Head of School Search

In September 2024, Roland Park Country School (RPCS) was thrilled to announce that Joan Smith, HA, GP'24, former Upper School Head, and long-time friend and supporter of RPCS, graciously agreed to extend her tenure as Head of School through the 2025-2026 school year. (See announcement below.) The School has now officially embarked on the process of searching for and securing the seventh Head of School in its history to take office on July 1, 2026.

Leadership Opportunity

RPCS is a premier all-girls school in the greater Baltimore area and provides an extraordinary opportunity for a passionate and energetic leader. RPCS is looking for a Head of School who understands that tradition is the foundation on which innovation is built and will honor the history of the nearly 125-year-old school. Our new Head of School will be an experienced educator and an empathetic and inspirational leader who creates an exceptional learning environment within a caring culture that empowers young women to excel academically, athletically, socially, and personally. The ideal candidate will also demonstrate culturally responsive leadership, promoting an inclusive environment that reflects the experiences and voices of all students. The new Head of School will be able to take advantage of the considerable resources of RPCS, including an incredibly supportive community, to realize the potential of the institution and the students enrolled.

Why Join Us?

Our Head of School will lead a distinguished group of faculty and staff who are dedicated to teaching and nurturing the next generation of strong, confident women. At RPCS, innovative ideas are welcomed, and collaboration thrives. Extensive academic programming, extracurricular offerings, and the unique tri-school model provide the young women at RPCS many opportunities to joyfully find and pursue their paths to success. We recognize that not every girl will follow the same path, a philosophy that sets us apart and allows for exploration, self-discovery and the passionate pursuit of knowledge. The effect on our graduates is remarkable: Roland Park Country School students develop a profound understanding of who they are and how to lead individually and together to impact the world.

Additionally, our School maintains a strong year-over-year enrollment and has the largest endowment of any all-girls school in the region. Our recently launched Strategic Plan has our School well-positioned for future success. Learn more about Roland Park Country School’s mission, philosophy, inclusion statement and more here.

More information, including our full Head of School position statement, will be available soon. In the meantime, all interested individuals are encouraged to submit a cover letter, a resume, and a “Statement of Educational Philosophy” at www.thefinneysearchgroup.com/rpcs-hos-application.

APPLY HERE

Please direct all questions or input regarding the Head of School search to HOSsearch@rpcs.org.

Meet Our Search Committee

We are pleased to share that we have formed a search committee to work with our consultants, The Finney Search Group. The committee is comprised of the following individuals.

David Clapp, P ‘26
Head of School Search Committee Chair
Vice President, Board of Trustees

Shannell Richardson Cockrell, 1997, P’21, P’26
Secretary, Board of Trustees

W. Kyle Gore, P’15, P’17, P,20
President, Board of Trustees

Janet Bauer Hartman, 1968, P’96
RPCS Arts Faculty, 1972-1974 and 1977-2005
Trustee

Carroll Knott McGill, 1993, P’25
Former President, Board of Trustees
Vice President, Board of Trustees

Donna Parker, P’12, P’14
Trustee

Niki Whitecar, P’36, P’38
Trustee

Head of School Search Updates

Update from the Head of School Search Committee - Nov. 8, 2024
An Important Message From the Board of Trustees President - Sept. 27, 2024

Update from the Head of School Search Committee - Nov. 8, 2024

Dear Roland Park Country School Community,

As Chair of the Search Committee, I am privileged and honored to lead the effort to find a new Head of School. Clearly, the most important decision a school makes is its selection of an aspirational, inspirational leader who embraces the school’s mission and values, and we have assembled an excellent group committed to the task. The Search Committee (listed at the bottom of the Head of School search page) is composed of Trustees from varied professional backgrounds with strong ties to the school: three alumnae, four current parents, four past parents, and a former member of the faculty. We share one thing in common — a heartfelt love for the school and a belief in its future.

As was communicated earlier this fall, The Finney Search Group has been selected as the search consultant to assist us in finding the school’s next leader. One of their most important tasks will be to gather your feedback throughout this process and give you ample opportunities to provide your thoughts. The Finney team has already scheduled a visit to the campus next week to talk with Joan and tour the school. In the weeks ahead, you will receive information about the important role you play and how you can participate when the Finney team returns to campus in the near future. In the meantime, you can email the Committee at HOSSearch@rpcs.org if there is anything you would like to share.

