‘Arrivederci SKHS’: McCarthy Departs for Rome

By Sophia Brown

For the past ten years, Principal Robert McCarthy has been a visible presence in South Kingstown High School, always willing to talk to students at lunch or in the halls.

In two weeks, Mr. McCarthy will fly to Rome to begin a new phase of his career as the principal of an international K-12 school.

“There were a lot of signs pointing me in this direction,” he said. The job, he hopes, will be “a really good fit.”

Rome has three main attractions for Mr. McCarthy.

First and foremost, he said, moving to Rome allows him to escape the traditional path of going from principal to superintendent, a job McCarthy said he would find “too far removed from schools [and] too far removed from kids.”

Rome, he added, will allow the him to remain a principal in a different environment with new professional challenges.

McCarthy said his previous experience with international schools has shown him that such an experience offers a tremendous opportunity for his kids.

Regarding SKHS, McCarthy’s favorite memories are ones where people come together for a common goal, and where there is a lot of pride in the SKHS community.

He cited graduation as a primary example, because it recognizes all the hard work that the students have put in over the past four years.

For Mr. McCarthy, education has always been a big part of his life, although he did not originally intend to go into teaching. Mr. McCarthy’s father was a high school principal, his mother was a teacher, and his brother has also become a teacher.

After high school, Mr. McCarthy attended Emory University. His first educational job was running an ISR room for a year in a large Boston school where, he said, he was “sort of like Mr. Cruz.”

Through this job Mr. McCarthy discovered that he like the education field, and he acquired a Masters in Teaching from Brown University. After teaching for three years in Los Angeles, three years in Cartagena, Colombia, and another year in Boston, McCarthy attended graduate school at Harvard University where he earned his administrative degree.

McCarthy credits his three years in Cartagena with fueling his desire to teach overseas, specifically his resent acceptance of a position in Rome.

His three years in Cartegena, he said, were spent teaching at a small K-12 American school.

“If I hadn’t had that experience [in Cartagena],” he said. “I wouldn’t have ended up pursuing overseas experiences.”

During his time in Rhode Island, McCarthy spent eight years serving as the Assistant Principal and then Principal of East Greenwich High School before becoming the SKHS Principal.

Three years ago McCarthy applied for and was offered a job in Shanghai, China, but ultimately decided to remain in SK with the hopes of later finding a job in Europe.

While there are some things that Mr. McCarthy said he hoped to implement at SKHS, some have yet to happen.

“Ten years in one place is enough for [him],” he said.

McCarthy describes himself as a lifelong learner, and added that a move to Rome will definitely teach him many things.

In two weeks ,the yellow moped that has been a symbol of Mr. McCarthy’s presence at SKHS will be gone, and in the fall another new face will be coming to SKHS.

Farewell Principal McCarthy — SKHS thanks you for your service.