Five Years At OES: Reflecting Back with Head of School Mo Copeland


early to prepare to teach our first classroom full of students. Attending a meeting.


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For Head of School Mo Copeland, daily arrival requires a completely different focus. While, like the rest of us, she may be thinking about meetings to attend and tasks to accomplish, her mind is also on what Oregon Episcopal School will look like and what it will be known for five, 10, or 20 years from now.


Copeland began her post as OES Head of School in the fall of 2011. As she reflects on the past five years, she is proud and grateful.


“People might think I would say that the new Lower School is what I am most proud of over these last five years,” she says. “Seeing it open on the first day of school this year was so satisfying and absolutely critical to continuing our mission, but when I look back on the last five years, the quality of people I get to work with here is what stands out. Te people I work with are fiercely committed to the mission and vision of OES. Tey inspire me every day.”


When Copeland was looking at the prospect of furthering her career at OES, she knew it was one of the top three independent schools in the Northwest known especially for the strength of its faculty and curriculum. Coming to the job after more than a decade of serving as the head of school at Saint George’s


s most of us are arriving on campus at OES, we have an immediate next action in mind: Dropping off our child for a day of school. Arriving


School in Spokane, Washington, she was pleased to learn that OES had the value-added benefit of a full slate of career teachers who already had 30+ years of experience under their belts.


“Te teaching and learning is curated really well here,” says Copeland. “Te faculty are intentional and thoughtful, and it was exciting to know all that was solidly in place when I arrived. We continue to attract excellent faculty and staff who want to be here.”


Copeland is a seasoned administrator, having worked as a dean of faculty at Lakeside School in Seattle, then head of upper school, assistant head of school, and ultimately head of school at St. George’s. But her career was not always in administration. A 1982 graduate of Reed College in Portland, she majored in physics and taught physics and math for 18 years at Putney School (Putney, Vermont), Moses Brown School (Providence, Rhode Island), and Lakeside.


and labs. And we got to play with all the fun toys.”


She started to feel the call toward administration at Lakeside as she served in more faculty leadership roles—faculty evaluation, curriculum development, and search committees. “I realized how much I enjoyed that work and saw that a shift was in order.”


Te move to OES was largely precipitated by the opportunity to focus on strategic planning. Because Saint George’s is smaller, her head of school role required more time on day-to-day operations. Te move to OES was a welcome shift to thinking about a school’s long-term future.


“This is the beauty of being an independent school. We get to set our own mission.”


“It was an exciting time because we got to create our own courses on relativity and space time physics. I was entrenched in teaching the inquiry method—rather than telling students the formulas, we let them discover the formulas through hands-on demonstrations


“OES is a large and complex school. We have phenomenal administrators and faculty working on the issues of the day, and thinking deeply about which courses


to teach and what kinds of experiences they want to give our students. Tat allows me to be thinking about where we are going in the future and designing the road map to get there. I find that very motivating and engaging.”


She also appreciates her work with the OES Board of Trustees. “Te governance of an


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