After 29 years with Donna Milani Luther serving as Head of School, Inly prepares for new leadership in 2025.

Dear Members of the Inly Community,

The Board of Trustees is pleased to announce that after an extensive search process, we voted unanimously to appoint Neal M. Brown as the Interim Head of School at Inly School. Neal will join the Inly community on July 1st and serve in the Interim Head role for two years.  

Neal is currently the Interim Head of School for Friends Community School in College Park, Maryland. He previously served as Interim Lower School Director for Creative Minds International Public Charter School in Washington, DC. Prior to that, he served for two years as the Interim Head of School at Lansdowne Friends School in Pennsylvania, and for twelve years as the Head of School at Green Acres School in Bethesda, Maryland. Neal has over thirty-five years of experience in education and has worked as a classroom teacher, consultant, coach, Assistant Head and Head of School, and as a board member. He is a career-long advocate for meaningful schoolwork that builds genuine excitement for learning, social/emotional resilience, and deep respect for all people.

During his twelve years as Head of School at Green Acres School, Neal led the school through two strategic plans; deepened Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) and equity-based programming; strengthened curriculum and improved student enrichment; coordinated improved teacher evaluation, mentoring, and professional development; and refocused instructional practices on the school’s progressive educational principles. While serving at Lansdowne Friends School, Neal successfully led the school through the COVID-19 pandemic and implemented key changes resulting in increased enrollment and improved communication with staff and families. In his current role as Interim Head at Friends Community School, Neal has worked to lay the foundation for the permanent head of school by holding listening sessions with school constituents, strengthening faculty/staff morale, and modeling a culture of trust, integrity and transparency with the community of students, faculty, Trustees, and families.

Inly faculty and administrators who met with Neal during his campus visit praised his “calm and balanced demeanor, experience, and willingness to have hard, solution-based conversations,” as well as his “genuine curiosity and engagement with Inly, the teachers, classrooms, and the students.” In his Statement of Educational Leadership Philosophy, Neal wrote: “I believe that the work of education is sacred, as it is focused on human potential and on our hopes for a better individual and collective future. I therefore often speak with faculty and parents about the transformational nature of schooling. Our job as educators, beyond teaching skills and content, is to help students learn about themselves and the world around them. Effective schools serve to broaden and open students’ minds by challenging them academically and ethically. They learn the value of being in a community by practicing active citizenship, even from the very youngest ages.” 

Neal attended Brown University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in Teaching degrees. Neal later received a Doctorate in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His doctoral thesis, “Improving the First Year: How Opportunities for Faculty Collaboration, Support From Administrators, Reduced Workloads, and Formal Induction Experiences Impact First-Year Teachers” was published by the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2004. Neal began his career in education teaching social studies and history in grades 7-12 at Brimmer and May School. Neal is a Trustee for Creative Minds International Public Charter School, served on the Accreditation Committee for the Association of Independent Maryland Schools, and was a Founding Team Member of Kokrobitey School in Ghana, West Africa. Neal is married to Laura Emmons, a former midwife and experienced specialist in the field of Maternal-Child health. They have two children, Evan and Lila. Evan graduated from Bowdoin College in May 2022. Lila is a recent graduate of Tulane University.  

The Board of Trustees offers its gratitude to Donna Milani Luther for her leadership over the past two decades. We look forward to extending our best wishes to her as she completes her time at Inly School this spring. The Board also expresses special thanks to all of the members of the Inly community who contributed their time and expertise to the search process. 

Neal has shared a letter to the school community, which can be found here.

In Partnership,
The Inly School Board of Trustees