Dear Members of the Blake Community,

I’m writing to provide an update on our Head of School transition.

A Transition Committee, composed of trustees, administrators and parents, has been focused on creating a strategic and well-organized entry for our incoming Head of School Chris Torino.

Ahead of his official start date of July 1, Chris is already deeply engaged in our institutional life at Blake, working closely with Anne Stavney and school administrators. This strong partnership is ensuring an informed and deliberate handoff. We anticipate that Chris will have several official visits to Blake and this spring.

We are truly thrilled to welcome Chris and his wife, Dena, to Blake. They are enthusiastic about joining our community and building a life here in Minneapolis. After making several visits to the Twin Cities last summer, they are eager to familiarize themselves with the metro area. (They have already attended Lynx and Twins games, as well as a performance at the Guthrie Theater.)

The transition process is firmly on track, guided by a shared commitment to Blake’s mission and future. I will send an update regarding this process on behalf of the Transition Committee in early January. In the meantime, you can find a list of Transition Committee members, along with past community messages, on this Head of School Search and Transition page.

Should you have any questions specifically related to the transition planning, please feel free to reach out to the Transition Committee directly at hostransitioncommittee@blakeschool.org.

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Best regards,

Mosi Bennett P’26 ’28 ’30 ’36
Chair, Blake Board of Trustees

Dear Blake Community,

As our Head of School search moves into its final stages, we anticipate a busy and exciting period ahead. 

As you may recall, we retained Carney Sandoe & Associates to assist us with our search. The team at Carney helped us capture feedback from our community through a two-day campus visit and a comprehensive stakeholder survey, both of which helped us craft our position description and shaped the qualities and desired background of our future Head of School. The consultants reached out to thousands of potential candidates around the world before narrowing the search to several hundred with whom they engaged more deeply. Close to 60 candidates submitted formal applications.

The search committee recently hosted a strong pool of talented candidates here in Minneapolis for in-depth semifinalist interviews. Each of the semifinalists had an impressive breadth of experience, including heads and assistant heads at leading independent schools, and we were pleased with the strong diversity of backgrounds that comprised the group. We have now selected the finalists who will return for a more comprehensive visit in late April and early May. Each candidate visit will include opportunities to interact with representative members of the administration, faculty and staff, students, parents, alumni and the Board of Trustees.

Reaching this stage of the search is the result of a thorough and intentional process, and we are excited to host this group of highly talented educators on campus. The quality of the candidate pool is testament to Blake’s outstanding reputation and the attractiveness of our community.

At every step in the search process, we have prioritized our desire to identify a leader who will embrace Blake’s culture and mission. We are confident that the strength of our community will serve as a solid foundation on which our next leader will build.

Thank you in advance for your engagement and support during this important time in our school’s history.

Warmly,

Mosi Bennett and Chris Smith
Search Committee Co-Chair

Dear Blake Community,

On behalf of our search committee, we are writing to provide a brief update on our Head of School search. Over the past two months, our consultants at Carney, Sandoe & Associates have engaged with roughly 180 individuals about the opportunity to serve as Blake’s next Head of School. 

Having reviewed a carefully curated subset of this large pool, which includes sitting heads of school, college administrators and senior leaders in PK-12 schools from across the country, the committee invited a select group of candidates for confidential, in-person interviews with the search committee. We are excited to get to know these candidates more deeply, to share the special qualities and attributes of Blake as a school and community and to introduce them to the Twin Cities. 

Following this round of interviews, we aspire to move on to a finalist round later this spring.

We remain optimistic that the Blake Board of Trustees will name the next Head of School by early summer, allowing for a robust transition period in close partnership with Anne Stavney and our board.

We are pleased with the progress we are making and are grateful to our search consultants for their role in cultivating an exceptional pool of candidates. Thank you to the members of the Head of School Search Committee, who continue to give generously of their time in this important process.

Sincerely,

Mosi Bennett and Chris Smith
Search Committee Co-Chairs

Dear Blake Community,

We are pleased to share an update on Blake’s search for our next Head of School. In partnership with our Carney, Sandoe & Associates (CS&A) search consultants, the search committee has been hard at work. We want to share our progress to date and next steps in the coming months.

CS&A consultants Darryl Ford, Marsha Little and Mark Davis visited both Blake campuses over the course of two full days in late January. During their visit, they met individually and in groups with faculty, staff, administrators, students, parents and trustees. We appreciate the time, care, honesty and enthusiasm with which so many of you shared your thoughts about Blake and your hopes for the school’s next chapter.

The community feedback provided to our search consultants—as well as input collected through the online survey—have helped develop a position description that outlines the qualities we seek in our next Head of School. This document articulates our mission, values and aspirations, as well as the attributes and experience we believe our next Head will need to lead Blake through the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. The position description has been distributed via CS&A to their network and is posted on Blake’s Head of School Search page.

