On this page you will find the most up-to-date information regarding Roxbury Latin’s search for our 12th Head of School.

  • Board Appoints Dr. Sam Schaffer as Roxbury Latin's 12th Head

    July 20, 2023

    Roxbury Latin’s Board of Trustees has announced the appointment of Dr. Sam Schaffer as RL’s 12th head of school, to succeed Kerry Brennan upon his retirement at the end of the 2023-2024 school year. Dr. Schaffer has spent the last two decades of his career at St. Albans School in Washington, DC, where he currently serves as Head of Upper School.

    Message from the Board President

    Dear Roxbury Latin community,

    On behalf of the Board of Trustees, I am delighted to announce the appointment of Sam Schaffer as the next head of Roxbury Latin.  Sam will begin his tenure at the start of the 2024-2025 school year upon the retirement of Kerry Brennan on June 30, 2024.

    Sam is currently the Head of Upper School at St. Albans School, an independent boys’ school in Washington, DC.  He has spent his entire career on two related pursuits: boys’ education and academic excellence.  Valedictorian, class president, and three-sport athlete of his high school class in Atlanta, Sam was a Morehead Scholar and Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of North Carolina where he majored in history with a minor in Latin.  He spent a year teaching and coaching at Groton before moving to St. Albans where, in only his second year, the senior class awarded him the John F. McCune Prize for teaching.  After six years as a dorm parent, history teacher, advisor, and varsity football and basketball coach, Sam left St. Albans to pursue a graduate degree in history from Yale, where he wrote his dissertation on Woodrow Wilson’s generation and the South from 1884 to 1920.  After receiving his Ph.D. in 2010, Sam was named the Cassius Marcellus Clay Postdoctoral Associate in Yale’s Department of History and the Gilder-Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition.  From 2007 to 2011, he served as a fellow and coordinator at Yale’s McDougal Graduate Teaching Center, organizing workshops for teachers across disciplines. 

    Sam returned to St. Albans in 2012 as the Assistant then Associate Dean of Faculty, while also serving as Assistant Director of College Counseling, teaching history, and coaching at various levels, before becoming Head of the Upper School in 2021.  As Associate Dean of Faculty, Sam worked closely with the dean of faculty in all faculty hiring, and developed and implemented a new and highly successful teacher evaluation program that a former teacher remarked “has now become part of the ether there and deeply embedded in the institution.”  Sam was also St. Albans’s representative at the Penn Fellows Teaching program where St. Albans, like Roxbury Latin, recruits and develops young teachers.  In these administrative roles, Sam has shown “a talent for seeing the potential in others” and was repeatedly referred to as a wonderful mentor who cares deeply for students “as well as for adults who care for students.”

    However, as is always the case at our school, more important than his impressive resume is who Sam is as a person.  On this front, our extensive interactions with Sam as well as his references could not have been stronger.  Direct quotes from references included  “the most trustworthy and ethical person you will ever meet,” “his integrity and authenticity come out in everything he does,” “he’s unwavering in his commitment to do right by everyone,” and “I know how much Roxbury Latin cares about character, and Sam is an A++. Nobody is more dedicated and universally respected.”  Over the past three months the search committee got to know a remarkably “humble yet self-assured,” “highly empathetic,” “brilliant thinker.”  We saw firsthand the joy he exuded during lunch with the boys on his visiting day at the school, and heard his thoughtful and deliberate answers to questions about a classical general education versus specialization; academic rigor and mental health; and balancing tradition and change.  We met a teacher “more focused on students than any educator I know,” who attends every school event and now stands at the St. Albans circle each morning greeting each of the 325 boys of the upper school by name. 

    Over our countless meetings and conversations with him, it became clear to the search committee that for Sam the moral, intellectual, and physical growth of young boys from all backgrounds and walks of life is a true calling.  In the words of Vance Wilson, the former head of St. Albans and former Roxbury Latin trustee, “Sam’s natural role in life is to create loving bonds between people through mutual respect, kindness, compassion, and sincere hope for the children’s future.”  Or in Sam’s own words, “my life as a teacher has been dedicated to boys from all paths and all places, and Roxbury Latin’s commitment to access and inclusion, to empathy and care, speaks deeply to me.”  We can say with great confidence that in this new role, Sam will ensure that every boy at RL is known and loved.

