Penn Charter picks first female leader in its centuries-long history

Last week marked a historic first for William Penn Charter School, a highly selective pre-K-to-12 independent private school in Philadelphia that has the distinction of being the first Quaker school in the world.

It selected its first female head of school since its founding in 1689 by William Penn.

Karen Warren Coleman, 51, formerly head of the Hockaday School, a college preparatory day and boarding school for girls in Dallas, will begin July 1 after her selection by trustees Oct. 18, the school announced. She follows Darryl J. Ford, who became head of school at the 47-acre East Falls campus in 2007 and is retiring.

“Trustees and members of our community who interacted with Karen during the search process were impressed with her accomplishments as well as her enthusiasm for working with young people,” school trustees said.

Coleman was selected from among 40 candidates, four of whom were chosen to visit the school, which has an enrollment of about 991.

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A native of the Bronx who got her doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania, Coleman has 25 years of experience in elementary, secondary, and higher education, the school said. Before her time at Hockaday, she was vice president for campus and student life at the University of Chicago, where she spent seven years, and previously had leadership positions at other universities, including associate dean of students at the University of California, Berkeley, where she worked for nearly a decade.

Coleman, who graduated cum laude from the University of Massachusetts with a bachelor’s in psychology, has had a focus on diversity and students from low-income backgrounds. At Penn, her 2015 dissertation research was titled “Stories Seldom Told: Low Income, First-Generation African-American Male Students at Highly Selective Research Universities.” Her master’s at the University of Vermont was titled “Education as the Means to Freedom: A Critical Analysis of Oppression.”

At Hockaday, which she led for five years before stepping down last summer, enrollment of students of color increased, as did diversity on the school’s board, William Penn noted in its release. (About one-third of students at Penn Charter are students of color, according to its website.) Also under her leadership, the school launched the Institute for Social Impact, which focuses on “real-world issues” and “hands-on learning” with courses focused on community impact. She also hit marks in fund-raising and strategic planning.

“In the coming years, I will embrace both leading and learning as I work with Penn Charter’s extraordinary faculty and staff to center students in everything we do,” Coleman said in a statement. “It will be enormously rewarding to learn about and immerse myself in Quaker values and practices as we support students in finding their purpose by drawing on the strength of Penn Charter’s Quaker identity.”

Coleman and her husband, Andy, plan to move to Philadelphia with their yellow Lab, Wrigley, the school said.