On July 31, 2023, St. Mark’s School announced its appointment of Deerfield Academy’s Dr. Ivory Hills as Head of School. Dr. Hills, who joined Deerfield in 2011 as a chemistry teacher and is currently Assistant Head of School for Strategy and Planning as well as Dean of Faculty, will move to St. Mark’s on July 1, 2024.
In early March, St Mark’s released its Head of School Position Statement, a document detailing its new opening for head of school and describing its search process. Dr. Hills said that he wasn’t necessarily looking for an opportunity like this, and that there has been a lot of movement regarding leadership at independent schools, and therefore outreach like this has been common.
In his letter to the St. Mark’s community, Dr. Hills underscored his love for teamwork and and highlighted that he is a “strong proponent of cooperation over self-interest,” a value that attracted him to the school in the first place. Though Dr. Hills has yet to visit the St. Mark’s campus, he said that he looks forward to meeting and learning about students and helping them grow.
St. Mark’s, Dr. Hills said, is like Deerfield in the sense that it “leads with a community ethos.” St. Mark’s mission statement states that it hopes to “inspire young people to make the world a better place,” a world that is “more helpful to others.” As outlined in his letter, Dr. Hills plans to achieve this by supporting students as they develop confidence and a sense of self throughout their high school career.
Dr. Hills is highly motivated to support students at St. Mark’s to the best of his ability. “Broadly, my vision is to help run a school that helps students prepare for their future,” he said. “As of today, as a relative outsider, I can’t begin to describe what needs to be done.” He elaborated that he is driven by “taking care of students and positioning them to do the things they want to do with their lives.”
This will be Dr. Hills’s thirteenth year at Deerfield. While at the school, he has held the positions of full-time Chemistry Teacher, Director of Sustainability, Academic Dean, and Dean of Faculty, which he currently holds. He explained that his trajectory of continued advancement informed his decision to move to St. Mark’s, as he felt that taking on this new position would allow him to impact students and teachers more. “This logical progression lets me continue to challenge myself and get into positions that will leverage my ability to help schools and teachers take care of students and help students achieve what they want to achieve,” he said.
Dr. Hills explained that he will depart with mixed feelings. Though he knows he can still do “awesome work at Deerfield and Deerfield is still a great school,” he believes that he can be more influential to students elsewhere.
As Dr. Hills enters his last year at Deerfield, he hopes to “continue to support students and [his] colleagues.” He said that he aims to “run past the finish line and put the baton in the next person’s hand so that they have as much of a head start as possible.”