Director Search

The Plymouth Church School community is deeply grateful to our Director, Adrienne Urbanski, for her outstanding ten years of leadership. We wish her all the best when she steps down after the end of this school year, and we appreciate the incredible teaching and support team she has built.

To facilitate the transition to a new Director, we have formed a committee who is actively searching for the best person to lead the school to its next phase.

Below please find updates on our transition process.

Dear Plymouth Church School Families,

As Chair of the Plymouth Church School (PCS) Committee, a group of parents and Plymouth Church members who work with PCS leadership on long-term planning and oversight of the school, I wanted to follow up on Adrienne’s note.

Adrienne’s Leadership

I know PCS both as a parent—my son Rory graduated from Big Green Room in 2023, and my son Finn graduated from Red Room in 2025—and as a Plymouth Church member. On behalf of both the school and the church, I want to express our deep gratitude to Adrienne. Words do not adequately convey here the impact of her leadership over the last decade.

She has built a learning environment where arts, academics and play are seamlessly interwoven, and the math and reading curricula that PCS has implemented in the fours and fives programs have become key differentiators of our school. She has also built the teaching and support team we all know and love, serving as a leader and mentor who has encouraged them to expand their roles within and outside of the classroom. Additionally, she has significantly expanded PCS’s reach in terms of admissions and exmissions. And, as a reflection of the reputation she has built for PCS, the school was recently invited to join ISAAGNY, the Independent Schools Admissions Association of Greater New York.

As I have come to know more PCS families over time, I find we all seem to most appreciate the same thing about the school — the warm and inclusive community. For my family and many others, this has been instrumental in building lasting friendships among children and parents, and in navigating the highs and lows of early childhood years. Once again, this is a reflection of Adrienne and the team she has built. Finding someone who can sustain this culture will be a key component of our search process.

Please know that Plymouth Church and the PCS Committee remain fully committed to supporting the mission and work of PCS, and to growing the program Adrienne has built to provide preschool-age children with an outstanding secular education.

Transition Overview

Thanks to Adrienne’s many contributions, PCS has never been in a stronger position. This is an opportunity to find the Director who can guide the school through its next phase. As Adrienne mentioned, we have appointed a search committee who will work to have a new Director in place by next July. The committee includes me as chair, along with:

• Cullen Daly, PCS Parent Association Co-Chair and current PCS parent of four years

• Pippa Hale, a PCS School Committee Member, Co-Chair of the PCS Capital Campaign Committee, and PCS parent for six years

• Andrea Turner Moffitt, a PCS parent for over ten years and a member of the PCS Capital Campaign Committee

• Gary Bartholomaus, a Plymouth Church member and the PCS School Committee representative on the Plymouth Church Council, the church’s governing board.

The Search Committee is very grateful that Adrienne has offered her full support on the transition process. We will also be reaching out to teachers and families for your input.

To further support the transition, we have retained Carney Sandoe & Associates (CSA), a leading education-focused search firm. They have nearly fifty years of experience in education searches, including for early childhood schools, both in New York City and across the United States.

Allison Gaines Pell and Burke Zalosh will lead the PCS search for CSA. Allison, who was raised in Brooklyn Heights, spent two decades in heads of school roles, and Burke has nearly three decades of search experience with CSA. They have already begun working with the Search Committee and Adrienne to finalize a job description and field a search for potential candidates, both internally and externally. Once we select a new director, they will also help develop a transition plan.

As we begin the search process, several principles will guide our work. We are looking for a new Director who remains committed to providing the very best early childhood educational experience for children and families, who will continue to invest in and develop teachers and staff, and who will further the culture of community and inclusivity that so many appreciate about PCS.

Opportunities to Share Your Perspective

Allison and Burke will be at PCS on Thursday, December 4 to hear your input on the search process. We encourage you to meet with them after morning drop off from 9:00 to 10:00am in the Reception Room. We will also share an online survey with the entire PCS community in conjunction with their visit.

We will continue to share updates as we can throughout the transition, both via email and on the PCS website.

Conclusion

Please join me in thanking Adrienne for her outstanding leadership, and know that we will find the right times to celebrate all that she has done. Looking at the many strengths of PCS, I hope you are as excited as I am about what its future holds.

If you have questions about the search process, the Search Committee will host coffee and tea in the Reception Room from 8:30am – 9:15am on Monday, November 24. We encourage you to drop by then, or you can reach us over email at PCSDirectorSearch@PlymouthChurch.org.

All the best,

Daniel O’Donnell