Sidwell’s Middle School Principal, Rachel Kane, will leave her position at the end of the 2024-2025 school year to become the Head of School at the Friends Community School (FCS), a coed, Quaker K-8 school in College Park, Md. Her replacement, Allen Vandegrift, the current Head of the Middle School at Montgomery School in Pennsylvania, will officially take over the position on July 1. Kane attended Quaker schools in her youth and has worked in Quaker institutions for the entirety of her career since she began teaching in 2002. Her first teaching job wa s for 11 months at Monteverde Friends School in Costa Rica, where she taught music, math and science. Soon after, she received her Bachelor of Science degree in psychology from Swarthmore. She then worked at the Friends School of Baltimore for four years before leaving to obtain a Master of Science degree in counseling psychology from Loyola College.
Kane went to the University of Pennsylvania to get her Master of Science in education in school leadership. She joined Sidwell Friends in July 2016 as the Middle School Principal and has worked in that position since.
At Sidwell, Kane’s focus has been on equity within the community, she explained. During her time as principal, she helped to create identity-based affinity groups, emphasized equality during hiring processes and worked to reduce student and faculty biases. Kane is excited to move to a K-8 environment, as “the center of gravity is not high school, but closer to childhood.” She also commended FCS for their “commitment to children, to learning, to justice, and to ongoing self-examination and growth.”
One experience she shared about her visit to FCS was when she asked students what they loved about the school. A common response was “Meeting Partners,” where younger and older students pair up to share a Meeting for Worship. Kane wrote in a letter to the FCS community that this response stood out to her because of her own experience with Quakerism and how she believes that the Quaker approach to teaching allows for everyone to realize their self-worth.
According to Head of School Bryan Garman, Vandegrift has also been teaching his entire career. His career began when he got his Bachelor’s degree in education from Albright College. He first taught at William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, starting in 2012. At William Penn, the oldest Quaker school in North America, Vandegrift was the assistant director of the Middle School and taught visual arts, as well as coaching basketball and lacrosse. Vandegrift worked at William Penn for almost 10 years.
During that time, he attended Penn State to earn his Masters of Science in Independent School Leadership. His research within that field was about creating positive racial climates within independent schools, which the Journal of Ethical Educational Leadership later published.
In 2022, Vandegrift took up his current position as Head of the Middle School at Montgomery School. While at Montgomery School, Vandegrift was a prominent advocate for and a leading force in the creation of student leadership programs. One of the reasons Vandergrift chose to work at Sidwell was its “commitment to high academic standards” and efforts to “create an inclusive and diverse environment.” Garman believes that Vandegrift “will make an immediate impact on our students and community.”
According to his application to work at Sidwell, Vandegrift is a strong proponent of Quaker education, writing that “Quaker education has profoundly shaped my life personally and my philosophy as a leader.” His reasoning behind choosing Sidwell lay in the school’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion and upholding academic standards.
Vandegrift will soon be making preliminary visits to Sidwell’s Washington campus in order to learn more about the Sidwell community and begin to meet the Middle School faculty, parents and students. Kane has already gone on a tour of FCS, and said that “the most important part was knowing that I was valued and that others saw and reflected back the Light in me.”
Though the change of leadership may be difficult for members of the Sidwell community to adjust to, it may be good to have a fresh perspective within Sidwell’s leadership.
