Executive Director Search
The Independent Schools Association of the Central States (ISACS) is pleased to announce that after a highly competitive, nationwide search and a unanimous vote of support by our Board of Trustees, Dr. Anne Stavney will become the next Executive Director of ISACS.
Announcement
Dear ISACS Community,
As Chair and Vice Chair of the ISACS Board, we are pleased to announce that after a highly competitive, nationwide search and a unanimous vote of support by our Board of Trustees, Dr. Anne Stavney will become the next Executive Director of ISACS. Anne will begin her work as Executive Director on July 1, 2026, and we are very excited for Anne to bring her experience and vision to ISACS.
Anne has served as the Head of School at the Blake School (a PK through grade 12, coeducational, college preparatory day school of 1,320 students and 315 faculty and staff) in Minneapolis, MN, since 2012. In that capacity, Anne has initiated meaningful curricular and programmatic change, been a champion of diversity and excelled at fundraising as she has executed seven capital projects and strengthened Blake’s financial aid endowment.
Prior to her tenure at Blake, Anne’s independent school teaching experience began at Lakeside School in Seattle, WA. She joined the school as a high school English teacher and assumed several different roles over her 13 years, from English Department Head to Middle School Director to Assistant Head of School. Additionally, Anne has higher education experience, having been an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Tulsa and an English Instructor at the University of Washington.
Importantly and during Anne’s time at Blake, she has also been deeply involved in the work of ISACS. Anne has chaired multiple accreditation visiting teams, she is the Chair of the Accreditation Review Committee, and she currently serves as a trustee of ISACS. Anne’s familiarity with ISACS and its mission and purpose will help ease her transition into the Executive Director role.
It was very clear to the search committee and to the ISACS Board that Anne is an accomplished and principled leader of the highest caliber. We are thrilled that she has accepted our offer, and we look forward to Anne’s leadership of ISACS in the years to come.
Driving the search process was a dedicated search committee composed of ISACS trustees, and we want to thank them for their leadership and their strong commitment to the ISACS mission and values.
- Brian Gross, City Academy (MO)
- Dr. Leslie Hosey, St. Richard’s Episcopal School (IN)
- Claire Leheny, former Executive Director, Association of Independent Schools of New England
- Lisa Riker, Louisville Collegiate School (KY)
- Melissa Soderberg, Columbus Academy (OH)
- Jeff Suzik, Cranbrook Schools (MI)
- Kasey Taylor, The Latin School of Chicago (IL)
We also want to thank our Educators Collaborative consultants, Joan Beauregard, Lisa Lyle, and André Withers, for helping to guide us through the search process. Also, we are incredibly grateful to the ISACS Staff for their participation and assistance, as they also supported the work required to make the search successful.
Lastly, there is still a year before our current Executive Director, Mary Menacho steps down, and we would be remiss if we didn’t take this opportunity to honor Mary and her steadfast leadership. Mary’s dedication to ISACS and our work has resulted in many innovations and improvements in our professional development offerings and our accreditation services. Mary’s outstanding leadership helped make this an attractive position and ensures that Anne will inherit a strong and healthy organization.
The future is very bright for ISACS. We hope you share our enthusiasm for our enviable position and for our mission, which is to: “lead independent schools in providing exemplary education.”
Sincerely,
Alexis Wright
Chair, Board of Trustees
New City School, MO
Andy Abbott
Vice Chair, Board of Trustees & Search Committee Chair
John Burroughs School, MO
Acceptance Letter
Dear ISACS Community, I am honored and delighted to accept the ISACS Executive Director position. It represents an opportunity for me to serve the 240+ independent schools in our association and help each to live their individual missions and values more completely. I can’t wait to get started in summer 2026. As an ISACS school head, I have experienced several of the Association’s strengths first hand: the transformational power of the accreditation process, the professional growth of our community members through timely learning opportunities, and the camaraderie built among school heads at the annual Heads Conference. As an Accreditation Review Committee chair and Board member, I have witnessed other strengths, too: the dedication of member school volunteers, the ED’s engagement with individual school heads and boards, and the expertise of ISACS professional staff. I am particularly drawn to the organizational mission, strong foundation, and belief in the continuous improvement of our schools, and of ISACS itself. As I begin this new chapter, I want you to know how much I look forward to leading such a high-functioning, forward-looking and vibrant association. I am excited to build relationships with ISACS community members and eager to discover new ways that we can assist school leaders in navigating our rapidly changing national, cultural, and educational landscape. I am grateful to the Executive Director Search Committee and the ISACS Board for placing their trust in me. It is a privilege to follow in the footsteps of those who have made ISACS a leading association in independent education, and I look forward to pursuing our commitment to continuous improvement together. Best regards, |
Anne Stavney, PhD |
Resources
Resources
Executive Director Search Insight Survey for ISACS Membership
Educators Collaborative slides (Heads Conference)
Letter from Mary Menacho | January 17, 2025
Dear ISACS Members,
Do you remember the challenging days of early 2020? That is when many of you first welcomed me as Acting Executive Director and, in July, as Executive Director of ISACS as we together faced the pandemic as well as the sad loss of my predecessor, Claudia Daggett. Over these past five years I have been deeply humbled and honored to work directly with many of you and tangentially through accreditation with each school. I am grateful for the amazing opportunities that working with you, the ISACS staff, and the Board of Trustees has afforded me. Indeed, serving as your ISACS Executive Director is the capstone of my long career in education. I am profoundly grateful.