Some of the most compelling and consistent themes that emerged from the feedback and listening sessions include the following characteristics in a new Head of School:

• An appreciation for Blake’s longstanding commitment to academic excellence and the need to maintain and enhance that commitment, including continuing to hire, develop and retain exceptional teachers.
• An appreciation for Blake’s efforts to support students’ mental and emotional health and a continued focus on the school’s efforts in that area.
• An appreciation for Blake’s commitment to pluralism.
• A visible and inspiring presence in the life of the school who builds familiarity, trust, spirit and a unified school identity and culture.
• A strategic thinker who will work with Blake’s key constituencies to shape and execute Vision 2030.

As we turn our attention to recruiting the next best leader for Blake, the search committee will work with our consultants throughout the winter and spring to identify prospects, screen candidates, bring finalists to campus to meet with the community and then make a recommendation to the Board of Trustees, which will make a final decision.

We want to thank all of you who have so generously participated in the various listening sessions and provided excellent feedback in the survey. We will continue to communicate as the search process unfolds. If you have further questions or feedback about the search, please email us at hossearchcommittee@blakeschool.org.

Mosi Bennett P’26 ’28 ’30 ’36, Co-Chair
Laura Monn Ginsburg P’31
Kevin Myren P’25
Todd Noteboom P’21 ’23
Nedda Noori Salehi ’02, P’29 ’33 ’36
Chris Smith P’23 ’26 ’28, Co-Chair
Adebisi Wilson ’97, P’27 ’28

Dear Blake Community,

We are pleased to write to you about Blake’s Head of School search, the process we will follow and our anticipated timeline.

The Blake board has formed a Head of School Search Committee composed of the following trustees:

• Mosi Bennett P’26 ’28 ’30 ’36, Co-Chair
• Laura Monn Ginsburg P’31
• Kevin Myren P’25
• Todd Noteboom P’21 ’23
• Nedda Noori Salehi ’02, P’29 ’33 ’36
• Chris Smith P’23 ’26 ’28, Co-Chair
• Adebisi Wilson ’97, P’27 ’28

This committee will work closely with Carney, Sandoe & Associates (CS&A), the independent school search firm the board has retained, to identify the next Head of School. CS&A is an internationally recognized education search firm with extensive knowledge of independent schools. The firm has nearly 50 years of experience successfully guiding schools through searches for exceptional heads of school. CS&A’s history includes running Blake’s 2011 head of school search that brought us Anne Stavney. We are especially excited to work with the experienced and talented three-member team of Darryl Ford, Marsha Little and Mark Davis.

We are confident our partnership with CS&A will produce great results. Information about the Head of School search process, CS&A and the timeline can be found at blake.mn/headsearch. We will update the webpage periodically throughout the search process.

The CS&A team will visit Blake at the end of the month and get to know our community. On Monday, Jan. 27 and Tuesday, Jan. 28, they will spend time on our campuses and meet with a wide range of community members, including students, faculty and staff, parents, trustees and alumni. We will schedule and publicize meeting opportunities in advance of their visit.

We encourage all community members to offer their perspectives on the Head of School search and aspirations for Blake’s future through the survey linked here. The survey will be open until 8 a.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 29. Survey responses will help the search committee understand the priorities and opportunities for Blake and for the new Head of School. Responses will be instrumental as the Search Committee and CS&A create the Head of School position description. We have also created a dedicated email address at hossearchcommittee@blakeschool.org for you to share thoughts and questions with the Search Committee.

As we prepare for our next steps, please note that our CS&A team has advised we remain flexible with respect to the search timeline, given the extremely competitive landscape of leadership recruitment. We will communicate as the search process unfolds and endeavor to share as transparently as possible, while maintaining the confidentiality necessary to recruit and interview the most talented leaders.

Please feel free to contact us at the email address listed above if you have questions.

Sincerely,

Mosi Bennett and Chris Smith
Search Committee Co-Chairs

Dear Members of the Blake Community,

With deepest gratitude and appreciation for our Head of School’s outstanding leadership, the Board of Trustees recently accepted Dr. Anne Stavney’s decision for the 2025-26 school year to be her final one at Blake.

Over the past 13 years, Anne’s educational vision, strategic leadership and deep wisdom have raised Blake’s profile as a leading independent school in the nation. She has ensured that our school’s progress is always linked to our mission, to best practices in teaching and learning and to our students’ intellectual and social-emotional growth. Her expert stewardship will leave Blake in an exceptionally strong position with a brilliant future ahead.

Since joining Blake in 2012, Anne has overseen a doubling of the school’s endowment and a transformation of teaching, learning and community spaces. Through the largest campaign in Blake’s history, Anne helped raise $80 million for endowment and capital funding, including the school’s single largest gift to date. Blake undertook seven capital projects during Anne’s tenure, including the Ankeny Center for Science, Design and Research at the Northrop campus and the Dining Commons, Entry Hall and the Early Learning Center on the Blake campus.

