Head of School Eric Temple announced he will leave Lick-Wilmerding the spring of 2022, prompting a search for a new head of school. Temple became LWHS’ head of school in 2011.
During his time at LWHS, Temple has accomplished goals outlined in the 2012-2019 Strategic Plan that focused on Making the Future, including helping to establish the Habits of Mind, increasing diversity in the community, expanding the number of faculty and resources dedicated to DEI and strengthening LWHS’ financial aid so that socioeconomic backgrounds would not affect students’ ability to attend the school. Temple also spearheaded the fundraising for LWHS’ dramatic rebuild of the main classroom building, expanding both the size of the campus and the student population, and guided the school’s transition during the commotion of construction.
Photo by Charlotte Kane
LWHS students attended classes in the old Ocean Avenue building until June 2017, then moved into the Robin’s egg blue bungalows for a little over a year, and finally, in October of 2018, migrated into the larger, more open and accessible, airy and sun-filled new Ocean Avenue building. The project offered students lessons in designing to meet the needs and goals of a community—a remarkably efficient and consequent study in demolition and reconstruction.
With the new building completed, Temple helped create the 2020-2025 Strategic Plan to Weave a Vibrant Learning Community. This current plan emphasizes strengthening bonds, community engagement, financial aid, diversity and involvement with social justice.
Temple’s next challenge was guiding the school and supporting the community through the COVID-19 pandemic.
In mid-January of 2021, Temple announced his decision to leave at the end of the 2021–2022 school year. Temple recently received his Executive Coaching Certificate from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and hopes the next step in his career will allow him to practice coaching.
“I also think it’s healthy for schools to have changes in leadership,” Temple said. “I think new leaders bring new perspectives and new energy, and I think sometimes heads of schools can stay too long in an institution and it may not always be the best thing for the school. I wanted to be cognizant and reflective of what the school needs next.”
Temple’s announcement sparked the search for a new head of school. It is typical for a head of school to give advance notice about their departure since they have important loose ends to tie up to ensure a smooth transition.
Temple himself is removed from the process of finding a new head of school. LWHS’ Board of Trustees manages the hiring, assessment or firing of the head of school to ensure that the head of school reflects the community’s needs.
The Board of Trustees has selected LWHS parent Lydia Alexander and alumnus Cameron Yuen-Shore ’05 as the co-heads of the Search Committee. In addition to Alexander and Yuen-Shore, the committee is made up of three other Board of Trustee members: the Director of The Center for Civic Engagement Christine Godinez, Tech Arts Department Chair Andrew Kleindolph and English teacher Monica West. These members were selected to reflect a diversity of opinions from the community.
In order to find head of school candidates, the Search Committee sought assistance from a search firm. They chose Carney Sandoe, which had also participated in hiring Eric Temple, after meeting with several other search firms and doing reference checks to determine their compatibility with the LWHS community. The Carney Sandoe team has a profound understanding of the Bay Area and is composed of four people with expertise from diverse backgrounds, including a former head of school, a teacher and an admissions officer.
In March, both the Search Committee and the consultants from Carney Sandoe worked on fielding the qualities that the LWHS community valued in a head of school. The Search Committee hosted focus groups and sent out surveys in the eTiger, and received input from over three hundred community members. In addition, the Carney Sandoe team met with FacStaff and StuCo to discuss the search for a new head of school.
From these discussions, the Search Committee found that the community is looking for a head of school with traits that are in line with LWHS’ mission statement, namely the ability to foster diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). These surveys also found that there is a strong interest in transparency and open communications between the head of school and the community. The new head of school will also be responsible for following through with the Strategic Plan to fortify connections within the community.
With the collection of desirable characteristics in mind, the Search Committee began drafting a position statement which Carney Sandoe will use to find candidates. They posted this on Carney Sandoe’s website, detailing LWHS’ community and goals, as well as the desirable traits collected from the surveys and focus groups.
Over the summer, Carney Sandoe will work on finding applicants who match the job description. The Search Committee is working on anti-bias training and will begin to review candidate packets and conduct interviews to find semi-finalists. By late summer, they hope to whittle down the list to three finalists, make recommendations to the Board of Trustees and hold a final vote for the new head of school by the fall of 2021. While the school will know the new head of school by the end of 2021, the new head will not officially join the community until the following school year.
However, the plan is subject to change, especially since the pandemic means that there are limited in-person interactions with the candidates. The Search Committee is hoping that semi-finalists will be able to step foot on campus to observe how the candidates fit in with the school community.
Despite the complications of the pandemic, the Search Committee is unconcerned about attracting capable candidates.
“I would say that we’re in a position where it’s very exciting for head of school candidates to know that we’re financially still in a good position, that we’re able to carry out our Strategic Plan and the DEI that we’re excited to do,” Alexander said. “We worked really hard this year to manage this and make sure that the pandemic wouldn’t affect the future and that we could still be the school we want to be.”
The school year of 2021–2022 will mark Temple’s eleventh and final year as LWHS’ head of school. Along with leaving the school, Temple will be moving out of the LWHS owned house, which he calls “the People’s House,” who will welcome the new head of school, who will join the community during the summer of 2022.
