Head of School Kew Forest School

Welcome to The Kew-Forest School!

Whether you stumbled upon Kew-Forest or made a focused effort to find us, I am excited you landed here.

Making a decision about a child’s education is daunting. Families seek an environment that is safe, a curriculum that is intentional, and a community that will embrace and partner with them in educating their children. Independent schools are well-equipped to meet a family’s needs. I am glad you found Kew-Forest and excited that you will learn about opportunities the School has to offer your child and your family.

Kew-Forest’s size allows for warm, deep interpersonal connections. Our co-curricular programs support a ‘whole child’ approach, which values social-emotional and academic growth equally. Arts, athletics, service, and experiential learning reinforce traditional class work. Kew-Forest teachers create vigorous learning environments that inspire their students to find, explore, and expand their interests. They know their students well and provide individualized attention so students can realize their full personal and academic potential.

At the earliest stages, Kew-Forest students learn to work collaboratively and on their own. Teachers guide students through experiences that speak to a child’s innate curiosity about themselves and the world around them. Lower School classrooms employ the Responsive Classroom approach, which focuses on developing the classroom community to promote academic growth.

The Kew-Forest Middle School and Upper School (grades 6 - 12) program embraces the developmental leap between early childhood and adolescence. Students gain exposure to a wider variety of academic disciplines and have more choices for personalizing their program through coursework and extracurricular activities. A community service requirement exposes Kew-Forest young people to meeting needs beyond their own. Through the Advisory Program, students learn self-advocacy and how to successfully approach challenges.

A Kew-Forest graduate leaves our community with a sturdy academic foundation, the ability to comfortably converse with adults, time management skills, and experience with exercising autonomy and accountability in the journey of personal and academic growth.

The Kew-Forest community celebrates each individual and the wonderful, enriched whole that they form together, and we look for new members who will contribute as much as they will gain in their time here. The School is proud of how current and past students, families, and faculty members value all dimensions of the Kew-Forest experience. I encourage you to take the opportunity to get to know our teaching and learning community by reading through the website, attending admission events, and contacting Soraya Díaz Tamayo in the Admission Office for a personalized introduction. We are waiting for you!

Carla Jantos MacMullen

Head of School

About Carla Jantos MacMullen

Ms. MacMullen began her career at Hopkins as a chemistry teacher. She rapidly rose to assume the duties as Chair of the Science Department and then Dean of Faculty, supporting the welfare and professional activities of 125+ faculty members. Carla grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and graduated from Denison University in Granville, Ohio with a B.S. in Chemistry and extensive coursework in Spanish language/literature, ballet and Afro-Caribbean dance. In May 2017, she received her M.Ed. in Independent School Leadership from The Klingenstein Center at Teachers College at Columbia University. Carla and her husband, J. Alexander “Sandy” MacMullen have three children.