Megan D. Cover, Head of School
Megan D. Cover became the 10th head of school at Girls Preparatory School in July 2021. A lifelong educator, she has led the school into a new era of student-focused programming to include a learner-centered culture while initiating and redesigning programs and spaces to best support how girls learn in mind, body, and spirit. This devotion to the whole girl drives her leadership strategy and serves as the guiding principle of her headship.
Since assuming headship, Megan has taken the lead on a strategic design process that focuses on Empowering Girls for a Changing World in alignment with campus master planning to evaluate and reimagine key areas on campus. Additionally she prioritized the health and wellness initiatives by expanding and officially naming a new Center for Teaching and Learning and a Health and Wellness Center to include a full-time school nurse.
While continuing to seek excellence for each GPS student with an emphasis on community, connection, and belonging, Megan realigned faculty and staff roles to include new deans of health and wellness, teaching and learning, and outdoor leadership, and created a role for a Director of Security.
Megan also refocused the efforts of College Counseling to prioritize each girl’s journey beyond high school to support her academic and career aspirations, and empowered the Curricular and Program Design Team to scaffold a learner-centered program with an emphasis on academic excellence and adjusted grading practices to be more reflective of a girl’s overall knowledge and understanding.
In partnership with Development and Admission, Megan has built relationships with alumnae and current and prospective parents to realize and exceed annual fundraising goals and significantly bolstered the incoming Class of 2030 admission enrollment, making the sixth-grade class for the 2023-24 school year the largest since 2017.
Prior to her arrival at GPS, Megan spent more than 20 years at the Tower Hill School in Wilmington, Delaware, as a teacher, coach, department chair, dean, and Head of Upper School.
An alumna of the girls’ school Agnes Irwin, Megan experienced for herself the transformative power of an all-girls education. Megan holds a B.A. from Denison University and M.A. from Middlebury College and West Chester University. She is a member of the 1911 Group (formerly known as The Head Mistresses Association of the East) and serves on the TAIS Board of Directors.
Megan has presented at multiple conferences, most recently at the fall 2022 TAIS Conference on The Winding Road to Headship; and the summer 2023 ICGS Conference on Mind, Body & Spirit: Reimagining Your Campus to Support the Whole Girl, and will speak at the fall 2023 SAIS Conference on Canceling Cancel Culture to Restore Conversation Culture. In spring 2024, Megan began her faculty fellowship at the Head’s Network Women’s Leadership Seminar.
Megan and her husband, Ted, have three daughters; two are student-athletes at Washington & Lee University and one is a recent graduate.
