After just one year at Parker, Upper School Head Peter Neissa has resigned, effective June 11. The decision was made public to the community in an email sent on May 6 to faculty and staff, 8th-12th grade parents, and the Board of Trustees. Neissa’s position will be filled for the 2016-2017 school year by Assistant Principal Ruth Jurgensen, who will act as an interim until a permanent replacement is found for the following year. Jurgensen will continue to serve as Assistant Principal throughout.

After the end of this school year, Neissa and his family will move back to the east coast where he has more family and a farm in Vermont. “It was a family decision my wife and I made for what was best for my family,” he said. “It was very difficult raising my three children here with no other family here in Chicago.” While he is back on the east coast, Neissa plans to finish a novel about the Inca General Ruminahui, one of the last generals of the Inca Empire before the Spanish conquest.

While at Parker this academic year, Neissa said, he worked with the Registrar’s office to make it an independent department (previously it was connected to the tech office), helped to reorganize the Civic Engagement program, and established better communication with the student support team. Neissa also cited his helping to push forward the teacher evaluation task force committee, which he said was “an awesome experience.”  

“I got to advise the students,” Neissa said, “but I let them take the lead, and they did a phenomenal job.”

In preparation for Neissa’s departure at the end of the school year, Jurgensen has already begun transitioning into her new role. “I’m meeting with departments to talk about curriculum,” Jurgensen said. “I’m meeting with grade heads to talk about discipline and other items that are on their list to get to know them and their work. I know all of these people, but this spring I’m focusing on how they all work together.”

Before coming to Parker, Jurgensen served as the Upper School Head at the Little Red Elisabeth Irwin School in Manhattan for eight years. Jurgensen believes that this experience will help in her new role. “I know what it’s like to run an upper school,” she said. “It is a lot of work and time, the majority of which is connecting with people and really working with faculty to provide students the most outstanding experience possible.”

Jurgensen said that her priorities for next year include getting to know the student body, learning the daily lives of–and supporting–the Upper School faculty, and making sure students feel like they are part of a functioning Upper School division.

“I think tone-setting is going to be important,” Jurgensen said. “The student body is ready to have challenging conversations about equity, which we will do at some point next year. I would love to see more time together as an Upper School as opposed to just in classes. I’m ready just to support the faculty as they’ve experienced so much change in the past couple of years, so whatever I can do to make the school better, that’s my priority.”

One immediate change Jurgensen plans on making will take place in the fall.  She plans to meet with the entire Upper School on the first day for around half an hour before they go to customary grade-level orientations.  Jurgensen said, “Those first days of the year will be essential.”

Upper School history teacher Jeanne Barr is looking forward to working with Jurgensen as she adjusts to the Upper School. “I don’t think she is currently as intimately aware of Upper School issues as an Upper School Head needs to be, and I think through this experience, she will grow as a leader of our school,” Barr said. “To have our Assistant Principal really listening to the Upper School students and working with the faculty will definitely be a good thing.”

Some in the community are worried about the multiple transitions from upper school division head to upper school division head in just a few years. “This will be the third Upper School Head during my time in the Upper School,” junior Leigh Logan said. “I think the transitions from Neissa to Jurgensen and from Jurgensen to whoever’s next will be hard because there won’t be any continuity.”

During the 2016-2017 school year, Principal Dan Frank, Jurgensen, and various student and faculty groups will assist in the process to search for a permanent replacement for Upper School Head, according to Jurgensen.  Who will comprise those groups, she said, is currently unknown.

“The faculty as a whole will be very involved in the process,” Jurgensen said. “We will start together and try to identify what qualities we are looking for in the next division head.” The search will start in the fall so that the new head can be chosen in time for her or him to get to know the Upper School students and faculty before taking office on July 1, 2017. As of now, the precise timing of the search is still to be determined.