Dear PAIS Community,

As we close out another year together, we are filled with gratitude for the trust you place in PAIS. It is a privilege to serve this community of learners, and we carry your work and your stories with us into all that lies ahead for next year. Before we get to that, we want to thank Chad Barnett for his leadership as the President of the PAIS Board for the past five years. What he gave PAIS was not just his time and expertise, but his genuine belief that this association matters in the lives of our schools. He led with steadiness, with care, and with a clear sense of a mission that champions our schools. Chad remains on the Board to support Tekakwitha Pernambuco-Wise as she begins her tenure as Board President on July 1. 

As you can imagine, I am thinking about leadership development and transition often these days.


I once heard Evan Smith ask, “Who’s got next?” It was the phrase he thought should echo in our minds from the first day on the job. 

He suggested that the true mark of leadership is nurturing those around us to become leaders themselves. His point is simple and a little uncomfortable: if you're leading well, you should always know who's got next. You should be cultivating that person, watching for them, maybe even calling them out before they've fully claimed it for themselves. As teachers and school leaders, it is your job to notice potential and to provide opportunity. So here's a question worth sitting with as this school year ends:

Who's got next — and do they know you know it?

The 2025-26 PAIS Accreditation year has concluded after a total of 22 individual Full Scale, Interim or Focused school visits. We congratulate the following 11 schools that received a renewed 10 year accreditation this year:

The Agnes Irwin School

Frankford Friends School

Goshen Friends School

The Hill School

The Kiski School

La Salle College High School

The Montessori School

Montgomery School

Tower Hill School

Villa Maria Academy High School

The West Hill School

PAIS offers heartfelt gratitude to the 110 school professionals who staffed these visiting committees and gave generously

of their time and expertise to help support and grow their fellow independent schools. Nearly half of these people were serving for the first time on a PAIS accreditation committee.

Having renewed our 5-year license with the Pennsylvania Department of Education this year, we look to do the same with our ICAISA accreditation next year. 2026-27 brings 13 full scale accreditation visits and 24 visits in total. The Commission for Accreditation also will welcome a new member, Stephen Valentine from Milton Hershey School.

My best for a wonderful, restful and fulfilling summer to you all. Thank you for your continued support of PAIS.