    Sam is a devoted husband and loving father.  As you will read in his message below, he is very happy at St. Albans, his home for nearly 20 years.  But he was sent our role description, and the more he read and learned about Roxbury Latin, who we are and what matters most to us, the more he came to realize “the role of the Head of School at Roxbury Latin is a remarkable opportunity.”  An opportunity that, in the end I am pleased to report, moved him, both literally and figuratively.

    I very much look forward to more formally welcoming Sam, his wife Dana, and 12-year-old daughter Ernie to our community and enabling you to get to know and love them over the months and years ahead, just as the eight members of the search committee were fortunate to have done over the past few months.  They are a delightful family who will be wonderful new residents of 57 Quail Street.  Until then, I can only thank you again for the time and feedback so many of you gave to the search committee and board during this process, the trust you have given us in making this most important decision and, as always, your love for Roxbury Latin.  I speak for all members of the board that it is truly an honor and privilege to serve you and our great school.

    Ethan Berman ’79

    Message from Sam Schaffer

    Dear Members of the Roxbury Latin community,

    What a wonderful thing it is to be invited to join The Roxbury Latin School.  I am at once excited and humbled and honored.  Excited because of the remarkable school and community that Roxbury Latin is; humbled because of the deep traditions of the school’s long history and the remarkable legacy left by Tony Jarvis and Kerry Brennan; and honored that the board of trustees believes that I can carry on the work and love and care of the generations of leaders and teachers and students who have come before me.  I am eager to get to know you all, to earn your trust, and to join you in the pursuit of the education of our boys.

    Roxbury Latin is a special school.  That is something that you all know by experience, and it is something I have come to understand over the years—both through the school’s reputation and through chance encounters along the way, whether coaching against RL teams in my first year as a teacher, or working with RL faculty as a member of the Penn Fellows program, or encountering RL leaders at various boys’ school conferences.

    And over the past few months through the search process, I have come to see what makes Roxbury Latin so special even more vividly.  As I read more and more about RL, deeply held and oft-repeated phrases such as “every boy is known and loved” and “accomplished generalist” have resonated powerfully with me.  As I spoke with faculty, I heard their passionate commitment to a rigorous liberal arts curriculum as well as to the school’s core emphasis on character development and relationships with students.  As I talked to boys at lunch and asked them their favorite thing about RL, to a man they gave some version of “community.”  As I chatted with parents, I listened to them praise what RL’s teachers and coaches and leaders have done for their sons.  And as I spoke with alumni, I heard the reverence with which they recounted the transformative nature of their time at RL and the importance of the school’s broad access to boys and families from all walks of life.  In each of these conversations, the love for the Roxbury Latin community was palpable.  And it was inspiring.  This is a special school.

    It is also a school that aligns closely with my own values and aspirations as a teacher, a coach, a scholar, and a leader.  The focus on excellence, the dedication to the growth of boys, the emphasis on the intellectual, the physical, and the moral—all those are at the core of Roxbury Latin, and all those are at the core of the person I hope to be and of the place I hope to live and work and grow.  Indeed, I have had the great joy of being at a similar institution with similar values, St. Albans School in Washington, DC, which has been my home for nearly two decades.  The mentors that I have had at St. Albans, the faculty whose talent and dedication have inspired me, the boys who have challenged and taught me, all have made me a better teacher and leader and person.  I am grateful and forever indebted for their care and guidance and inspiration.  

    But the pull of Roxbury Latin is strong.  In my time in schools, I have come to learn that at the heart of great institutions is not only a strong mission but also a healthy and aligned culture.  Culture at schools comes from big things: from core values such as a dedication to a “Classical education,” from special places like the Refectory and Rousmaniere Hall, from deeply loved traditions such as Exelauno Day and the Opening Day all-school handshake.  Culture also emerges in the small places—in the spaces in between—in the ways boys speak to each other, in the daily interactions in the hallways, in the classes that are offered and taken, in the behaviors that emerge in moments both challenging and triumphant.  That culture is so powerful at Roxbury Latin, and that culture has resonated with me and has drawn me to the school.  I am blessed and grateful to have the opportunity to contribute to both the school’s mission and its culture.   

