Longtime Maplebrook School employee Jennifer Scully now head of school

AMENIA — Having risen through several positions at Maplebrook School, Jennifer Scully holds high hopes for what she wants to accomplish as the new head of school. Maplebrook School is a small boarding school that serves adolescents and young adults with learning differences.

Tracing her 25-year career at Maplebrook, Scully claimed that she came to the school by accident: around the time Maplebrook advertised an opening, she was employed as a substitute teacher at her former high school, Cicero-North Syracuse High School in Cicero, N.Y., and working on completing her teacher’s certification. While she wasn’t sure what to expect from Maplebrook, she submitted her resume in December 1993 and was hired the following month, sparking what she considered “an inordinate number of opportunities” for her to grow and find her place in the education field.

Scully’s work began at the school’s day care on a part-time basis; during that time, she was also employed in a student services role where she was responsible for coaching students and overseeing the study halls. Shortly afterward, she moved into a teaching position where she was given an opportunity to develop a new social skills curriculum, which the students continue to use today. Scully started helping in the admissions department about 15 years ago before stepping into the director of admissions position. By 2014, she was running The Institute for Collegiate & Career Studies as the assistant head of school.

“Maplebrook has given me the freedom and the opportunities to build those skills, and I’m very fortunate for that,” she said. “I firmly believe in everything we do here and we just have this freedom to be creative, and that’s kind of the beauty of a private school, that you’re not glued to a certain curriculum and you’re not teaching to a test. Just having those opportunities to develop other people and their creativity and their careers, that’s what I love to do.”

The school informed Scully about the opening for the head of school position about two years ago and offered her the chance to acquire training for the position, thereby allowing for a smoother transition between roles. She officially began her new role on July 1.

Scully said she’d like the school to maintain its reputation in the special education world. Given the emotional experience parents face when dropping their children off at boarding school, she wants to help ease that experience for families and students. In order to help develop Maplebrook as a school that fosters achievement, she aims to stay at the forefront of the latest technology; focus on service learning and giving back; expand international relationships; and develop relationships with individuals and organizations related to special needs.

Scully said, “I want the staff and the students to know that we’re together in this: we’re walking shoulder-to-shoulder through their educational experience. I’m not just going to sit in this office… I very much want to be a part of what’s going on.”