In May 2024, Marymount School of New York’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously to appoint Lorraine Riley as Marymount’s fifteenth head of school, effective July 1, 2025. Ms. Riley is a Marymount alumna, Butler Scholar, senior administrator, and current parent who cares deeply for our school and understands firsthand how special our community is.
Mrs. Concepcion Alvar will continue as head of school for the 2024-2025 academic year and will serve as an invaluable mentor to Ms. Riley. She will build upon Mrs. Alvar’s extraordinary legacy and carry forward the vision and values of our beloved school.
Ms. Riley’s appointment is the culmination of a year-long, highly competitive international search process; evaluating hundreds of applications from experienced educators around the world. What a testament to Marymount that one of our very own rose to the top of a very talented candidate pool.
As director of admissions, fellow parent, and proud alumna, she brings deep pedagogical experience to this role, grounded in her Marymount education. Twenty-four years ago, Ms. Riley entered our school in Class IX through the Butler Scholarship program, and then went on to graduate from Georgetown University, magna cum laude, becoming the first person in her family to complete college. She also earned a master’s degree in educational leadership from Columbia University. Recognizing the transformational impact of education firsthand, Ms. Riley found her calling in education and has dedicated her life to ensuring other students would have similar opportunities.
She began her career at Teach for America to improve educational equity in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. After years of serving as an English Language Arts (ELA) middle school teacher and literacy/ELA curriculum coordinator, she went on to lead the academic program in the KIPP Charter Network in New Orleans, a charter network of nine schools, spanning K-12. As director of curriculum and instruction, she strategized, designed, and scaled network-wide structures and systems to establish academic excellence, resulting in unprecedented performance improvement within its schools across all grade levels. In 2016, Ms. Riley returned home to Marymount as a member of the senior leadership team. She has held roles of increasing responsibility beginning in development, ultimately serving as director of development until being named director of admissions in 2022.
In accepting this appointment, Ms. Riley said:
“Marymount is my home, its community is my family, and this work is my calling. As the second lay head in Marymount’s storied history, it is the honor of my life to uphold and protect the mission and vision of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary. I am proud to continue the intrepid legacies of Mother Butler, Sister Kathleen Fagan, and Concepcion Alvar, who have modeled bold and compassionate leadership for the last century. I have been fundamentally shaped by their innovative spirit, strong work ethic, and unwavering love for our community. I am looking forward to partnering with the Board of Trustees, students, parents, alumnae, faculty, and staff, and leading Marymount into our next 100 years.”
Marymount has a strong reputation for academic excellence grounded in our pursuit of the RSHM mission “that all may have life and have it to the full,” and our families, alumnae, faculty, administrators, and students make our school a place that is like no other. We look forward to Ms. Riley’s stewardship as she leads our beloved school into its next chapter.