Head of School Database Reports and Dashboards
Please take a moment to review several important data considerations and disclaimers.
General Charts on School Data
The charts offered show the total count of private schools, heads of school, and other general stats of the data collected. |
Search Nearby Heads of School
This report asks for a zip code and a radius distance. The results show nearby schools along with the name of the current head of school, and the date of their appointment as head. You can also click to view that school on a Google map. |
Average Head Tenure Report
This report asks for a zip code and then shows the schools nearby, along with the average tenure for heads of school at the schools within a selectable radius of that zip code. Please take a moment to review several important data considerations and disclaimers for this report. |
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Tenure of Headships Dashboard
Leadership sustainability is vital for a school's long-term success. This interactive dashboard offers a view into the tenure of school leadership with filtering options for location and demographics of schools. |
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Paths to Headship
This interactive dashboard offers a view of the most common career paths that current heads of school took within the independent school world, just prior to becoming a first time head of school. |
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Trends in Hiring Experienced or New Heads
This interactive dashboard will be offered in the future. It is not currently available. Hiring committees charged to find the head of school that best fits their school's needs weigh many factors into their decision of candidate. There is regularly a question of whether a school needs an experienced head taking over at the helm? Or does the school have the appetite to select a first-time head to lead the school into a new era? This dashboard reflects the HSDB data trends over the year. |
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Diversity in Placement of Heads of School
This interactive dashboard will be offered in the future. It is not currently available. When it is made available later, it will offer filters for gender and ethnicity, to then show data visualizations around the diversity of heads of school. Current/former heads: Please help by updating your profile to set your gender & ethnicity. |
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Important Data Considerations
Search Firm Placement Tenure Disclaimer Users should be aware that tenure of heads of school relative to search firm placement, often known in the industry as a “stick-rate,” is often of dubious value. Search committees, not consultants, hire heads of school, and independent school boards, not search consultants, manage the relationship from hiring on; yet the statistic reflects the consultant’s facilitation of the hiring process. Each search is different, with its own context, circumstances, and goals. Many consultants are not in their roles long enough for their stick-rate to mature, and recent or active tenures are impossible to calculate at their complete value. As a result, this visualization is divided into “current” and “completed” head tenures, and interim appointments are not applied to the calculation. The statistic works to provide an “apples-to-apples” comparison of the existing data, but the raw source information includes inherent differences of circumstance. Head of School Tenure It can be tempting to think that longer tenure is invariably better. As with the “stick rate” for search firms, this is not always the case. The HSDB data shows that roughly 25% of all head service last for less than four years. Anecdotally, in many cases those terms of service were positive ones for the school and the head, even if they did not last as long as other terms. Users should not immediately assume that tenure is a sign of either failure or success. Pre-2008 Data Searches HSDB tenure and search information is most substantial from 2008 to the present. Statistical analysis with data earlier than 2008 will be less complete, at least until more data is entered by current and former heads of school. Gender and Persons of Color Designations HSDB reflects only self-identified designations of race and gender is provided when it was reasonably verifiable. If your listed identifiers are entered in error, please visit the How to Update page to present yourself fully and to assure the accuracy of the data. |