    So let me close by reiterating how excited I am to join the Roxbury Latin community.  I will do my best to honor and strengthen the school’s core values and traditions.  To continue to make RL a place where boys can flourish, where they can be inspired to a life of the mind, where they can sharpen both their creative and analytical instincts, where they can learn and sing and play and compete and laugh together.  To promote the school’s standards of academic rigor, emphasis on character development, and athletic and artistic excellence.  To reach out to and communicate its values and uniqueness to the community around it.  I will also strive to enhance the way in which the school carries out this mission, not only holding the core but also adapting to future conditions, responding to complexity, and embracing progress.  Boys’ schools are uniquely positioned to take on the challenges of the world that will face us, and none more so than Roxbury Latin.  I will do my best to approach these duties with humility and thoughtfulness and care.

    I am so eager to get to know all of you and look forward to doing so in the days, months, and years ahead.  I am grateful for the opportunity.

    Sam

Head of School Search

The Roxbury Latin School is conducting a national search to find its next Head of School, as Headmaster Kerry Brennan announced his retirement at the end of the coming school year, effective June 2024.

Our Board of Trustees has convened a Search Committee of current and former trustees, parents and faculty members, to identify Headmaster Brennan’s successor. The Search Committee will partner with search firm Isaacson, Miller to find and assess the most qualified candidates for this role.

Roxbury Latin has greatly benefited from strong and stable leadership for many decades, and this moment represents for RL an opportunity to select a new Head of School who will bring new ideas, new skills, and a new outlook for the future, while at the same time continuing to honor the mission of Roxbury Latin: to know and love each boy who walks through our halls, and to remain true to all that makes Roxbury Latin the school that so many of us love and cherish.

This page is where you will find the most up-to-date information regarding the Head of School Search process, as the committee works throughout the coming months. There will be opportunities to offer insight and feedback to the Search Committee and search firm, which will be communicated directly to the Roxbury Latin community.

Read the complete Head of School position profile here.

Search Committee

Ethan Berman ’79 — Board President
Ousmane Diop P’24 — Faculty Member
Derek Ho ’92 — Current Trustee
Dennis Kanin ’64, P’01,’04,’06 — Board President Emeritus
Marlyn McGrath — Current Trustee
Anne McNay P’11,’13 — Current Trustee
Chris Mitchell ’89, P’27 — Current Trustee
Soren Oberg P’21,’23,’25,’27 — Current Trustee

Communications and Updates

  • A Message from Dr. Sam Schaffer: July 20, 2023

    Dear Members of the Roxbury Latin community,

    What a wonderful thing it is to be invited to join The Roxbury Latin School.  I am at once excited and humbled and honored.  Excited because of the remarkable school and community that Roxbury Latin is; humbled because of the deep traditions of the school’s long history and the remarkable legacy left by Tony Jarvis and Kerry Brennan; and honored that the board of trustees believes that I can carry on the work and love and care of the generations of leaders and teachers and students who have come before me.  I am eager to get to know you all, to earn your trust, and to join you in the pursuit of the education of our boys.

    Roxbury Latin is a special school.  That is something that you all know by experience, and it is something I have come to understand over the years—both through the school’s reputation and through chance encounters along the way, whether coaching against RL teams in my first year as a teacher, or working with RL faculty as a member of the Penn Fellows program, or encountering RL leaders at various boys’ school conferences.

    And over the past few months through the search process, I have come to see what makes Roxbury Latin so special even more vividly.  As I read more and more about RL, deeply held and oft-repeated phrases such as “every boy is known and loved” and “accomplished generalist” have resonated powerfully with me.  As I spoke with faculty, I heard their passionate commitment to a rigorous liberal arts curriculum as well as to the school’s core emphasis on character development and relationships with students.  As I talked to boys at lunch and asked them their favorite thing about RL, to a man they gave some version of “community.”  As I chatted with parents, I listened to them praise what RL’s teachers and coaches and leaders have done for their sons.  And as I spoke with alumni, I heard the reverence with which they recounted the transformative nature of their time at RL and the importance of the school’s broad access to boys and families from all walks of life.  In each of these conversations, the love for the Roxbury Latin community was palpable.  And it was inspiring.  This is a special school.

    It is also a school that aligns closely with my own values and aspirations as a teacher, a coach, a scholar, and a leader.  The focus on excellence, the dedication to the growth of boys, the emphasis on the intellectual, the physical, and the moral—all those are at the core of Roxbury Latin, and all those are at the core of the person I hope to be and of the place I hope to live and work and grow.  Indeed, I have had the great joy of being at a similar institution with similar values, St. Albans School in Washington, DC, which has been my home for nearly two decades.  The mentors that I have had at St. Albans, the faculty whose talent and dedication have inspired me, the boys who have challenged and taught me, all have made me a better teacher and leader and person.  I am grateful and forever indebted for their care and guidance and inspiration.

