Tracy Fedonchik, Head of St Luke's School NYC, on quitting her career in her late 20s to chase something that actually mattered
“We’re not just teaching reading and writing. We’re teaching children how to fail and how to pick themselves up.”
Tracy Fedonchik is head of school at St. Luke's School, a K-8 school on a rare two-acre campus in downtown Manhattan. Changing career in her late twenties meant she came to education with, as she puts it, real intentionality. Prior to teaching, Tracy was a vice president of sales and marketing, where she enjoyed the travel, the expense account and the creative work. The meaning she had aspired to at graduation, however, wasn't there. So she quit, volunteered in a third grade classroom at the Dalton School and fell in love with it. She spent more than two decades at Dalton, rising from associate teacher to senior leadership, before joining St Luke's as head in 2023. In this conversation, Tracy reflects on what makes a New York education distinctive, why she leads through a conference table rather than a desk, and makes a heartfelt case for the value of K-8 schools in a city increasingly drawn to all-through education.
🎙️ Episode highlights
Tracy tells the story of her leap into teaching in her late twenties, quitting a vice president role to volunteer in a classroom, hoping the school would hire her.
She reflects on what unites New York's independent schools: they are mission-driven places that identify what they stand for and channel every resource into making that mission real for children and families.
Tracy explains her distributive approach to leadership, symbolised by the fact that she has no desk of her own; her office is a conference table where the senior team sits together as equals.
She makes the case for K-8 education, arguing it lets children stay children for longer while giving 13 and 14-year-olds the chance to be the oldest in the school, finding their voices and becoming role models.
Tracy draws on the research she loves about why children benefit from strong relationships with adults outside their family, and why the middle school years are the ideal time for that mentoring to happen.
Her controversial opinion involves Pippin, her miniature dachshund, whom she carries as she greets children each morning, and the calming power of the human-animal connection at moments of transition.