Janet Wolfe

Janet Wolfe joined The IDEAL School of Manhattan as its Head of School in February 2016. She led the process of expanding the K-8 school into a fully-accredited K-12 school, with a High School of over 70 students, including the development of a postsecondary program for students aged 18-21. Ms. Wolfe has led the development and expansion of a wide range of inclusive programs, all differentiated and individualized to meet each student’s needs. During the period in 2020 when schools were closing throughout the nation, Ms. Wolfe led her team in the creation of an online school with full days, synchronous lessons, and after-school activities. After that, she led the massive effort to move the school from two buildings on the Upper West Side into a single building in the Financial District designed and built to be a model of accessibility and inclusion. Ms. Wolfe currently serves on the Board of Complete Playground and was recently recognized by Schneps Media in their Power Woman of Manhattan 2024. From 2010-2017, she was also a Trustee of the Online School for Girls, where she served as Chair of the Education Committee and a member of the Finance Committee. Prior to IDEAL, Ms. Wolfe spent 13 years at St. Paul’s School for Girls, a fifth through twelfth grade all-girls day school in Maryland. Ms. Wolfe was an English teacher at Akiba Hebrew Academy (now Jack Barrack Academy), a coed, pluralistic Jewish day school, from 1993 until 2000. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Ms. Wolfe also earned a Master’s degree in Education from the University of Pennsylvania.