Seven faculty members are leaving the Upper School at the end of the 2025-2026 school year for a variety of reasons. Students across the Upper School (US) community aren’t just feeling sad at the departure of many beloved teachers who’ve taught here for many years; they’re also worried about what their exit will mean for the upcoming years at MFS.
The departure of some teachers began as a rumor, while the announcement of others was received as a complete surprise. There is a broad range of reasons teachers have given for leaving MFS: some are retiring, some cite family matters, while others are changing schools to continue to grow in the field of education.
A throughline in the rationale behind teachers’ departures is still apparent: leaving such a tight-knit learning community as MFS is not a simple decision, and many different things factor into the decision to depart.
Many students are concerned about the implications of the departure of so many long-time community pillars, such as Upper School Director Noah Rachlin and Upper School Dean of Students Will Miller.
Because of the amount of work that class officers must do with Miller, some class officers, such as sophomore class president Mia DeNittis ’28, worry that his departure will make it hard to complete projects in the upcoming school year.
“The other sophomore class officers and I are a little bit worried, especially because next year we have to plan prom, and that’s definitely one of the biggest things you have to do as a class officer. [Miller] coordinates a lot of logistics, and he knows exactly what has to be done,” DeNittis said.
She continued, “[Prom logistics are] just gonna be a little bit iffy, I guess, especially with someone completely new who might not know anything about how prom runs.”
DeNittis has been a class officer since her freshman year, and she explained that Miller has always lent “a helping hand” to her group of officers.
“This year and last year as well, Mr. Miller has just been really helpful with organizing and helping us along with everything, especially things that we don’t know,” she said.
Outside of how the departure of administrators will affect the student body, students are worried about what the loss of teachers will mean for MFS’s future.
“The amount of teachers leaving is not a good sign for the future … It’s gonna be harder to build long-standing, strong relationships with the faculty and staff if employees are constantly rotating in and out,” said Nolan Phillips ’28.
Phillips also touched on the emotional aspect of losing so many teachers.
“The work and the time that you spend with people in this space is something that’s wholly unique here, and that’s something that I’ll definitely miss with a lot of the faculty members who are leaving,” he said.
Olivia Arzu ’27 said that the fact that she won’t experience her final year at MFS with her favorite teachers compounds the loss she’ll feel when they leave.
“As a senior, it’s the time [when] you reminisce, and you want a place to go. You want to chill in your teachers’ room; you want to talk to them. We don’t have those places anymore, because all the teachers that we know are kind of just gone,” Arzu lamented.
While students believe the rationales teachers have given for their departure are mostly true, some speculate that MFS’s pay rate is lower than other schools, and wonder whether this influences teachers to leave.
Associate Head of School and Academic Dean Meredith Godley stated that in her experience, it hasn’t been the case for teachers to leave because of salary.
“Our salaries are always in step with peer schools — PK-12 schools of a similar size and in similar suburban areas — and so this has not been a specific issue either in hiring or retention of faculty,” Godley said.
Godley’s statement is corroborated by the similarity of a career at MFS and what the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) reports as their median salary.
A current job listing on the mfriends.org career page for a part-time educator is around $31,725 for a teacher with 10 years of experience; this would equate to $63,450 as a full-time job. According to the NAIS, in the 2022-2023 school year, the median salary for NAIS teachers was $67,201.
