Board of Directors

Message to Dallas International School Community 

December 7, 2021

On behalf of the twenty-one members of our Board of Directors , we are pleased to announce the great news of the unanimous vote to extend our Interim Head of School’s contract through the 2022-2023 academic year. Dr. Josep González has officially accepted, for which we are grateful, and we look forward to his continued leadership as we work together on developing our plans for “Building our Institution.” 

One of the core pillars for “Building our Institution” is to provide transparency regarding our plans moving forward, including the succession of long term leadership for the Head of School and our Board of Directors. For the first time in DIS history, MLF has given the Board the opportunity to select our next Head of School. To handle this added responsibility, the Board has assembled a task force team to interview global executive search firms that will engage with our community in order to find the right innovative leader for the next phase of a six year term. After numerous interviews, reference checks, and internal deliberation, the Board, with the support of MLF, has voted to engage Carney Sandoe & Associates, to assist our next global executive search. And we want you to be the first to know this great news, before we publicly announce the position. 

Carney Sandoe & Associates, based in Boston, MA, is recognized as the private school industry leader and operates in all major global markets. They have conducted searches for many of the private schools in Dallas and have a specialty niche group that specifically focuses on International Schools around the world with data benchmarking to aid in our decision making process. We are pleased to announce we have negotiated a three person search team including Dr. Arthur Charles, Ms. Karen Nietzel, and Mr. Chris Boyle, all of whom are highly credentialed in their respective fields. 

As a Board of Directors, we recognize that the most important members of our community are our students and their families. In keeping with our mission of putting families first, Carney Sandoe & Associates team has been invited to visit both our school campuses in early January in order to personally hear from you and factor your considerations in order to identify the best possible candidate. During this time, they will also visit with our teaching staff and administration.

The Board, with assistance from Carney Sandoe & Associates, has developed a stringent timeline that aims to select from the largest pool of qualified candidates in order to hire the new Head of School by the end of this academic school year. This will allow our executive team, led by Dr. González, a one-year planned transition for 2022-2023 with both leaders collaborating under the direction of the Board for seamless continuity. As we progress, we will establish a formal line of communication from the Board of Directors that will keep everyone fully informed and will invite you to participate in this process through digital surveys, in-person and zoom interviews, and student/parent focus groups. 

Continuing with good news for our community, the Board and school management have been engaged for two months with securing resources for responsible growth that encourages collaboration with aligned industries and public private partnerships. Although we are not able to openly discuss all these plans at this time, we can confirm that we are in final negotiations with an international athletic company on a multi-million dollar project that will result in athletic and assembly space for our upper school students. We hope to be able to announce this exciting partnership at the State of the School Address to be delivered by Dr. González on the 27th of January, with an aggressive timeline for fully functioning building structures opening by the start of the 2022-2023 academic school year. 

And finally, as we push forward in a unified direction toward our mission for inspired international students and the resources needed to support them, we can be thankful for our generous community and the continued support we see demonstrated on a daily basis. I’m immensely proud of the hard work going on behind the scenes of our Board of Directors which recently committed 100% participation in the Annual Giving Fund, pledging over $22,000 before the launch, leading with intent.

      Tammy Cotton Hartnett, Board President