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Your Head of School is leaving. What do you do next as a Board?

Sally Mixsell | September 1, 2025

A friend and fellow head of school called me recently to share that she would be departing her role as head after nearly twenty years. She gave notice to her board eighteen months prior to her planned departure, but was distressed by the board’s actions post her announcement. The board has hired someone to “manage the transition,” and yet my friend has been left in the dark regarding who has been hired, what their charter is, or what the board’s intentions moving forward are. My friend finds herself bewildered by the lack of followup conversation, respect for partnership she has worked hard to build with the board over the years, or recognition that she could be a thought partner to the board as they navigate forward.

Perhaps the Board has made a good choice, but their approach has created an uncomfortable dynamic in a partnership that, up until this point, had been close and collaborative, a dynamic that will not serve the school well through the transition.

This call is what spurred me to think about what should have happened as a matter of best practice when a highly successful and longtime Head announces they will be leaving. Let’s revisit the scenario and look at how this story might have unfolded differently:

The Head of School announces her departure with an 18-month runway to her successor’s start. The Board Chair, though deeply disappointed to lose their beloved Head and perhaps a bit daunted at the task ahead, accepts the decision and calls a meeting of the Executive Committee to share the news. In that meeting they discuss what the next steps might be and the questions they need to ask themselves in order to make informed decisions: 

  • What are the resources we can call on to help us take the right steps? Here are some suggestions:
    • NAIS  
    • The regional independent school association director (if you don’t know that person, your Head surely does)
    • The current Head of School – what does she know and think about search firms?
    • The School’s board members – do they know and can recommend search firms or have friends/colleagues who do? 
  • What do we think about a search committee: is it all Board members, or composed of various constituent group representatives? How big is it? (We recommend 5-12 max.) 
  • Do we want to form the search committee now, or wait to hire a consulting firm to guide us in the context of our culture? 
    • If we hold off formation of the search committee, do we want to establish now who the Chair will be and ask that person to be among those who choose a firm? Or do we want to assign 2-3 board members to take on that task, whether they become search committee members or not?
  • How many firms should be considered, and what are the attributes we want them to bring to our process? (Three – five is probably enough.)
  • Once we have a sense of recommended firms, what’s the best way to reach out to them? 
  • What are we willing / can we afford to spend for this search? Have we planned for this eventuality, and have set funds aside? If so, is it enough? And if not, how will we cover the gap?
  • Who should choose the firm? 
    • The Executive Committee? 
    • A small ad hoc  Board committee?
    • An already-established Search Committee?
    • The full Board? (I’ll interject here to say…please don’t make this more complicated than it needs to be…)

How do we view the role of our current Head in the selection-of-a-firm process? Please be explicit about this with your Head. Carole Everett wrote a terrific article about the Role of a Head in the Search Process.

What can you expect, once you’ve contacted a search firm? 

When you’ve reached out to a firm, via email or phone, you can expect that a managing partner will respond to you and, if via email, set up a time to speak. It will be helpful to the firm to learn at least some of the following:

  • Location and founding date
  • School size and grade span 
  • Boarding or day?
  • Pedagogical approach (are you a traditional / classical, progressive, IB, Montessori,  Waldorf, member of the Coalition of Essential Schools, and so on school?)
  • Overall financial health of the school
  • Size of endowment
  • An overview of how you view the school’s strengths and challenges a next Head of School will need to manage
  • Anything else you think will be important for the firm to understand in order to assign the potential partner/partners to work with you

You will either be having the above conversation with a managing partner or with the individual or team assigned to your school. But what questions should you be asking of the firm? Here’s a sampling: 

  • What does a typical search look like with your firm?
  • How is your firm different from others we may be talking with?
  • With whom will we be working if we engage your firm?

Know what you’re looking for in a search and in the firm that will provide that kind of service. We at EC believe in the power of a good search leading to an even stronger community, transparency in helping the school community feel confident in the process (and thereby reducing anxiety about the future), and in the search committee and board feeling proud to have selected a great partner(s) to guide them well and support unexpected “blips” that may occur. 

Once you have selected the firm you feel will best suit your needs, you should trust that the partner(s) working with you will guide you along the way. As a result, the partnership with the outgoing Head of School, carefully built over many years, will not only remain intact, but will be enriched. Best of luck to you and your school community!

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