Randall Dunn, Ninth Head of Rye Country Day School

Randall Dunn became Rye Country Day School’s ninth Head of School in July of 2022. A nationally recognized and well-respected leader in education, Mr. Dunn is also the recently elected Chair of the Board of Trustees of the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), which has 1,615 member schools. 

During the span of his 35-year career in education, Mr. Dunn has been a teacher, coach, and senior administrator, and has worked in independent, public, day, and boarding schools on the East Coast and in the Midwest. Most recently, Mr. Dunn served for eleven years as the Head of School at Latin School of Chicago. Prior to leading Latin, he was the head of The Roeper School in Bloomfield Hills and Birmingham, MI. He has also served as the upper school director at Derby Academy in Hingham, MA, and head of the middle school at Landon School in Bethesda, MD.

As someone whose life was transformed by independent school education and the guidance and mentorship of exceptional teachers, Mr. Dunn has dedicated his life to making schools joyful and impactful  learning environments for all students.  Mr. Dunn attended Milton Academy in Milton, MA under the sponsorship of A Better Chance, an organization dedicated to helping children of color attend high-achieving schools. He then received his Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Brown University and Master of Education in human development and psychology from Harvard University. 

Mr. Dunn has served on the boards of Milton Academy, the Association of Independent Schools of New England, Norwood School in Bethesda, the Association of Independent Maryland Schools, The National Network of Schools in Partnership, and Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo. He also co-chaired the National Advisory Board of the Principals’ Center at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, taught and mentored upcoming educational leaders at the NAIS Aspiring Heads Institute, and has presented at numerous professional conferences. 

Mr. Dunn and his wife, Liz, are the parents of two adult daughters, Hunter and Chasey, who both graduated from New York University.