Distinctive Menlo Park High School Names Student-Centered Innovator as Inaugural Director of Innovation and Design
Mid-Peninsula High School
Mid-Peninsula High School is an independent, non-profit, non-sectarian, coeducational college preparatory high school in Menlo Park, California. Intentionally small by design, Mid-Pen is built on genuine connection. Each student has a daily home base with a trusted adult who helps them get organized, set goals, and navigate the week, so students are supported, challenged, and guided toward greater independence.
Mid-Pen offers a college-preparatory program that includes a full range of high school experiences. Students have options for accelerated and honors classes, visual and performing arts, and a robust and inclusive athletics program. Mid-Pen’s distinctive program is shaped by signature experiences such as the daily Core Program, DragonWeek intersession, and Dragon Workshops. Alongside a dedicated learning support program and a college advisor, these experiences help students build skills, confidence, and purpose.
At this exciting moment in the school’s 47-year history, Mid-Pen sought a director of innovation and design (DI&D) to start in the summer of 2026. This was a new role that sought a creative, inspirational, and ambitious educational leader who wanted to help a small, relational school explore pedagogical innovation across all disciplines and areas of school life. The DI&D will have a chance to help make that innovation come alive via staffulty partnerships and direct student instruction. Reporting to the head of school, the DI&D will serve on the administrative team, supervise the director of technology, and teach two elective courses each year. The successful candidate will bring a love of teaching, an experienced instructional design toolkit to inspire other educators, a passion for and fluency in one or more innovation-related domains (such as design, maker, fabrication, robotics, computer science, or applied engineering), an eagerness for helping to establish a new role in a small teaching community, and an understanding for how to develop multiple learning pathways for a neurodiverse, motivated, and intellectually curious student body.
Mid-Pen was thrilled to welcome Anthony Roberts to the position.
Meet the new leader
Anthony Roberts is a Bay Area creative educator, most recently serving as the Director of Peleh at Wornick Jewish Day School. In that role, Mr. Roberts developed and implemented the curriculum and vision for Wornick’s design and engineering program and makerspace, the Peleh Lab (peleh means ‘wonder’ in Hebrew), and cultivated a hub for student-driven inquiry and creativity through hands-on projects in design, engineering, 3D printing, CAD, woodworking, robotics, coding, photo and video, stop motion animation, graphic design, fabrication and more. Before moving into education, Mr. Roberts’ professional background included working with the global arts program at Meta and running his own creative studio – experiences that have contributed to his ability to teach across diverse disciplines. He is a teacher at heart, and a lifelong learner-in-practice who is deeply passionate about shaping learning environments that encourage curiosity, collaboration, and innovation. Mr. Roberts holds a B.A. in Art Practice from UC Berkeley.