    But the pull of Roxbury Latin is strong.  In my time in schools, I have come to learn that at the heart of great institutions is not only a strong mission but also a healthy and aligned culture.  Culture at schools comes from big things: from core values such as a dedication to a “Classical education,” from special places like the Refectory and Rousmaniere Hall, from deeply loved traditions such as Exelauno Day and the Opening Day all-school handshake.  Culture also emerges in the small places—in the spaces in between—in the ways boys speak to each other, in the daily interactions in the hallways, in the classes that are offered and taken, in the behaviors that emerge in moments both challenging and triumphant.  That culture is so powerful at Roxbury Latin, and that culture has resonated with me and has drawn me to the school.  I am blessed and grateful to have the opportunity to contribute to both the school’s mission and its culture.

    So let me close by reiterating how excited I am to join the Roxbury Latin community.  I will do my best to honor and strengthen the school’s core values and traditions.  To continue to make RL a place where boys can flourish, where they can be inspired to a life of the mind, where they can sharpen both their creative and analytical instincts, where they can learn and sing and play and compete and laugh together.  To promote the school’s standards of academic rigor, emphasis on character development, and athletic and artistic excellence.  To reach out to and communicate its values and uniqueness to the community around it.  I will also strive to enhance the way in which the school carries out this mission, not only holding the core but also adapting to future conditions, responding to complexity, and embracing progress.  Boys’ schools are uniquely positioned to take on the challenges of the world that will face us, and none more so than Roxbury Latin.  I will do my best to approach these duties with humility and thoughtfulness and care.

    I am so eager to get to know all of you and look forward to doing so in the days, months, and years ahead.  I am grateful for the opportunity.

    Sam

  • Announcing RL's 12th Head of School: July 20, 2023

    Dear Roxbury Latin community,

    On behalf of the Board of Trustees, I am delighted to announce the appointment of Sam Schaffer as the next head of Roxbury Latin.  Sam will begin his tenure at the start of the 2024-2025 school year upon the retirement of Kerry Brennan on June 30, 2024.

    Sam is currently the Head of Upper School at St. Albans School, an independent boys’ school in Washington, DC.  He has spent his entire career on two related pursuits: boys’ education and academic excellence.  Valedictorian, class president, and three-sport athlete of his high school class in Atlanta, Sam was a Morehead Scholar and Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of North Carolina where he majored in history with a minor in Latin.  He spent a year teaching and coaching at Groton before moving to St. Albans where, in only his second year, the senior class awarded him the John F. McCune Prize for teaching.  After six years as a dorm parent, history teacher, advisor, and varsity football and basketball coach, Sam left St. Albans to pursue a graduate degree in history from Yale, where he wrote his dissertation on Woodrow Wilson’s generation and the South from 1884 to 1920.  After receiving his Ph.D. in 2010, Sam was named the Cassius Marcellus Clay Postdoctoral Associate in Yale’s Department of History and the Gilder-Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition.  From 2007 to 2011, he served as a fellow and coordinator at Yale’s McDougal Graduate Teaching Center, organizing workshops for teachers across disciplines.

    Sam returned to St. Albans in 2012 as the Assistant then Associate Dean of Faculty, while also serving as Assistant Director of College Counseling, teaching history, and coaching at various levels, before becoming Head of the Upper School in 2021.  As Associate Dean of Faculty, Sam worked closely with the dean of faculty in all faculty hiring, and developed and implemented a new and highly successful teacher evaluation program that a former teacher remarked “has now become part of the ether there and deeply embedded in the institution.”  Sam was also St. Albans’s representative at the Penn Fellows Teaching program where St. Albans, like Roxbury Latin, recruits and develops young teachers.  In these administrative roles, Sam has shown “a talent for seeing the potential in others” and was repeatedly referred to as a wonderful mentor who cares deeply for students “as well as for adults who care for students.”

