Madeleine S. Ortman, an administrator with extensive experience in independent school management and a graduate of Sacred Heart schools, will become Executive Director of the Network of Sacred Heart Schools on September 1.

She succeeds Marsha Whelan, who has held the post for the past four years.

Mike Ryan, head of the Network board, said Madeleine Ortman had been chosen from more than 100 applicants.

“In Madeleine we saw a combination of attractive qualities that bode particularly well for the future success of the Network,” he said. She was the first lay woman to serve as head of Woods Academy, an independent school founded by Ursuline sisters. She currently serves as Associate Consultant with Independent School Management in Wilmington, Delaware.

Mike Ryan noted that, in addition to her professional qualifications, Madeleine Ortmann has a deep appreciation for Sacred Heart education. “Madeleine is both a Stone Ridge and Barat College graduate, her aunt (Florence Weston) was an RSCJ and her mother a graduate of 91st Street and Manhattanville,” he wrote.

All are schools founded by the Religious of the Sacred Heart.

The Network, based in Newton, Mass., will move to St. Louis later this year.

Biographical Sketch of
Madeleine S. Ortman

Madeleine Ortman is an Associate Consultant with Independent School Management in Wilmington, Delaware where she provides professional development opportunities for school faculties and also teaches courses in Parent Relations, Marketing, Admission Office Fundamentals and The Safe Haven School. She supports schools all over the country as they implement Meaningful Faculty Evaluation that operates from a unique, research-driven premise, that the core purpose of faculty evaluation should be the enhancement of the faculty culture. She is ISM’s Association Liaison with state, regional and national independent school associations to coordinate the needs of their membership and ISM’s resources.

Madeleine has been Head of School for nineteen years and Assistant Principal for four. She has also been an Executive Consultant for the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools in Philadelphia where she coordinated its Elementary Commission's Self-Study and has been involved in the accreditation of Supplementary Learning Centers. She served as Education Coordinator for the Catholic Schools Office as the Archdiocese of Washington opened its first new school in thirty years. Madeleine served as headmistress of The Woods Academy and as principal of Saint Mark's School and Saint Martin's School. Before accepting her first position as an educational administrator, Madeleine taught middle school for six years and was a medical social worker for one.

Madeleine was an elected commissioner for the Commission on Elementary Schools for the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and served as President of the Middle States Association’s Board of Trustees. In addition to being a member of the Association of Independent Schools of Greater Washington, the Association of Independent Maryland Schools and the Association of Supervision & Curriculum Development, Madeleine has been both President and Vice President of the Elementary Schools Principals' Association for the Archdiocese of Washington. Madeleine was selected as one of thirty outstanding principals nationwide to participate in the National Catholic Education Association's first Principal's Academy.

A native of Xenia, Ohio, Madeleine received her Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology from Barat College of the Sacred Heart and her Master of Arts in educational administration from Catholic University of America and has done additional graduate work at Trinity College. She successfully completed the Dale Carnegie Course in Effective Speaking and Human Relations at the Dale Carnegie Institute. Madeleine has been a Hospice volunteer and currently volunteers at the Ronald McDonald House of Delaware and St. Francis Hospital in Wilmington.