People on the Move: Gordon School Names New Head of School
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People on the Move: Gordon School Names New Head of School
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Dr. deChabert joins Gordon from Rye Country Day School in Rye, New York
After an extensive nationwide search, the Gordon School, located at 45 Maxfield Avenue in East Providence, RI, is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Meredith J. deChabert as Head of School, effective July 1, 2025. deChabert will succeed Noni Thomas López, Gordon’s Head of School since 2018.
Over the past nineteen years, deChabert has served in several leadership capacities at Rye Country Day School, including time as the school’s first director of diversity, as middle school principal, as upper school principal, and currently as the assistant head of school for academics and institutional research. Throughout those nineteen years, she sustained a commitment to the classroom, continuing to teach at least one section of English Language Arts.
deChabert will build on the important work that Dr. Thomas López has done at Gordon while furthering the school’s decades-long commitment to giving students a rich academic foundation along with a deep sense of connection in a racially and economically diverse community.
During her tenure, López built a deeply empowered and experienced leadership team, which introduced and successfully implemented a new equity-based tuition system, Family Individualized Tuition; created a strategic vision for a more just and sustainable world; strengthened student support with the addition of learning specialists and a full-time counselor; and elevated environmental sustainability as a core value of the school alongside Gordon's long-standing reputation as a leader in diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.”
“We had the honor of interviewing many qualified candidates from around the country and with varied backgrounds,” said Krystal Tadesse and Ted Trafton ’93, co-chairs of the school’s search committee. “We are so pleased to have found Dr. deChabert, who so clearly understands and, most importantly, lives Gordon’s core beliefs and we look forward to her impact on our community.”
According to the announcement, deChabert is committed to models of education that champion the fact that joy, diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, social justice, social and emotional learning, and academic excellence are inextricably intertwined. She has served on many accreditation visiting committees in New York and New Jersey and on the boards of non-profit organizations dedicated to educational access and opportunity; she founded the Fairchester Diversity Practitioners Network and organized the first New York State Association for Independent Schools workshop for diversity professionals; she has presented at the National Association of Independent School’s People of Color Conference and others; and she has attended myriad professional programs that feed her passion for learning, which she readily shares with others.
“If I could design a school from scratch, it would look a lot like Gordon,” said deChabert. “Joy, curiosity, idealism, intellectual excellence, empathy, relationships, positive social impact, and wellness: all of these are naturally a part of the Gordon experience. These ideals are in my core, both as a person and as an educator.”
A lifelong learner with diverse interests, an avid reader, and an animal and nature lover who finds peace on small, local farms and the beach (inspired by her St. Croix roots), deChabert can also be found hosting gatherings for colleagues to strengthen the community.
“I have been awed by the warmth, commitment, and inclusiveness that characterized the entire search process, all of which I have come to know characterizes Gordon itself,” said deChabert. “I am looking forward to taking care of the school that this community loves, and I am committed to helping to realize Gordon’s strategic vision to create the just and sustainable world we want for the future. I can’t wait to get started.”
deChabert holds a Ph.D. in Education, Culture, and Society from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. in Anthropology from Columbia University.