by Bronson Schmidt ’25
February 14, 2025
The 2024-2025 school year has been a year characterized by transition. Eight new high school teachers, a new schedule change, new student identification systems, all steps along the path towards a new and emerging USN.
In the midst of all this change, one recent event has undoubtedly forged a new future for USN– the school’s termination of former Director Amani Reed. Reed’s termination marks a pivotal moment in USN’s history. Yet despite its solemnity it has opened up new opportunities for USN to demonstrate the hope and strength of its community.
USN has certainly faced a difficult and painful past eight months, following a student’s report of the misconduct of former English teacher Dean Masullo. The school’s response to this complaint warranted the hiring of the investigative firm Barnes and Thornburg to create their own independent report, which the Board of Trustees released with the announcement of Reed’s termination in early January.
But Reed’s absence is not an instant remedy to the pain of the school community; as the months continue, the school will continue to heal and process the events of the past year. Yet through this healing comes hope, and the ability to better shape USN’s future.
This is especially true when observing the work of Dr. Chai Reddy, who has assumed the responsibility of the Acting Head of School. In their January 7 email to the community, the Ad Hoc Committee announced that Reddy would “step into the role of Acting Head of School with the support of senior administrators to ensure seamless operations during this time.” Reddy, who was hired as USN’s Head of High School on July 1, 2024, has been hard at work since the beginning of January, as he expressed to the community in his morning assembly on January 8.
In light of the major changes behind the scenes, Reddy is determined to ensure that day-to-day operations continue flowing smoothly.
“Nothing’s gonna stop,” said Reddy. “We have school; students are showing up, teachers are teaching, we have games, we have performances, all that stuff. None of that should stop– we should continue moving forward.”
Reddy is keen to focus on the short term operations that students experience daily, while also focusing on continuing the long term vision of USN’s future. Specifically, Reddy is focused on further developing what USN calls its “Strategic Plan”, a project started in the fall of 2023.
“We want to continue moving forward on [the school’s] Strategic Plan, […] trying to figure out when would be an appropriate time to share that with the community, and launching that,” he said. “There’s a lot of work that went into that, and a lot of folks who contributed to that.”
While Reddy is working as the Acting Head of School, he still simultaneously works as the Head of High School. While working these two demanding positions is a difficult and high focus endeavor, USN’s faculty and administration has proven indispensable in helping him fulfill both duties. Reddy’s role as the Head of High School is made especially possible by reliance on the high school leadership team.
“Different folks are lending their hand in terms of doing a little more,” said Reddy. “There’s very little that I do that’s in a vacuum, that I’m the only one making a decision on. This work is so collaborative, it requires a lot of different voices.”
Reddy has found that it is not only the faculty and administration that has offered a helping hand, but the entire community as a whole.
“So many people have reached out, so many people lending their support and goodwill. From students, to faculty, to staff, to parents, to alumni,” said Reddy. “[Juggling these two roles] isn’t as stressful as it may seem. It feels good to see the community coming together in different ways to give support.”
While Reddy has received much aid from the school, so too has the school received aid from him. In the same week that he became the Acting Head of School, Reddy covered some of Dr. Jeff Edmonds’ responsibilities while Edmonds out of the country. This included processing course requests, overseeing the release of report cards, and more. Even more impressive, Reddy has begun teaching the senior English seminar Hero’s Journey this semester.
When the Peabody Press first interviewed Reddy he expressed a desire for more moments where he could foster meaningful interactions with students, especially due to his recency in the community. Teaching Hero’s Journey has given him this opportunity, and has allowed him to re-explore teaching English, a subject he last taught several years ago at Hawken School in Cleveland.
“I miss teaching. I’ve had a lot of different administrator hats that I’ve worn, and that can be full of a sort of ambiguity– a lot of sort of hectic scheduling and things like that,” he said. “But one of the things I’ve always appreciated is that when I’m teaching, that hour [of teaching] is protected. That is sacred. It can’t be scheduled over– there’s no meetings, there’s no nothing– that is class time.”
As Reddy wears both hats of an administrator and teacher, the Board of Trustees has begun its search for a new head of high school. In the Ad Hoc Committee’s January 7 email, two specific committee’s focusing on the future of USN’s leadership were announced; the Transition Committee of the Board and a committee selecting an Interim Head. The chairs of these committee’s did not respond to interview requests.
The Transition Committee of the Board, chaired by Alex Jahangir, is focused on the long term search for a permanent Director. This committee is focused on the overall large scale transition from where we are now to where permanent leadership could look like a few years down the road. Part of this includes selecting the interim head, and part of it preparing for the search for a permanent head.
“They are meeting with different people, trying to figure out what that interview process will look like, to select who the interim head will be. That interim head will serve probably all of next year, plus whatever remains of this year [if they are selected soon]. And then after that, in 2026 or 2027 we’ll have a new permanent Head of School,” said Reddy.
The other committee is focused specifically on hiring an interim head, and developing thorough processes for doing so.
“The way that schools work is that there’s a number of search consultancies that help lead searches and do a lot of the initial interviewing to present candidates to a school. [The interim head committee is] trying to figure out which search consultancy is best to be able to do this work and interviewing them to then figure out how they can partner with that search consultancy,” said Reddy.
Reddy will stay as the Acting Head of School for the immediate future, but the timeline as to when an Interim Head will be selected is unclear. An interim head won’t be selected until the correct search agency has been found, and after a round of thorough interviews through that search agency is conducted.
“That could be a couple of weeks, that could be a couple months. It’s hard to say what that might look like, but I think that is certainly one of the things that will probably be done over the summer,” said Reddy.
Regardless of the potential timeline for the hiring of a future interim or permanent Director of USN, it is clear that the present moment at USN is just as important as its future. Just as the school will soon behold the character of Director candidates, so too will these candidates behold the character of USN. How our community presents itself is integral in attracting a Director who understands and connects with our community. Yet USN does not need to craft some fashionable persona of academic prowess and impressive community, because we already are that community.
At the heart of our school is a drive to throw ourselves into every possible challenge and make something meaningful out of that challenge. In many ways, the hectic work life of Dr. Reddy mirrors the multi-faceted academic and extracurricular lives of USN students; they both synthesize the chaos of school life into something tangibly USN. This synthesis is what will allow us to collectively heal from the past eight months, and it is what will allow us to help our school grow its own character as we search for a new Director.
We are USN’s future and, you, the reader, direct that future more than anyone else.
