On behalf of the Board of Trustees, we join in the announcement of the news today that our Head of School, Ronnie Moskowitz, will retire at the end of the next school year in June 2022. Having served with Ronnie in my nearly 40 years of association with the school, I share this news with joy for Ronnie and anticipation of the task ahead in finding a successor for our magnificent school she founded 45 years ago.

Knowing that Ronnie would be stepping down as head, the Board of Trustees has put together a search committee to hire her replacement. The Board is happy to announce it has already found a partner in this process. We have engaged a leading search consultant firm, Resource Group 175 (RG 175) where we will be working with Jerrold I. Katz who will act as our primary consultant for RG 175. In addition, we will continue to work with Ann Sullivan and Ellen Stein who have previously helped the school with the ongoing development of its strategic plan. They will be called upon for their particular expertise with New York City Independent Schools. I know I speak for the entire Board when I say that it will be hard to let go of Ronnie. She was the leader in early childhood education in our neighborhood where she started the school in 1976 in a walk up loft building and has led the schools development, establishing two sites for the school with an enrollment that came to surpass 300 students. Driven by her vision and energy, WMS became an anchor in our community and one of the most revered educational institutions in Manhattan. I firmly believe that its core mission to educate preschool children had a transformative impact on the development of the richness and succession of family life in Tribeca today. Over the years, one of my favorite recollections has been to have an outdoor lunch with Ronnie where she encounters parents walking the neighborhood with their young children who themselves were children at the school 40 years ago.

No attempts by me to put into words can truly and adequately express our gratitude to Ronnie for her founding and leadership role in the life of the WMS community or the manner in which she has touched us, comforted us, and nurtured our children. To her colleagues in the field, she has been a constant source of wisdom and to the many teachers she has been a model of excellence.

This past year has been a challenge beyond what any one of us could have expected as the pandemic spread such anxiety and understandable fear in ways that are still being felt. Nevertheless, Ronnie took bold action in the face of these challenging circumstances and guided the school with her excellent staff and dedicated teachers to achieve an opening of in classroom learning during the past school year. This took courage coupled with humility that only a true leader can possess. It was reminiscent of the same strength and dedication to keep the school going that she exhibited and pulled the school community together after the devastation that was caused in our neighborhood by the tragedy of 9/11.

And as you will note in Ronnie’s simultaneous announcement today to the WMS community, there is some comforting news in that, at the conclusion of the school year ending in June 2022, Ronnie has agreed to stay on to help the new head with Ex-Missions to ongoing schools for the children who will be leaving school at the end of the 22/23 school year. We are grateful to her for taking on this role since it is felt it will be immensely helpful for those parents and those children Ronnie will have known so well prior to her departure as Head.

Tending to the challenges and work ahead means saving celebrations and accolades for later. When the time comes to say goodbye, we will have more to do and say, not the least of which will be to embrace Ronnie for the love she is leaving as her legacy for all of us. In the meantime, the WMS community will be receiving updates from the search committee regarding the search process as events unfold.

With Gratitude,

Oz Hanley
Chair of the Board of Trustees