    However, as is always the case at our school, more important than his impressive resume is who Sam is as a person.  On this front, our extensive interactions with Sam as well as his references could not have been stronger.  Direct quotes from references included  “the most trustworthy and ethical person you will ever meet,” “his integrity and authenticity come out in everything he does,” “he’s unwavering in his commitment to do right by everyone,” and “I know how much Roxbury Latin cares about character, and Sam is an A++. Nobody is more dedicated and universally respected.”  Over the past three months the search committee got to know a remarkably “humble yet self-assured,” “highly empathetic,” “brilliant thinker.”  We saw firsthand the joy he exuded during lunch with the boys on his visiting day at the school, and heard his thoughtful and deliberate answers to questions about a classical general education versus specialization; academic rigor and mental health; and balancing tradition and change.  We met a teacher “more focused on students than any educator I know,” who attends every school event and now stands at the St. Albans circle each morning greeting each of the 325 boys of the upper school by name.

    Over our countless meetings and conversations with him, it became clear to the search committee that for Sam the moral, intellectual, and physical growth of young boys from all backgrounds and walks of life is a true calling.  In the words of Vance Wilson, the former head of St. Albans and former Roxbury Latin trustee, “Sam’s natural role in life is to create loving bonds between people through mutual respect, kindness, compassion, and sincere hope for the children’s future.”  Or in Sam’s own words, “my life as a teacher has been dedicated to boys from all paths and all places, and Roxbury Latin’s commitment to access and inclusion, to empathy and care, speaks deeply to me.”  We can say with great confidence that in this new role, Sam will ensure that every boy at RL is known and loved.

    Sam is a devoted husband and loving father.  As you will read in his message below, he is very happy at St. Albans, his home for nearly 20 years.  But he was sent our role description, and the more he read and learned about Roxbury Latin, who we are and what matters most to us, the more he came to realize “the role of the Head of School at Roxbury Latin is a remarkable opportunity.”  An opportunity that, in the end I am pleased to report, moved him, both literally and figuratively.

    I very much look forward to more formally welcoming Sam, his wife Dana, and 12-year-old daughter Ernie to our community and enabling you to get to know and love them over the months and years ahead, just as the eight members of the search committee were fortunate to have done over the past few months.  They are a delightful family who will be wonderful new residents of 57 Quail Street.  Until then, I can only thank you again for the time and feedback so many of you gave to the search committee and board during this process, the trust you have given us in making this most important decision and, as always, your love for Roxbury Latin.  I speak for all members of the board that it is truly an honor and privilege to serve you and our great school.

    Ethan Berman ’79

  • Head of School Search Update: June 13, 2023

    Dear Roxbury Latin Community,

    As we have just celebrated the Class of 2023, finished end-of-school-year faculty and administrative meetings, and now have many of our boys enjoying summer immersion trips abroad, I write to give you an update on our ongoing head of school search. Over the past few months, working closely with our search consultants from Isaacson Miller, we have had the privilege of reviewing more than 100 potential candidates, explored 25 of them in detail, held in-person interviews with 10 of them, and last month brought three to campus. We had been optimistic about the interest we would have in the position, and I am pleased to report it has exceeded our high expectations. 

    However, as all RL boys are reminded, “from those to whom much has been given, much will be expected.” With those words in our ears, the committee is now hard at work reviewing our final candidates. This includes further referencing, in-depth background checks, reviews of their oral and written communication, and, when needed, follow up interviews and conversations. Most important, we are going back to our head of school position profile, a document many of you contributed to with your valuable survey feedback, and trying to avoid the often misleading natural instincts of whom do I “like” the best or who has the most “impressive” resume. Instead, we remain focused on questions we asked at the start of this process: Who will maintain and strengthen our distinctive culture? Who will identify, attract, and inspire our next generation of excellent faculty and staff? Who will ensure our commitment and ability to maintain our need-blind admission policy and our focus on access and inclusion? And, of course, who will know and love every one of our boys?

    We are also fortunate that time is on our side, for as I had communicated earlier, we had planned to have our next head selected and announced in the fall. Given the strong interest in the position, we rushed our campus visits to ensure that school would be in session, and that the boys – the reason we all do what we do – would be there. The search committee is taking advantage of this luxury of time and making sure we leave “no stone unturned” before bringing a recommendation to the board. While it is now possible that we will be able to go to the board by mid-summer, and therefore have a person named before school starts again at the end of August, please be assured that we will not rush our decision if our work is not done. The next head will not start until the summer of 2024, so even a late-fall decision gives us more than enough time for a smooth transition.

    I apologize if I am raising more questions than providing answers at this point, but I am sensitive to the fact that there has been no community-wide communication about the search since early spring. If there is one message I would hope you take from this note, however, it is that the committee feels very confident that the school will be in good hands for the next 20 years. 