Anne has also profoundly increased access to a Blake education. During her tenure, she has been passionately committed to increasing the school’s financial assistance budget for not only tuition but also out-of-classroom expenses, so all students can participate in the full Blake experience. More than doubling the school’s scholarship endowment—from $4 million to $9.5 million—has made it possible for 50% more students to receive financial assistance for tuition and other educational expenses.

Anne has taken to heart Blake’s commitment to pluralism—when people of diverse identities energetically engage with each other and learn from each other—and has worked assiduously to increase diversity and heighten pluralistic values. Over the past decade, Blake’s diversity has increased across every community group: students, faculty, staff, administrators and trustees. Equally important, Blake has strengthened its pluralistic commitment by prioritizing effective communication, respectful interaction, and powerful learning between and among people of different cultures and life experiences. During Anne’s tenure, Blake established the annual Intercultural Competence Professional Development (ICPD) day for Blake faculty and staff; wrote and published the Lexicon for Pluralism; created the position of PK-12 chair for equity and instruction; and formed a board committee on pluralism.

A few examples help illustrate the breadth and depth of curricular and programmatic transformation that Anne has led. Under her leadership, Blake developed a proficiency-based PK-5 Spanish program; created a PK-12 computer science department and Middle and Upper School computer science courses; established the PK-12 director of learning support services position and a school-wide learning support program; built the current global programs model; reimagined the faculty performance review system; added substantially to faculty professional development funding; and created a faculty summer curriculum grant program in which more than 75% of the faculty annually participate.

I would like to take a moment to recognize two particularly consequential acts of service Anne has contributed to our school. She and her team steered Blake through the global pandemic. Her steady hand, informed decision-making, clear communication and unwavering commitment to student learning brought the school through that incredibly challenging time, and we emerged even stronger. Additionally, Anne worked with the Board of Trustees to envision and strategize the Lower School unification and with countless others to execute the plan successfully. This vital restructuring sets up the entire school to deliver on its mission for the next century.

Over the past 13 years, Anne has led Blake with integrity, thoughtfulness and insight. In announcing her plans as early as she has, we will have the benefit of her continued leadership for the next 18 months, giving the board ample time to conduct a full and thorough Head of School search, which is already underway.

While Anne will be an incredibly hard act to follow, we know the exceptionally strong fundamentals she has cared for and cultivated in Blake over all these years—the skill and devotion of its teachers, staff and administrators, its thoughtfully developed systems, policies and procedures, and its outstanding and inspiring students—will attract to Blake another extraordinary leader.

Anne’s reflections on today’s announcement are in her note below. In the year ahead, we will have many opportunities to recognize and thank her for all she has done for our community. At this time, the Board of Trustees wants to express our deep gratitude to Anne for her unending dedication to Blake. Blake is in a very strong position to attract a talented new leader drawn from a national pool of candidates. In the coming week, we are excited to provide the community with details about the Head of School search process.

Sincerely, Chris Smith, Chair
Blake Board of Trustees

Dear Members of the Blake Community,

It was October 2012 and the 5-year-olds were wielding knives. Sharp knives. And they were cutting up fruit. Others were measuring pancake ingredients. Still others were writing and illustrating breakfast menus: fruit salad, pancakes and apple juice. The Pre-K Cafe was to host its grand opening the following morning, and our 4- and 5-year-olds were running the show. Hovering close by (and having shown the students how to use the knives safely), the teachers knew the students were capable. Because the teachers believed in them, the students believed in themselves. That’s the Blake I discovered when I began my work as Head of School.

As you know from Chris Smith’s very kind note, the 2025-26 school year will mark my 14th and final year as Head of School at Blake. It has been a remarkable experience and an honor to lead Blake—a dynamic, vibrant school that lives out its mission in every classroom, morning meeting, assembly, field trip, athletic team, orchestra recital and theatrical performance. At Blake we focus on the students and the student experience. I believe in that, and I am proud of that.

Few educators and school leaders have the opportunity to work with such curious and capable students; talented and passionate faculty; effective and dedicated staff; gifted and tireless administrators; and insightful and supportive trustees. I am grateful for the opportunities I have received throughout my tenure at Blake, for the meaningful partnerships we have forged, and for what we’ve accomplished together.

I look forward to next year. We will continue to guide the evolution of our curriculum and programs. We will continue to invite exceptional students and families to join Blake. We will continue to hire outstanding educators who are passionate about working with students. And we will continue to make good progress on Vision 2030, our strategic framework for Blake

What about those 5-year-olds who were running the Pre-K Cafe when I visited their classroom 13 years ago? When they walk across the commencement stage in June 2026, I will hand them their Blake diplomas and like the 13 graduating classes who have gone before them, I will congratulate them on a job very well done. Working with all of you to help students learn, develop, grow, change and become the people they were meant to be is why I have loved my time at Blake.

I am excited about Blake’s future through June 2026 and in the decades to come.

Best regards,

Anne Stavney, PhD
Head of School