Evan Haine-Roberts Appointed Middle School Director

Moorestown Friends School has announced the appointment of Evan Haine-Roberts as Middle School Director, effective July 1, 2020. He will succeed Kimberly Clarkson, who announced her departure at the conclusion of the school year in September.

Haine-Roberts has a broad and diverse background and a proven track record as a middle school leader. He possesses nearly a decade of experience at Rodeph Sholom School in New York City, where he has served as an English teacher since 2010. In addition to his teaching duties, Haine-Roberts is the Director of Middle School Student Life. In this position, he facilitates a range of programs to support Middle School students’ academic, social, and emotional growth. In his work directing the advisory program, he manages three grade-level coordinators and 30 individual advisors responsible for the academic progress and social-emotional development of roughly 200 students in grades 5-8. He also leads a team of advisors himself as a grade-level coordinator at Rodeph Sholom to monitor and develop academic, communal, and social-emotional growth of students.

Beyond the classroom, Haine-Roberts has been very active at Rodeph Sholom. He was the Chair of the Self-Study Steering Committee for NYSAIS Accreditation. This year he attended a week-long intensive seminar at the CARLE Institute for white educators working to combat racism in independent schools. He has been heavily involved with all things related to Middle School life at the school, including service in the school’s Admissions work.

Prior to Rodeph Sholom, he was a David Dulaney Teaching Fellow at Edmund Burke School in Washington D.C., where he taught English, social studies, and journalism. Haine-Roberts has an M.Ed. in Teacher Leadership from Brandeis University and a B.A. in English from Carleton College.

Said Head of School Julia de la Torre:

“Evan’s passion for the middle school years came through in every interaction he had on campus while visiting MFS. In his philosophy of education statement, he shares that ‘schools have a noble responsibility to help us question our thinking, to remodel our mental spaces and help us find the false walls and trap doors that swing open to exciting, expanded understandings. But this expansion cannot happen alone. I believe that students need to be situated in a larger, authentic, interpersonal environment for deeper learning.’ Evan connected immediately with MFS’s commitment to developing strong relationships and empowering students to find and use their voices in their own learning. I am excited to have Evan join our school and look forward to seeing the many ways in which he will contribute to the growth of the Middle School.”