Milton Board of Trustees Announces Dr. Deborah Skolnick-Einhorn Selected Next Head of School
February 4, 2020 by
February 4, 2020 by
A NOTE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD
Dear MILTON Community,
We are delighted to announce the appointment of Dr. Deborah Skolnick-Einhorn as MILTON’s next Head of School, beginning in July 2020. Deborah was unanimously chosen as our third Head of School, following the enthusiastic recommendation of the Board-appointed Search Committee.
Deborah currently serves as Associate Dean of Hebrew College’s School of Jewish Education, her professional home since 2002. In this role, she trains Jewish educators, including day school teachers, giving her a deep understanding of the dual curriculum. Prior to Hebrew College, Deborah served as Assistant Director at the University of Maryland Hillel. Over the years, she has taught students at nearly every grade level from K through 12. A graduate of Tufts University, Deborah earned an M.A. in Modern Jewish Studies from the Jewish Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in American Jewish Life from Brandeis University. Deborah is the recipient of Brandeis University’s Excellence in Teaching Prize and was named Indiana University’s Inaugural Women and Philanthropy Fellow.
Alongside her professional work in Jewish education, Deborah has been active in pluralistic Jewish day school lay leadership. She also serves on the boards of both Tufts Hillel and Camp Yavneh and is a past chair of the Jewish Women’s Fund of Rhode Island.
We look forward to welcoming Deborah and her family into our warm community in summer 2020. We are incredibly fortunate to have Naomi Reem continue as Head of School through the 2019-2020 academic year, as she completes her 15-year tenure at the helm of JPDS/MILTON. We will honor Naomi for her extraordinary service and leadership over the coming months including at the Purim Ball on March 22, along with Steven and Brett Wernick, and Susan Schatten and Jonathan Epstein. Please join us!
The search for a new Head of school involved the entire MILTON community – parents, faculty, staff, students, alumni and their parents, grandparents, and other supporters. We want to thank all of you for your time, insights, and thoughtful participation. We owe a special debt to the members of our Search Committee. This group of volunteers took on the weighty responsibility to identify and recruit a leader for the school’s next chapter. Over the past eight months, the Search Committee dedicated countless hours to reviewing, interviewing, and vetting an international pool of candidates, and we are grateful for their tenacity and vision. See our Head of School Search webspace for more details on the search process and criteria.
We are fortunate to have found a stellar new Head of School in Dr. Deborah Skolnick-Einhorn−a talented educator, who brings warmth and creativity. She emerged as the best fit to carry on the success of MILTON, aligning well with our needs, mission, and values. The Board has created a Transition Committee, chaired by alumni parent and longtime trustee Helaine Greenfeld, to welcome Deborah to our community and to ensure a seamless start to the 2020-21 school year.
Again, on behalf of the Board, thank you to the members of the MILTON community who participated in the search process and gave us crucial feedback. As we prepare to celebrate MILTON’s first graduating eighth grade class and our beloved Naomi who “graduates” with them, we look forward to working in partnership with all of you, Deborah, and the professional leadership team in this exciting new phase for our school!
Edna Friedberg
President, MILTON Board of Trustees
A NOTE FROM DR. DEBORAH SKOLNICK-EINHORN
Dear MILTON Community,
I want to thank the extended MILTON family for their vote of confidence and for entrusting me with the leadership of such an essential community institution. Over the last decade, I have watched the school’s meteoric growth and am inspired not just by the rise in numbers (and buildings!), but with the quality of that growth. Under Naomi’s extraordinary leadership, MILTON managed to grow quickly while maintaining its hamische nature and excellence in academics and Jewish life. Perhaps most importantly, it has continued to be a source of deep community for students, families, alumni, faculty, and staff.
My family and I are so excited to be joining this special school community and coming home after many years away from DC. While it is bittersweet to leave students and colleagues at Hebrew College after 18 years, I feel lucky to be joining such a talented group of administrators and teachers at MILTON. I look forward to learning from them, realizing new opportunities with them, facing challenges with them, and coming to creative solutions together. It’s also clear that this school community would not exist without the deeply committed parents, supporters, and alumni families who built the school from a single Kindergarten into a booming center of Jewish education in the nation’s capital. I am so proud to become a part of that history.
In every interaction, the Board of Trustees has shown itself to be thoughtful, strategic, and deeply supportive. Their partnership is essential to MILTON’s success and I am eager to collaborate with the trustees to ensure that the institution thrives financially and continues fulfilling its core mission. Of course, the highlight of my MILTON visits was time with students, and I can’t wait to learn with and from them every day.
I look forward to meeting many of you over my visits in the coming months and to my official start on July 1st!
With gratitude and excitement,
Dr. Deborah Skolnick-Einhorn
Incoming Head of School