It is therefore with great pause and consideration that I, in conjunction with the ISACS’ Board of Trustees, write to let you know that I will step away from my role with ISACS as of June 30, 2026.
Working alongside you, your schools, and your boards of trustees, I celebrate the diversity of our ISACS schools and the sincere and dedicated work each of you are committed to on behalf of students. From urban to rural settings, witnessing how the worthy work of preparing children to be students and future leaders is a privilege few people have the benefit of experiencing. I am one of those fortunate few. I continue to have such respect for each of our ISACS schools and am committed to learning and engaging with you over the next eighteen months.
Customary in our industry, this early transition announcement serves to allow plenty of time for a thorough leadership search and a productive transition process.
My hope is that you will have seen and experienced the professionalism and expertise of the ISACS staff and I strive to provide and improve at ISACS and that this will inspire you to help the Board consider who will next lead this outstanding association.
—Mary
Letter from Andy Abbott | January 17, 2025
Dear ISACS School Heads and Community Members,
On behalf of the Board of Trustees, I am reaching out today to share the news that Mary Menacho, our Executive Director, has informed the Board and her staff of her decision to retire at the end of her current contract, which concludes in June 2026. I have been asked by the ISACS board to chair the Search Committee for our new ED, and it is in that capacity that I write to you now.
We are deeply grateful to Mary for her exceptional leadership of ISACS over the past five years, and we look forward to her continued guidance for the next year and a half. Many of us recall the deep sadness we all felt upon hearing the news of our former director Claudia Daggett's illness. Mary began her tenure at ISACS early to help us during that trying time, and she was instrumental in guiding and supporting our community through Claudia's passing. We are fortunate to have an outstanding staff at ISACS, and Mary's leadership in those days uplifted them and helped them through an incredibly difficult period into an era of admirable and enviable collegiality and productivity.
While we were all focused on our own schools, Mary guided ISACS through the challenges posed by the pandemic to continue to ensure the enhanced on-line services and support we needed and then worked with the staff to re-ignite the excitement, energy and interaction that we have all come to expect and enjoy in our in-person conferences and programs.
ISACS oversees the accreditation of more than 240 schools, and Mary made it a commitment to visit as many of them as she possibly could, sharing her warmth with heads, teachers, administrators, parents and boards throughout the region. That hands-on approach has helped her to improve and streamline the accreditation process, to further develop our professional development offerings, and to lead us through the efforts, which culminated in the 2023 endorsement of the strategic plan, "Leading for Change," a plan that will continue to guide our efforts in the coming years. With the guidance of the plan, she has developed a trustee series that is now available nationally, strengthened the support for new heads of school, and provided governance training to dozens of ISACS schools.
We are grateful to Mary for sharing this news in advance and allowing us to initiate a comprehensive search for her successor. One of the primary responsibilities of any Board is to select, hire, and evaluate their Executive Director, and member schools can rest assured that we recognize the importance of this responsibility. The ISACS board has approved a search committee (see full list below) made up of current board members and engaged the search firm Educators Collaborative to work with us to prepare for a search that will yield an excellent Executive Director to succeed Mary in July 2026. I am honored to be asked to chair the search committee and you will be hearing from me and from Educators Collaborative in the coming weeks as we reach out to you for your input in refining the job description, the search timeline and the information for candidates.
In large part because of Mary's leadership, ISACS is in a strong position to attract another outstanding leader, and over the next eighteen months we will have ample time to thank Mary for her wonderful service to the organization.
Sincerely,
Andy Abbott
Vice-chair, ISACS Board
Chair, Search Committee
Search Committee
Search Committee
Andy Abbott
Head of School, John Burroughs School, St. Louis, MO
Brian Gross
Chief Financial Officer, City Academy, St. Louis, MO
Leslie Hosey
Head of School, St. Richard’s Episcopal School, Detroit, MI
Claire Leheny
Former Executive Director, Association of Independent Schools of New England
Lisa Riker
Head of Middle School, Louisville Collegiate School, Louisville, KY
Melissa Soderberg
Head of School, Columbus Academy, Columbus, OH
Jeff Suzik
Director of Schools, Cranbrook Schools, Bloomfield Hills, MI
Kasey Taylor
Spanish Teacher and Interim Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, The Latin School of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Search Consultants
Joan Beauregard | 206-851-6616
Lisa Lyle | 518-310-8601
André Withers | 202-528-1705