Jamieson Announces Departure After '18-'19 School Year

Head of School Kathleen O'Neill Jamieson has decided that, after 16 remarkably successful years, the 2018-2019 school year will be her last leading National Cathedral School, Governing Board Chair Alice C. Hill announced Tuesday in a letter to parents, alumnae, faculty, staff, and friends.

 

The wide range of accomplishments during Jamieson's tenure includes the creation of the Center for Ethical Leadership and Service, the Teaching and Learning Center, and a daily coordinate schedule with St. Albans School; significant new investments in STEAM education; greater racial and socioeconomic diversity throughout the school; a record number of admission applications; and the completion of both the 1991 NCS Master Plan and the Educating Women for the World campaign.

 

"In short, Kathy will leave us with a school that is stronger today than it has ever been, a school that could not be better positioned for this moment of transition," Hill wrote.

 

Jamieson wrote in her own letter of her "great confidence that the school is in a wonderful place," crediting for that the students, faculty, and staff who contribute to the school every day.

 

"NCS is the professional community about which most people dream. Here I have found great challenge, friendship, purpose, and joy," she added. Students at NCS are "full of intellectual energy and personal conviction," she wrote, calling her work with them "a daily blessing."

 

On Tuesday, Jamieson told students, faculty, and staff of her decision, saying, "I still have another adventure in me, I think."

 

"There are so many things that come across my desk that I'm interested in studying and learning more about and writing about in ways that could be helpful. And I think this will give me the time," she added.

 

The Governing Board is forming a search committee that will identify candidates to succeed Jamieson. Leading that committee will be current Board members Elise Rabekoff and Glenn Youngkin and former Board member Linda Keene Solomon '82. The remainder of the committee and the search firm that will assist it will be announced shortly, Hill said. Throughout the search process, the latest updates will be available on the NCS website at ncs.cathedral.org/headsearch.

 

Jamieson became NCS's 10th Head of School in 2003, arriving from Purnell School in New Jersey to succeed Agnes C. Underwood. Upon her departure, Jamieson will be the school's third-longest-serving head, behind only Mabel Turner (1929-1950) and Katharine Lee (1950-1968).

 

Jamieson is also a trustee of the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation and a canon of the Washington National Cathedral. She sits on the governing board of the Association of Independent Schools of Greater Washington and the advisory boards of the Penn GSE Global Education Forum and the Latino Student Fund. Her husband, Dan, is associate headmaster for development at St. Albans School, and they have three adult daughters, one of whom—Molly Jamieson Eberhardt—graduated from NCS in 2004.