    Enjoy your summer. As always, please feel free to reach out to me or any search committee member with any questions, concerns, or a “stone you feel needs to be turned.” I thank you again for your patience and shared love of our school.

    Ethan Berman

  • Head of School Position Profile: April 7, 2023

    The complete Roxbury Latin Head of School position profile is available here, and on the Isaacson, Miller website. The position profile was developed by the Isaacson, Miller team and members of the Search Committee, and incorporates what they learned in hearing from hundreds of members of the Roxbury Latin community during the month of March.

  • Head of School Search Survey and Sessions: March 13, 2023

    Dear Roxbury Latin Community,

    As a follow up to the note circulated last week, we encourage you to help us in our work to find the next head of Roxbury Latin.  As a valued member of our community, your voice matters, so please take the time to complete this survey.  (Survey will close on Monday, March 27.)  This input is crucial in determining the imperatives and key characteristics we will be looking for as we identify and consider different candidates for the role.  Please know that all responses are confidential and will go directly to our search partner, Isaacson, Miller, who will use your feedback in drafting the position statement that will be posted and shared with prospects.

    In addition, we have scheduled a series of sessions for alumni, faculty, staff, and current parents to meet and talk in more detail with the individuals at Isaacson, Miller, who will be leading this search.  You are welcome to attend any of these sessions on campus or via Zoom.  If you plan to join us in-person or remotely, you may find these questions from the Isaacson, Miller team helpful in planning for the discussion.

    Finally, please note that you can find the latest updates on the search process on our new Head of School search page of the school website.

    Thank you in advance for your time and love for our school.

    Ethan Berman ’79
    Ousmane Diop ’24
    Derek Ho ’92
    Dennis Kanin ’64, P’01,’04,’06
    Marlyn McGrath
    Anne McNay P’11,P’13
    Chris Mitchell ’89, P’27
    Soren Oberg P’21,’23,’25,’27

  • Head of School Search Process Update: March 9, 2023

    Dear RL Community,

    I am pleased to report that the start of our search to find Kerry Brennan’s successor is well underway. The following six current trustees, one past board president, and one long-standing faculty member have graciously agreed to commit their time as our search committee: Ethan Berman ’79, Ousmane Diop, Derek Ho ’92, Dennis Kanin ‘64, Marlyn McGrath, Anne McNay, Chris Mitchell ’89, and Soren Oberg.

    We evaluated six search firms to assist us with our work. The search committee interviewed three finalist firms and, after further references and late-night discussions, recommended to the board the selection of Isaacson, Miller. We were blessed with many attractive options for a partner, and the committee was impressed by the rigor, candor, and integrity of the Isaacson, Miller team and approach. While this will be a nationwide search, the committee was also attracted to the fact that Isaacson, Miller is a Boston-based firm with deep roots in the local education community and to their long-standing commitment to diversity. Yesterday, the Board of Trustees unanimously approved the committee’s recommendation. 

    The next step in the search is the “discovery” process, during which Isaacson, Miller will work to learn more about the distinct attributes of our school—what truly “makes RL, RL”—and to best understand what we are looking for in our next head. The team from Isaacson, Miller will start this work immediately, including a visit to campus next Tuesday, March 14, and Wednesday, March 15, where they will meet with faculty and staff, administrators, students, and trustees. In addition, they will send a survey to the entire RL community and set up in-person and Zoom meetings with current and past parents and alumni. This discovery process will conclude in April with a position profile for Roxbury Latin’s next head of school, which we will post publicly and share with potential candidates. 

    In the next few days you will receive next week’s meeting schedule, access to the survey, and information on further opportunities to connect with the search committee and our search partner, Isaacson, Miller. I hope that you will all take the time to provide the same honest and thoughtful feedback many of you have graciously shared with me already. Success will depend on the voices of many, not the opinions of few.

    Ethan

  • Message from the Board President: February 14, 2023

    Dear Roxbury Latin community,

    As you have just read, Kerry Brennan has decided to retire as Headmaster of Roxbury Latin at the end of the 2023-2024 school year.  While we all knew that this day would come, that does not make it any less of a loss, as his leadership, dedication, and love will be greatly missed.  This, however, is not the time to thank him for his nearly two decades of service, nor to list all that he and Roxbury Latin have achieved over his time as Headmaster.  Fortunately his tenure is far from over, and knowing Kerry as I do, I am sure that the next year and a half will bring even greater accomplishments.