We are committed to conducting an inclusive, deliberate, and thoughtful search and will continue to keep you updated using this dedicated web page. On behalf of the Search Committee, thank you for your engagement, support and commitment to Roland Park Country School.

Sincerely,

David Clapp, P’26

Head of School Search Committee Chair

An Important Message From the Board of Trustees President - Sept. 27, 2024

Dear Roland Park Country School Community,

Last year at this time, I wrote to the RPCS community about how the Board of Trustees, the RPCS leadership team, and key members of our faculty have jointly undertaken a strategic planning effort to ponder how we build on the school’s nearly 125-year tradition of excellence, purpose, and passion. We have remained focused on ensuring that the young women who are graduated from RPCS in the years to come are best positioned to be extraordinary leaders who make profoundly positive differences on the lives they touch and potentially the entire world. Our tasks have centered on defining as specifically as possible who we are, who we are not, who we want our graduates to aspire to be, and the incredible spirit that differentiates our school.

As the 2024-2025 school year enters its fifth week, on behalf of the entire Board, I am writing to you to provide you with key updates as we enhance our longstanding commitment to our exceptional people, place, and programs. Specifically:

We will formally launch our new Strategic Plan - Creating Pathways to Endless Possibilities - on Tuesday, October 1^st. This Plan will guide our shared sense of purpose as a community and impact RPCS in profoundly positive ways for generations to come by emphasizing our commitments over the next five years on four key priorities, each of which include aspirational yet actionable initiatives.
As a key part of creating Pathways to Endless Possibilities, we are thrilled to formally announce that Joan Smith has agreed to remain in place and serve as our Head of School through June 30, 2026. Words alone cannot articulate the degree to which Joan has imbued the RPCS culture with a renewed sense of strong purpose, passion, tradition, and excellence. Echoing Joan’s wise and prescient words again, tradition and innovation are not mutually exclusive, as tradition is the foundation on which innovation is built. Her steadfast commitment to strengthening our community and executing the critical initial phases of our new Strategic Plan over the next 20 months will greatly benefit us all for years to come.
Guided by our new Strategic Plan and the extraordinary leadership of Joan and her team, we have selected fellow Trustee David Clapp to lead our Search Committee to secure Joan’s successor as the next Head of RPCS, and we have selected The Finney Search Group as our Head of School search consultant. David’s prior experiences in both private and public school operations, combined with his business background and key roles on our Board, make him uniquely qualified to lead our search effort. Finney offers a crucial blend of RPCS-specific knowledge, local private school market experience, and national access to exceptional senior leadership candidates. David and Finney are committed to including a wide range of parent, faculty, staff, student, and alumnae voices to ensure that the entire RPCS community is actively involved in this extremely important endeavor. To that end, we will launch a special website dedicated to the search effort and will start our community outreach as this process unfolds over the coming months.
Undertaking significant upgrades to portions of our campus and investing in our physical spaces to support our students, faculty, and programs is a key “actionable initiative” in our Plan. To support that process, we engaged Hord Coplan Macht to complete a Campus Master Plan to govern the creation of new spaces needed to elevate fifth grade to Middle School for the 2025-2026 school year, a significant renovation of our Lower School and Little Reds spaces, and modernization of the classroom experience for all divisions. We look forward to announcing the initial renovation projects which we expect will commence in Spring 2025. Rest assured, we are focused on ensuring minimal disruption to the student experience as our campus undergoes our planned enhancements.

Reiterating my message to you in May, we reaffirm our commitment to the proposition that academic excellence need not preclude personal happiness, and that the Pathways to Endless Possibilities on which our girls will engage in lifelong learning and success extend well beyond their college years. We also remain steadfast in our belief, forged over our nearly 125 year history, that the pursuit of excellence is meaningless without purpose, passion, and a lifelong commitment to learning and seeking new ways to improve the lives of those around us.

We look forward to engaging the entire RPCS community as we forge our Path forward together, always mindful that “We Are Many, We Are One!”

W. Kyle Gore, P’15, P’17, P’20

President, Board of Trustees

In This Section

Head of School Search

Head of School Search

Leadership Opportunity

Why Join Us?

Meet Our Search Committee

Head of School Search Updates

Update from the Head of School Search Committee - Nov. 8, 2024

An Important Message From the Board of Trustees President - Sept. 27, 2024

Resources