Leadership

It’s only when you speak with Josh at length that a unique destiny emerges. Josh is a man on a mission, sparked by bright students he identified with when he taught middle school, which then crystallized his understanding of his own school history and connected to his role as a parent.

Dyslexic Like Drake

Landmark’s founder, Dr. Chad Drake, realized early on that he functioned differently from his classmates. He diagnosed himself as having dyslexia, researched the disability, and educated others, drawing on his own experience and self-knowledge. Josh talks about having the sense in school that he was “clever but not smart,” always on the lookout for ways to circumvent written requirements with oral presentations. He displays a framed copy of a letter he wrote to President Bush as a third grader, with his teacher’s annotations deciphering the text of an artfully comic plea to sell his brother. Below it are Josh’s state test results, displaying comprehension in the 89th percentile, while phonics lagged far behind.  “It’s classic,” explained Josh, “and I keep this on my office wall so families understand that test scores and school itself are NOT a definite indicator of future success.”

Teaching at a traditional school, Josh found himself drawn to “brilliant kids who were struggling and who were beginning to be identified as LBLD.” Later, he saw those same struggles in his own children. And in a scene so familiar to Landmark’s Admission team, he describes sitting with a psychologist years later and reviewing the evaluation results for his own child, and realizing, in tears, what his own school experience had been about.

Identity as a Dyslexic Learner

Fortunately for Josh, his challenges with grammar, syntax, and spelling in school were balanced by a love for literature and a talent for discussion and narratives. Despite test scores in the seventh percentile, his teachers approved his plea to take Honors English. His passion for communicating is clear, as is his talent for storytelling, another similarity to Dr. Drake. Even as he explored William Faulkner and James Baldwin in graduate school, Josh was narrowing in on his future journey, informed by his own identity as a dyslexic learner.

“I do draw on my identity as a dyslexic learner,” Josh stated. He notes that at Bodine, at Schenck, and now at Landmark, he has the privilege of following founding leaders and longtime heads of school. “In the case of Chad Drake, you have somebody who had dyslexia and who had the opportunity to do other things but chose to do something remarkable and admirable. And Bob Broudo expanded that legacy. I feel as if I’ve been given the resources, knowledge, and opportunity from my personal journey to do this work.”

Confidence and Belief

Josh sees a special sort of community in all LBLD schools. “There’s a humility we all bring to it that tends to keep us focused on the right things.” He’s excited about students who are confronting “bumps in the road” rather than a smooth trajectory.  Much like Dr. Drake’s original philosophy, Josh’s conviction is that students with dyslexia need a combination of "confidence and belief":

“They need high expectations and a different kind of rigor; the acknowledgment that they are going to have to work harder than most kids. Aspects of this are unfair; it is unfair that I’m having such a difficult time on what for other people is a fairly simple task. Now let’s go and get over that and figure out how we are going to turn this into an opportunity and potentially an advantage.”

A Parent's Perspective

Besides being a learner and educator with dyslexia, Josh brings a parent’s perspective to his work. He affirms that his experience as a parent “has influenced his teaching and leadership style 100%”: 

“I definitely try, to the degree it’s helpful, to share my personal story with parents. It’s easy as an educator sometimes to be detached from the personal; and to have an intellectual viewpoint on how things should work and how parents should support their kids. I will always try to make decisions in the best interests of the child as well as the school.”

A Leadership Challenge

Landmark has evolved over the years since it began in 1971. We are not strangers to change nor have we resisted it, all the while holding onto key principles of teaching. Yet somehow, this feels like a defining generational moment for the school as faculty members who have been here since the ‘70s retire and the first incoming head from outside the community arrives. Josh has a unique and historic leadership challenge. When asked to reflect on the moment, Josh understands the responsibility and gives a reassuring response:

“I don’t see my role as having some kind of agenda for a specific improvement. I think my role is more to prepare the institution to navigate the inevitable change that is accompanied by the progress of time. As I move forward, I’m focusing less on what needs to change about Landmark right now and more on trying to understand how I can assimilate to the culture, then grow and expand it, and help it evolve, as all things have to do with whatever comes next.”

On the Right Road

That same young teacher who was drawn to students with lots to offer but uncertain of their strengths now finds himself decades later at the helm of an incredible opportunity to be a servant leader. “I am sometimes surprised,” Josh says, “that I don’t think Landmark fully recognizes or appreciates its impact and legacy.  As an outsider coming in, you know, I’m moving my family over a thousand miles north, largely because of the reputation and history of Landmark School.”

“Landmark is already on the appropriate road,” he said as he prepares for his first year as head.

Expanding the Mission

If he has a vision for Landmark at 55- or 60-year anniversaries, it’s to expand the mission. 

“We make an extraordinary commitment, not only to the students we serve every academic year but also through Outreach. Trying to expand upon that, so students who don’t have the privilege of attending still can benefit, is incredibly important. Schools like Landmark have a moral obligation to do that. And when you bring your mission beyond your physical boundaries, that’s also how schools grow in terms of reputation, and folks want to invest in the physical boundaries themselves. So I think it’s a wonderful self-fulfilling prophecy. Using the lighthouse as a metaphor, I see our lighthouse only becoming brighter, and more powerful in the years to come.”

Welcoming a New Head

The search for Landmark’s incoming Head was informed by perspectives from the school’s Board, faculty, parents, students, and alumni; the input was diverse and demanding. Outstanding candidates with experience, communication skills, and leadership credentials emerged. Ultimately, however, what defines the person who will represent and guide Landmark into its next fifty years is a sense of mission. 

In Josh Clark, Landmark welcomes an educator uniquely qualified to fill the role, with empathy, deep connections to language-based learning disabilities; and a personal story that encompasses varied perspectives as a student, an educator and administrator, an advocate, a scholar, a parent, and a lifelong learner with dyslexia.

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