Following a nationwide search and extensive selection processes, on Tuesday Principal Dan Frank sent out an email to the community announcing the hiring of Justin Brandon as Parker’s next Head of the Upper School. Brandon will begin on July 1 and will replace Ruth Jurgensen who currently acts as both Interim Head of Upper School and Assistant Principal.  

Brandon currently serves as the Upper School director at Moorestown Friends School in New Jersey, in which role he’s served for the past five years, and he served previously as the Form Dean at The Episcopal Academy in Pennsylvania where he handled student counseling, advising, and discipline. Brandon also held the position of Diversity Director at the Episcopal School of Dallas and Mounds Park Academy in Minnesota.

Brandon graduated from Riverdale Country School in New York, and later earned his B.A. in Political Science at Macalester College in Minnesota and his M.A. in Educational Policy and Administration from the University of Minnesota. He has a wife, Angela Miklavcic Brandon, who is also an educator, and a three year old daughter, Jozi.

According to Brandon, one of the reasons he was attracted to Parker was its mission. “My favorite part reads, ‘The Francis W. Parker School educates students to think and act with empathy, courage and clarity as responsible citizens and leaders,’ and that speaks to me a great deal in terms of what’s needed in the world today,” Brandon said. “We want to create leaders, not just students, to teach them how to think, not what to think.”

Brandon said that he is also excited to be “part of a community that is welcoming and opening, is willing to at times have conversations about anything and everything that’s going on in school and outside of school.”  He added, “That’s something I’ve cherished about Moorestown.”

Frank noted Brandon’s qualifications.  Frank said, “He came from a school that had similarities to Parker in terms of culture and his approach to listening to people.”

Upper School Science teacher and Department Co-Chair Elizabeth Druger, who was on the search committee, valued Brandon’s previous Upper School leadership roles, as well as his demeanor and communication style.  “I appreciated his quiet reserve,” Druger said. “When you’re talking to him, it’s like you’re the only one in the room. You can tell that he’s listening and when he answers a question, he parses it out and he’s also succinct.  I think he’s going to offer that conciseness that, as a science teacher, I really value.”

English teacher Mike Mahany, who served on the search committee along with Druger, enjoyed “the fact that he has kind of a laid back demeanor, but an approachable one.”  

“I could see myself going to his office and bringing him a problem or a concern, and I think he would listen, and he would listen to students as well as faculty,” Mahany said.  “I thought that beneath his being laid back, there’s a strength in him. He would be collaborative but also be able to make difficult decisions.”

Frank said that Brandon’s “ability to listen really carefully and to act in a collaborative way but also have a style of action that keeps things moving so that teachers and students feel affirmed that their voices have been heard and respected” fits really well with the Parker community and its goals.

In his first year at Parker, Brandon plans to focus on integrating into the community.  “My first year is about learning what the student experience is like in grades nine through 12 and even in the Middle and Lower schools to understand the entire Parker experience,” Brandon said. “And then getting to know the faculty and really the main goal is getting people to know who I am so we can build a partnership together.”

To get to know the community, Brandon said that he plans to “block out times and be visible and present in as many student and or faculty events as possible to really get a whole sense of the Parker community.”

“I feel like it’s important for people to know me outside of Parker,” Brandon said, “so they don’t just get to know me as the person with the office on the third floor.”

In addition to working closely with the Principal, Assistant Principal, and Heads of the other divisions, Brandon will also be aided by an advisory support group, Frank said, so that faculty members can work with Brandon “to develop the best communication processes possible.”

The process that led to the hiring of Brandon as the next Upper School Head underwent several significant changes from that of previous searches, according to Frank, the biggest of which was the emphasis on faculty inclusion. Frank said, “We really wanted the faculty involved in the process and for it to be a very open process in looking for this outstanding educator, a strong leader who would resonate with our faculty and our students and Parker’s culture, and that so I felt we needed to move in the direction of having a more inclusive process.”

The selection process began in the summer, and the school received resumes throughout November. Frank put together a search committee, which included himself, Head of Lower School Kimeri Swanson-Beck, Head of Intermediate and Middle Schools John Novick, Assistant Principal Ruth Jurgensen, and two representatives from the Upper School faculty – Druger and Mahany.

After receiving 50 resumes, the committee narrowed it down to 15 candidates for phone interviews, then 10 online video interviews before finally hosting day-long visits for four finalists – three women and Brandon.

When the four finalists came to Parker, Druger, Mahany, Frank, and Jurgenson shadowed them from 7:45 in the morning until around 5:00 in the evening. They even met with the candidates for dinner the night before their respective visits. “We got to see them throughout the whole entire part of the day,” Druger said.  “You can imagine how exhausting that long interview process would be. So are they changing their answers? Are they getting really tired? The Head of Upper School is such a demanding job so someone that gets tired and shuts down at the end of the day might not work out well.”

Mahany and Druger both said that their involvement in the process was beneficial and eliminated behind-the-scenes discussions excluding teachers. “I thought it was a much more transparent process than the one where we hired the last head,” Mahany said. “I felt like faculty voices were heard, I felt that my voice was heard, but I also felt like students, parents, and other administrative voices were all heard.”

In addition to the search committee, several parents and additional faculty members had the opportunity to get involved in the process through four small group discussions with the final candidates each of which lasted approximately an hour. These individuals took notes, gave feedback to the official search committee, and took an internal poll that, according to Frank, “was a really profound and strong endorsement for Justin Brandon.”

The Student Interview Review Board (SIRB), composed of 12 Upper School students and headed by senior Max Moog, also interviewed each candidate for a 30 minute period. “He seemed really nice, and what surprised us was just how personable he was,” Moog said. “We thought that one of the biggest issues we had with Neissa, Amos, and administrators in the past was their lack of being able to reach out to the students. Justin Brandon really seemed like he was able to step out of his room and be present with students.”

For his part, Frank is grateful for the role the community played in the search.  “I am very excited to have him come to the school and very appreciative of the time the faculty and students and parents gave to this process in a very short and intense period of time,” Frank said. “People really dove in with a good spirit and a welcoming approach that helped us take four really strong candidates and come up with a really good decision for Parker.”