One night in late October, something out of the ordinary had students at a Connecticut prep school buzzing: Law enforcement officials had descended on the campus home used by their revered longtime head of school.
A white picket fence frames the 18th-century, Federal-style mansion, which sits across the street from the manicured quadrangles of Suffield Academy. Some of its facilities bear the name of New York’s elite and tuition for students who board is nearly $80,000 a year.
The next day, Oct. 22, the school announced that it had placed its longtime leader, Charlie Cahn III, on leave, citing an investigation into him by the Internal Revenue Service.
The focus of the I.R.S. investigation of Mr. Cahn, 56, whose annual compensation of more than $1 million placed him at the top of the prep school pay scale, was not immediately clear, but it comes amid public scrutiny of fees that families paid to an educational consulting firm in China. The firm presented itself to wealthy clients as a gatekeeper to exclusive prep schools and colleges in the United States, while the company served as a conduit for Mr. Cahn to network with V.I.P.s at gatherings in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Its connection to the school was first reported by The Boston Globe.
Frederic B. Powers III, the chairman of Suffield Academy’s board of trustees, said in a letter to the school community on Thursday that the institution was cooperating with investigators and did not have “insight into the full scope or direction of the government’s efforts.”
Mr. Powers said the school had retained outside counsel to conduct a separate investigation into matters involving its leadership and finances.
“We believe it is important to understand these circumstances fully, independent of the government’s work, and to determine whether additional steps are necessary,” Mr. Powers wrote.
Mr. Cahn, who has led Suffield Academy since 2004, has not been charged with a crime. It was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer. Two phone numbers listed for him were disconnected, and he did not respond to messages sent to his school and personal email accounts on Thursday and Friday.
The day the school said it had placed him on leave, Mr. Cahn went missing, and his family filed a missing persons report after not hearing from him in about 24 hours, according to the Police Department in Suffield, Conn. He was found later that day in Maine.
The I.R.S. did not respond to a request for comment about the investigation.
Around the time that Mr. Cahn was placed on leave, a member of the school’s board of trustees resigned abruptly without explanation.
The former trustee, Lillian Chen, and her husband, Henry Chang, were listed as the owners of XueMei Education, the consulting company in China that offered placement services for private secondary schools and colleges in the United States, according to a stock market prospectus. There is no evidence that Ms. Chen, Mr. Chang or their company, which is no longer publicly listed in China, were implicated in the I.R.S. investigation.
On the company’s website, the business says it empowers high-net-worth families to have a better chance of gaining admission to their target schools and provides students with effective resource support to “ensure admission.”
In November 2025, the company organized what its website described as a recruitment tour for Suffield Academy in Shanghai and Hong Kong featuring Mr. Cahn. The website noted that Ms. Chen was a member of the school’s board of trustees.
An earlier visit by Mr. Cahn to Shanghai and Beijing in June 2025 was chronicled in a short article on Suffield Academy’s website. The article was accompanied by photographs of Mr. Cahn at The 1515 West, an American-style chophouse at the Shangri-La Hotel in Shanghai, and a sign for a V.I.P.-exclusive session.
In recent days, Suffield Academy appears to have removed the post from its website, which also no longer lists Mr. Cahn as the head of school.
Email messages and phone calls to Ms. Chen’s company were not returned.
Amy Randall, a spokeswoman for Suffield Academy, said Thursday that it was not the school’s place to say why Ms. Chen resigned from the board last month.
“We are grateful for the generous service of our trustees, past and present,” Ms. Randall said in an email.
The school declined to provide answers to a list questions submitted by The New York Times, saying that it could not discuss a government investigation. Mr. Cahn’s wife, Hillary Rockwell Cahn, who also works at Suffield Academy as creative director of the marketing and communications office, did not respond to a message seeking comment. A yoga and Pilates studio at the school is named for her.
Last year, Suffield Academy welcomed five new students from China, according to the now-deleted post about Mr. Cahn’s June 2025 Asia visit.
Overseas trips by the leaders of American boarding schools have become common in recent decades — including to China, which has become a popular pipeline for recruiting and fund-raising.
Founded in 1833, Suffield Academy has an enrollment of about 420 boarding and day students in grades nine through 12 who come from 31 countries, according to the school’s website. The 325-acre campus is in Suffield, about 20 miles north of Hartford and 10 miles south of Springfield, Mass.
Under Mr. Cahn’s leadership, the school’s endowment doubled between 2019 and 2025, surpassing $100 million, according to the institution, which last December selected Casey Bobo to succeed Mr. Cahn in July 2027. Ms. Bobo took over Mr. Cahn’s duties when he was placed on leave.
While it is not as well known as other New England prep schools, such as Choate Rosemary Hall, Taft, Hotchkiss, Deerfield, Exeter and Andover, Suffield carries its own cachet.
The school’s field house and auditorium are named after the Tisch family. Daniel R. Tisch, whose father, Laurence A. Tisch, was a self-made billionaire who was credited with saving CBS from a hostile takeover, is a member of the school’s board of trustees.
Mr. Tisch declined to comment about the I.R.S. investigation.
Mr. Cahn’s total compensation was $1.1 million in 2024, the most recent year for which public filings from the I.R.S. were available.
By comparison, the Hotchkiss School paid its head of school $1 million; Phillips Academy Andover paid $900,000, and another $1.1 million to its chief investment officer; Choate paid $850,000; and Phillips Exeter Academy paid $655,000.
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