December 17, 2018
 
Dear Tower Community,
 
On behalf of the Board of Trustees, thank you again for the outpouring of support and love for Tower School. Today, I would like to share an update on our plans to advance Tower's vision as well as our process for finding a new Head of School.
 
In his 16 months as Head of School, Tim Delehaunty treasured opportunities to get to know our students, families, faculty and program. Tim's thoughtful leadership, wisdom and curiosity led us to identify our strengths, expand our program, and envision and articulate Tower's future through the formulation of our new Strategic Plan. We look forward to implementing and realizing our shared vision for Tower.

To learn about the Strategic Plan, please join us at our State of the School Meeting on January 29 at 6:30pm.
 
I would be remiss to not reiterate how fortunate we feel to have Dean Sidell as our Acting Head of School. Dean has 31 years of experience in independent school leadership—20 of those years have been here at Tower as: Head of Finance and Operations, Associate Head of School and now as Tower's Acting Head of School. Dean had Tim's full confidence in his leadership capabilities and his responsiveness to the needs of the students, parents and faculty. Today, Dean, our administrative team and faculty collectively contribute to the extraordinary breadth and strength of our students' experience each day.
 
We're in a good place to begin the process of hiring a new Head of School. The Board has engaged the services of Carney Sandoe, the consulting firm used to recruit Tim Delehaunty. Additionally, the search committee, comprised of 6 Board members, 1 parent, 1 administrator and 1 faculty member has been assembled. Many of the same committee members who selected Tim have returned for our current search. We anticipate that continuity and experience will result in a streamlined and thorough process.
 
The search for a new Head of School takes time. The most important thing will be to find the right individual. We know in our hearts it is impossible to find exactly the same wonderful person, but we are confident that we will find a different kind of wonderful.
 
Opportunities for the community to be part of the search will be announced in January. In the meantime, please let us know if you have any questions.
 
We hope that you enjoy a wonderful winter break; we look forward to seeing you all in 2019.

Best,

Leila Blodgett
Chair, Board of Trustees

P.S. A quote I read to our Board at our December meeting sums up my feelings about Tower:  "You won't understand the unabashed power of a community until you're a part of one."  Tower is a special community and we have all of you to thank for that.