Rye Country Day School named a new head on Monday, August 17, 2026. Former Head of School Randall Dunn left at the end of June, after serving a four year tenure. Dunn arrived at RCDS in 2022 after the retirement of Scott Nelson, who served as Head of School for 29 years. Lower School Principal Dr. Stacey Sotirhos has been serving as the interim head of school since July 1.
Kristen Klein, currently the Associate Head of School at Durham Academy, will begin her tenure as RCDS head of school on July 1, 2027. The search was run by Mary Gorman and Aaron Mieszczanski at Spencer Stuart (see the published job spec).
“We are tremendously excited about what lies ahead,” said Rosa Hyun Perkins P’26, P’28 , president of the RCDS Board of Trustees. “Rye Country Day enters this next chapter from a position of considerable strength, grounded in the mission and values that have long defined our school and energized by a clear vision for its future. The search process affirmed both the extraordinary strength of our community and the energizing opportunities ahead of us.”
Klein
Klein is a seasoned independent school educator with more than two decades of experience spanning academic leadership, innovation, curriculum, governance, operations, change management, and coaching. She currently serves as Associate Head of School at North Carolina’s Durham Academy, a Pre-K–12 school of more than 1,200 students, where she partners with the Head of School in leading the institution and oversees the School’s academic and co-curricular program.
Previously, she spent 14 years at Winchester Thurston School, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, serving in a range of teaching and leadership roles, including Director of Upper School, Director of Middle School, Academic Dean, and English Department Chair.
“I am both honored and grateful for the opportunity to serve as Rye Country Day School’s next Head of School,” said Klein. “From the earliest stage of the search process, I was impressed with the foundational work the RCDS community has done to clearly define its highest aspirations and deepest values through the vision, mission and portraits of a graduate and teacher. I felt such resonance between my own purpose as an educator and Rye Country Day’s desire to empower “engaged and compassionate citizens.””
I look forward to partnering with the School’s incredibly talented faculty, staff, students and families to advance your vision in concrete and measurable ways in the years to come. But RCDS doesn’t just have an inspiring vision, it is a warm and welcoming community that walks the walk. With each successive conversation with search committee representatives and trustees, it became clear that members of the RCDS community have joyful hearts for the school and work tirelessly to support it. This process helped me to fall in love with RCDS; I can’t wait to be a Wildcat.”
A graduate of Trinity College, where she was elected Phi Beta Kappa, Klein holds an M.A.T. in English education from Brown University. A board certified coach, she has extensive experience working with leaders to strengthen their skills and build sustainable organizations. Klein is also an independent school accreditation leader, a presenter at national and regional education conferences, and a current board member of the Hill Learning Center and Center for Professional Learning Advisory Council member at Global Online Academy.
At Durham Academy, she established a co-curricular civil discourse approach designed to help students engage thoughtfully with differing perspectives and complex contemporary issues; oversaw the shift away from Advanced Placement courses toward a more real-world, problem-based Upper School curriculum; and directed the team that implemented a full transition to competency-based learning in the Middle School.
At Winchester Thurston, she supported faculty in connecting academic learning with real-world experiences in Pittsburgh through the E.E. Ford grant award-winning City as Our Campus program. She also oversaw innovations including an integrated science sequence, a new computer science department, and a cross-disciplinary sustainability curriculum. Underpinning all of her work is the ability to build a strong culture of faculty collaboration and parent partnership.
