiarity with the local educational landscape instills confidence that, together, we will swiftly pinpoint the next dynamic and impactful leader for our community.
In addition to securing the services of a search consultant, the Board is assembling a Search Committee tasked with leading this process on behalf of the Board and the Seneca community. Details regarding the composition of this Committee are forthcoming. As we embark on this collective journey, the Search Committee, the Board, and Peter are committed to providing the Seneca community with regular updates throughout the process. One of our immediate priorities will be for Peter to solicit input from the entire Community, in part through a two-day visit to Seneca in mid-April and through an online community survey to delineate the essential attributes for the next Head of School. Peter and the Search Committee will use this information to begin the important task of drafting a position description. I encourage everyone to seize the opportunity to contribute to shaping the future leadership of Seneca Academy by responding to the survey.
Michelle will continue to serve as Seneca Academy’s Head of School until June 30, 2025. Through the efforts of the Search Committee and with Michelle’s guidance and input from the Seneca community, the Board plans to appoint a new Head of School by the end of this calendar year, primed to commence duties on July 1, 2025.
As we embark on this transition, please join me in thanking Michelle for her remarkable service to the Seneca community. Having had the distinct privilege of collaborating with Michelle during my tenure on the Board, I will always appreciate her empathetic approach, unwavering passion, and relentless drive to propel Seneca Academy forward. As mentioned, stay tuned for follow-up communication regarding the online survey and the Search Committee. If you have any questions, please contact me at senecaboard@gmail.com.
Thank you,
John McKew
Chair of Seneca Academy Board of Trustees
Message from the Head of School – April 4, 2024
Dear Seneca Village,
After much soul searching, I have let the Seneca Academy Board of Trustees know that I will be stepping down as head of school at the end of the 2024-2025 school year. Although this has been — and continues to be — my dream job, my husband will be retiring this May and we feel like the time is right for me to also begin to cut back on my professional responsibilities.
Nine years ago I fell in love with Seneca Academy! Serving as its Head of School has, by far, been the biggest privilege and joy in my professional life! Very few people are able to honestly say that they love their job. I consider myself to be one of those lucky few. I share my work days with an incredibly talented group of professionals, whose company I genuinely enjoy, dedication I admire, and intellect I respect. I love witnessing the magic that happens in our classrooms as our students explore, wonder, and grow. I love playing with our kids, comforting them when they are sad or hurt, and celebrating their many accomplishments, both big and small. Just as much, I love the partnership that I have had with all of you in building a village that is “just right” for your children and for you. Together we have nurtured a warm, caring, and inclusive community to not only inspire and support our kids, but to also be there for you in your journey as parents. Along the way, I have made amazing friends, who I know I will continue to cherish for many years to come.
As my husband and I look ahead to the next part of our journey together, I find that I have to choose between my professional passions and my personal hopes and dreams. My husband and I love to travel and we look forward to being able to do that while we are still young and healthy enough to be able to share adventures together. We also have a second home in Delray Beach that we look forward to being able to use more than on school holidays. Perhaps most importantly, we have three grown children who live in three different cities and are beginning to start families of their own, and we are excited to be able to spend more time with them.
Given the time constraints of the academic calendar, it is tough to be able to pursue these dreams while managing the very full-time role of a Head of School. With that said, I am not ready to completely retire. Although my plans for the last phase of my professional life are not fully formed, they will likely include re-engaging part-time in my private practice as a clinical psychologist as well as consulting to schools and families. What is absolutely certain is that I will continue to be a friend of Seneca and will remain a devoted supporter of the school and this village.
As has been the case with the two Heads who preceded me, we have accomplished a lot together during my tenure. Each of us was the “just right” person to shepherd the school during that part of its journey. During my tenure, we have not only weathered a pandemic, but we have also strengthened our commitment to and implementation of the IB PYP, fully integrated Singapore Math, significantly improved our phonics-based literacy program as well as our social emotional curriculum, fine-tuned our student support protocols, and enhanced our library holdings and educational materials. In addition, we have significantly improved our business model, which has enabled us to offer more competitive salaries and inspiring professional development opportunities so that, in turn, we could attract and retain a talented team. In this last year, we have also taken big steps towards right-sizing our administrative team and solidifying our building. As I think about leaving, I feel confident that Seneca Academy is in a strong place: we have an incredibly strong Board of Trustees; an amazing administrative and teaching team; a strong, developmentally appropriate, and inspiring program; and a committed and supportive community.
I know that the school is well-positioned to say good-bye to me, welcome a new Head, and begin the strategic work of imagining the next 5-10 years. In a separate email, you will hear from our Board Chair, John McKew, about the plans for finding a new Head of School who will be “just right” for the next leg of the school’s journey. I hope that you each take up the offer to be part of this process. When I was hired, my time talking to parents, alumni, faculty, and students was such a big part of my falling in love and fully embracing the essence of this school. Be confident that this process will lead us to a new head of school who will also love, cherish, and nurture our school as much as the last three have.
In the meantime, I will continue to stay focused on ensuring that the rest of this year, as well as the next one, is as wonderful and inspiring as they can be. Most certainly, I will continue to cherish each and every day as part of the Seneca Academy village with you, with the students, and with my team!
As always — in friendship,
Michelle Parker
Head of School