TORONTO — Leo Baeck Day School has hired an interim director to lead the school for the coming year, following the resignation of David Prashker in March.
Dennis (Denny) Grubbs arrived in Toronto last month from New Hampshire, where he has lived since his retirement in 1999. A longtime school administrator who grew up in Hartford, Conn., Grubbs, 66, headed two schools in Massachusetts, consecutively from 1975 to 1984 and from 1984 to 1999.
Following his retirement – and his realization that he didn’t like the lifestyle – he has served as interim head of school at six American schools, most recently the Day School at Baltimore Hebrew, which, like Leo Baeck, is a Reform Jewish day school.
Prashker’s resignation from Leo Baeck, amid a controversy over content in poetry that he had posted online, took effect Aug. 31, but he has been on paid leave of absence since the spring.
Grubbs has noted “very little” fallout in the wake of Prashker’s resignation, adding that there was no impact on enrolment. He said the student population has increased from about 800 students to a total of 815 at the school’s two campuses.
His role, as he sees it, is “to help the school make the transition from one permanent head to the next as seamlessly as possible… It gives the board of trustees time to do the permanent director search in a serious and focused way.”
A secondary role for an interim head of school is “almost a live-in consultant,” Grubbs said. “You have the ability to be diagnostic about strengths and weaknesses, to suggest change, and to try and figure out what change you can bring.”
He plans to be “supportive rather than diagnostic” regarding the school’s involvement in the International Baccalaureate program.
Leo Baeck was accepted as a prospective member of the prestigious International Baccalaureate Organization in 2006, for its middle years program. The organization works with schools to improve their curricula and teaching methods, and it aims to help students become critical thinkers who care about local and world issues.
“It’s a strong commitment, and we are moving as rapidly as possible toward being a permanent International Baccalaureate school,” Grubbs said.
Brian Simon, president of Leo Baeck’s board, notified parents in an Aug. 12 e-mail that Grubbs would begin the following week. The interim director’s experience and recommendations are “stellar,” Simon wrote.
His role is “very important for the stability of the school,” Simon told The CJN.
When the search was in progress, Simon recalled, a search committee member attended the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education (PEJE) conference, and Grubbs’ name kept coming up as a potential candidate.
Grubbs said that working at a Jewish school is different than working at a public one, but “less than people think, because all schools have their version of good intentions, which they describe as their mission. The function of administration is to empower that mission, whatever it is.
“I find the mixture of serious educational process, serious religious involvement and social purpose – making children into the beginnings of the good citizens of the world they’re going to be – just a great thing to be part of.”
Grubbs said he missed having a sense of purpose after he retired. “I need to feel that what I’m doing every day has a positive purpose and makes a real difference.
“I get really excited by what other people see as problems. I like solving problems. I love the ability to empower other administrators. I really like the idea of involving a lot of people in the process and getting a community to a better place, and I like waking up in the morning and thinking I’m going off to school.
“And if I get at all down, there are always kids full of that wonderful ebullience. I love being surrounded by that.”
A self-described “sports nut” and grandfather of six whose wife “tolerates” his post-retirement career, Grubbs likens “interim heading” to grandparenting.
As an interim head, he said, “You come into town, you love the place, you can be directive toward it, and then you turn it over to somebody else and you go home.”
