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Collegiate School has named the leader of a private school in Baltimore as its next head of school.
Penny B. Evins will come to Collegiate after a six-year tenure as head of St. Paul’s School for Girls in Baltimore. She will begin in July 2019, following the retirement of current Head of School Stephen D. Hickman.
“On behalf of the Board of Trustees, we are delighted to appoint Penny Evins as our next Head of School,” said Frank Mountcastle ’83, chairman of Collegiate’s Board of Trustees. “Finding a new Head of School is one of the most significant duties of the Board. We made this our top priority and orchestrated an intentionally inclusive approach."
The board sought a candidate who exemplified key traits, Mountcastle said: Experience, integrity, compassion, love for community, inclusivity, vision and passion for children and independent school education.
"Our nine-month national search led us to a person who exemplifies these characteristics and more – Penny Evins," he said.
Evins attended Isidore Newman School in her native New Orleans and graduated from Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut. She is an alumna of the University of Virginia, where she received a bachelor's degree in English and a master's in counselor education.
She served in a variety of teaching, coaching and administrative roles in both secular and religious schools throughout the Southeast before arriving at St. Paul’s School for Girls in 2013.
“Penny is a leader and teacher for whom I have the utmost respect and highest esteem,” said Billy Peebles, current Headmaster of The Lovett School in Atlanta, on whose leadership team Evins once served. “She is both bright and wise, confident and humble; but what I respect most is her rock solid integrity and her unwavering, loving care for students.”
Evins said she and her family — husband, Sam Evins V; son Sam VI, 14; and daughter June Friend, 13 — are thrilled to join the Collegiate community.
“Throughout my career, I have admired Collegiate as a national model of independent school education," she said. "My esteem for Collegiate as a compassionate, close-knit community grows with each and every person I meet. I am honored that members of the Board of Trustees would place their faith, support and trust in me as Collegiate’s next Head of School. I look forward to working with everyone in the Collegiate community to fulfill the mission sparked by Helen Baker and carried forward by past and current generations.
“At the end of the day, I want people to know that an independent school’s value proposition is the relationships that teachers have with their students, and students have with each other,” she continued. “I’m really looking forward to getting to know Collegiate, the people and the heartbeat of the School. I will greatly miss my current community and will carry it with me forward, as each school where I’ve had the privilege of learning and serving is a part of who I am and how I hope to continue growing and enriching the world of education.”