    Instead I write today to share with you the process the Board will take to select the 12th head of our great school.  We are fortunate and thankful that Kerry informed us of his intentions well in advance to ensure that we would have ample time to find an appropriate successor.  Over the next few weeks, a search committee will be formed, and a number of outside search firms will be interviewed to assist that committee and the school in this process.  I expect the search committee to be announced by the end of this month, and a search firm hired by the end of March.  I will be back in touch with all of you when each of those decisions is made.

    The timeline after that will be determined by the search committee in consultation with the outside search firm, but my expectation is that candidates will be considered and interviewed over the spring and summer with a final decision made and announced in the fall of 2023.  The search committee will inform the full community of a more specific timeline and process as soon as it is fixed, which I would expect to be by the end of April.

    I realize that this is unsettling and perhaps upsetting news to many of you.  Roxbury Latin has greatly benefited from strong and stable leadership for many decades, and times of change create uncertainty.  While sensitive to those concerns, I see change as an opportunity.  An opportunity to grow and to learn.  An opportunity to find a person who will bring new ideas, new skills, and a new outlook for the future, while at the same time continuing to know and love each boy who walks through our halls and to remain true to what makes Roxbury Latin the school that so many of us love and cherish.  An opportunity that will make us even better and stronger, just as the hiring of Kerry Brennan did eighteen years ago.

    I will do my best to keep you and the rest of the Roxbury Latin community informed of progress, but please bear in mind that this is a process that will take months, not days or weeks.  There is no more important decision a school can make than choosing its leader, and we will take our time to ensure that we have given thorough consideration and thought, with as much information and input as possible, to make that decision wisely.  I can only thank Kerry again for putting the school’s interest ahead of his own and letting us know of his intentions so early.

    In the meantime if you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact me directly at ethan.berman@roxburylatin.org.

    Sincerely,
    Ethan Berman ’79
    President of the Board of Trustees

  • Announcement from the Headmaster: February 14, 2023

    Dear Friends:

    I recently let the Board of Trustees know that the 2023-2024 academic year would be my last as Headmaster.  I will have served twenty years in this capacity and with gratitude and humility I know that this is the right time to step down.

    When I was fortunate to be invited to be the school’s 11th Headmaster in 2004, the Board suggested no obvious mandate.  I would be following a highly successful predecessor in Tony Jarvis, who over thirty years had made a distinctive mark on this community.  I believe that most simply hoped I would strive to maintain the excellences and values for which Roxbury Latin was known.  With the highest regard for what had been and especially the history, traditions and ethic of the school, I sought, however, for us to evolve, to broaden and deepen programs, to support and attract high quality people, and to ensure that the facilities were both functional and beautiful and served an ambitious program well.  Best of all, I have consistently maintained that our most distinctive feature was our demographic, the boys we served.  We have made clear that the financial support necessary to guarantee the ability of talented, committed boys of all kinds to attend the school and to participate fully in its programs had to be a top priority.  The result is a school defined by a broadly representative, inclusive student body.

    One of the most compelling reasons for my return to RL and Boston in 2004 was the opportunity to help lead a school with a clear mission, to be involved in all aspects of its operation, and to have an impact on everyone in a relatively intimate community.  I regularly suggested to my colleagues that our principal opportunity and responsibility was to know and love every boy.  Roxbury Latin has both the structure and the will to realize that essential, rare goal.

    There will be plenty of time to reflect on the past twenty years over the next eighteen months.  Whatever has been achieved over my time as Headmaster has been the result of a great team effort.  For that and more, I am grateful to the Board of Trustees, the faculty and staff, parents, alumni, and the boys themselves for realizing this dream of a school, for your support, and for your friendship.  You have all played a part in ensuring that my privileged professional life was meaningful and joyful.  Thank you.

    Sincerely,
    Kerry P. Brennan
    Headmaster

About Isaacson, Miller

Isaacson, Miller, one of the country’s premier executive search firms, has been selected to partner with the Search Committee in identifying the best candidates for Roxbury Latin’s next head of school. Isaacson, Miller has more than four decades of experience partnering with organizations that advance the public good, recruiting leaders with proven records of excellence, integrity, and impact. Isaacson, Miller is a Boston-based firm with deep roots in the local education community and a long-standing commitment to diversity. Learn more about Isaacson, Miller.

View the Head of School search listing on the Isaacson, Miller website.