John M. Botti, Sixth Head of School
John M. Botti was recently appointed Browning’s sixth Head of School and will begin serving in this capacity on July 1, 2016. John has devoted his entire education career to boys school settings and is committed to instilling in his students both an appreciation of academic excellence and a strong ethical grounding.
A native of Hummelstown, Pa., John is the son of a physician and a social worker. He and his younger sister attended Lower Dauphin High School where John was a three-sport athlete and president of his National Honor Society chapter. John matriculated and graduated cum laude from Williams College. In addition to majoring in history, John was captain of the varsity basketball team and earned all-conference and all-academic recognition. He also served as a residential advisor, was active in Habitat for Humanity and volunteered as a youth soccer coach and middle school tutor.
Upon graduating from Williams, John was offered a teaching position at Salisbury School, the boys secondary boarding school in Salisbury, Conn., where he taught history, was a dorm parent, assisted in the admission office and coached basketball, baseball and soccer.
In 1999 John joined Landon School where he taught AP European History, Modern World History, Ancient World History and a popular humanities survey course. In addition to his contributions as a highly regarded history teacher, John coached varsity basketball, junior varsity soccer and was the faculty advisor for numerous clubs, including the academic quiz bowl team. John held the Paul Landon Banfield Chair in Ethics from 2009-2014 and was responsible for establishing a weekly speakers series in the upper and middle schools focused on issues of moral and ethical concerns. He also integrated parents and alumni into the discussion of character education, organized a bi-annual forum for ethical reflection and supervised weekly exchanges between upper school student leaders and younger boys in the lower and middle schools.
In 2011 John was appointed Associate Headmaster at Landon. He served as chief administrator of the department heads’ leadership group and was responsible for general academic oversight as well as leading faculty meetings and guiding curriculum reviews. In this capacity, John co-wrote Landon’s most recent strategic plan, led a standing committee on educational technology, and also supervised high-level searches for the Head of Lower School, Head of Middle School and Director of the Learning Center.
While working at Landon, John met his wife Eliza in 2002, received his master’s in education from the University of Virginia in 2005 and completed his Ph.D. in the history of education from the University of Maryland in 2014. John, Eliza and their sons, Nathan and Sean, are excited to take up residence in New York this summer and join the Browning community in July.