“I have been receiving an unprecedented number of phone calls from schools and head- hunters asking for leads for heads of schools and principals,” Urman said. “It is something that has stood out for me so much that I took the initiative.”

Earlier this month, Urman’s Leadership Training Institute invited a broad array of thinkers, philanthropists, and day school officials to JTS in New York City to put together a plan or framework to address what all agree is the difficulty of filling top administration slots in day schools. Now, she and the 11 original participants will rework the plan and begin to implement it.

Their goal is twofold: to recruit leaders and to retain leaders. Urman contrasted the model to the way corporations groom leadership.

“Corporations grow leaders from within. We are not doing that,” she said. “We need to identify new leadership in high school students and continue through college.”

She also pointed out that retention figures are abysmal, with the average retention rate for heads of Jewish schools ranging from three to six years. “That means turnover is abundant.

“We want to address this issue and give heads of school the support they need.”

In part, the day school movement is a victim of its own success. There are roughly 800 North American day schools, and 60 new schools have opened since the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education, a collaboration of major philanthropists aiming to improve Jewish education, started in 1997. The number of children in day schools has increased by 100,000 since 1982 to more than 200,000 today, according to a 2003 census by the Avi Chai Foundation.

Experienced heads of school are eager to take jobs at ever bigger, and better paying, institutions, while schools in smaller Jewish communities lose their top administrators to large metropolitan areas.

The demands of the job also winnow the field of candidates. A head of school functions like a CEO, maintaining curriculum and serving as liaison among members of the school’s board and faculty, parents, and the student body while making sure that school finances are in check. Finding someone who is qualified to do all this — and who also has experience working at a Jewish school — is nearly impossible, according to Marc Kramer, executive director of RAVSAK, an umbrella organization for the country’s 90 Jewish community, or nondenominational, schools.

On Nov. 5 and 6, 60 participants from 11 states took part in the deliberations and included everyone from university academics and lay leaders to heads of day schools and aspiring heads. The press was not permitted to attend.

The overall plan of action described in the paper involves four phases:

• Identification: Determining the characteristics and skills possessed by successful heads of school. “We want to develop portraits of successful heads of school,” said Urman.
  
• Cultivation: Developing candidates at various stages of development.
  
• Induction: Finding “best practices” for hiring new heads and then helping them make smooth transitions into their new roles.
  
• Support: Providing the aid necessary so they stay in their jobs.

Among the issues that emerged at the two-day conference was the necessity of making sure the head of school and its board of directors share expectations and a vision. The National Association of Independent Schools addressed this issue a couple of years ago, said Urman, and saw the tenures of heads of schools increase from five to nine years.

Urman has seen the challenges of day school administration from the front lines. Formerly principal of Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union’s lower school in West Orange, she also held leadership positions at Solomon Schechter Day School of New York and Yitzhak Rabin High School in Ottawa, Ontario.

Urman could not offer a date by which the plan would be implemented but said the two-day conference helped the core group identify their priorities as well as the “low-hanging fruit” — those sections that will be easiest to implement.

“For me, this is very exciting,” she said. “The collaboration among day school associations from different denominations reflects the fact that we are ready to take this issue seriously.”