York Prep consultant to lead school for a year

York Preparatory Academy will launch its third attempt to find the school’s fifth managing director in as many years.

In the meantime, Brian L. Carpenter, a noted charter school consultant, will lead York Prep for the 2015-16 school year.

Two rounds of searching for a permanent director produced three finalists each but did not result in a hire.

The school’s Board of Directors recently interviewed the three latest candidates for the position, chairman Craig Craze said Tuesday, but hasn’t “found the leader we need.” The school has been poised to offer the job to “exceptional candidates,” he said, only to have them accept last-minute promotions or other incentives to stay at their current schools.

So Carpenter will continue as the acting head of the school, the board decided Tuesday, with a goal of having a permanent director by spring.

Clay Eaton, the school’s fourth managing director, resigned in August, a week after the Board of Directors placed him on a paid leave of absence.

The latest finalists, selected from a pool of 28 candidates, were Michael Courtney, former principal of the Staten Island Community Charter School; Graysen Walles, CEO of Mentorship Academy in Baton Rouge, La.; and Walt Warner, dean of curriculum and chairman of the science department at the Episcopal School of Texas in San Antonio.

The first-round finalists were Wade Glathar, principal of Ascent Academies of Utah; Charles Sachs, headmaster of the Chadwick International School in Inchon, South Korea; and Kevin McIntyre, assistant superintendent for Milford Public Schools in Massachusetts.

“We’ve seen tremendous leaders,” Craze said, adding that the board has not been “discouraged” with the process.

The York Prep board hired Carpenter as a consultant in December to train board members. He returned in April to help York Prep update its strategic plan and guide the board in its managing director search.

In a letter to York Prep parents, Craze said Carpenter “demonstrated an unusual willingness as a consultant to roll up his sleeves and actually tackle various operational challenges, such as increasing the school’s Internet bandwidth for the next year.”

Carpenter, former CEO of the National Charter Schools Institute at Central Michigan University, has been a charter school consultant for the past seven years.

This is the first time in 13 years Carpenter has led a charter school.

“I saw the potential of this school and wanted to tap into it,” Carpenter said Wednesday. “I’m supposed to be here.”

Carpenter has advised the Board of Directors to take its time to “make sure you are getting talent.” He then offered to “stand in the gap for a year” to give the board the time it needed to find a permanent managing director.

Carpenter said he was attracted to York Prep because its charter has all the right ideas, such as project-based learning, but the school has not implemented them.

This fall, he said, seniors and juniors will be assigned project-based learning projects. The seniors, in teams of about 15 students, will write and self-publish books, while the juniors will produce a documentary about one of the school’s service projects.

Carpenter said he is equally excited about integrating “Achieve 3000,” a computer-based reading development program, into the curriculum. The goal of the program is to increase reading comprehension among all students.

For the upcoming school year, Carpenter will be in a behind-the-scenes role, while York Prep principals T.K. Kennedy and Ryan Bridges will remain the public faces of the school, Craze wrote in a letter to parents.

As a public charter school, York Prep receives state tax support, and its Board of Directors is organized under the South Carolina Public Charter School District. York Prep operates separately from York County’s four public school districts. Parents and school staff members elect the Board of Directors.

This story was originally published July 15, 2015 at 5:25 PM with the headline "York Prep consultant to lead school for a year."