Heads of School

List of 12 items.

• Carol Barry

  Interim Head of School 2018 - Present
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  Carol Barry, Interim Head of School

  B.A., Liberal Studies, San Diego State University

  M.A., School Administration, Azusa Pacific University

  Ed.D., Educational Leadership, San Diego State University

   

  Carol Barry joined Bishop’s in 2010 as head of middle school, and she became interim head of school in August 2018. Prior to Bishop’s, Carol had a 27-year career with the San Diego Unified School District as a teacher, vice principal, principal and area superintendent overseeing 29 schools. Carol has worked as a consultant for the Council for Basic Education, and she participated in the Edna McConnell Clark Reform Initiative and Harvard’s Performance Assessment Collaboratives in Education (PACE) Project.

• Aimeclaire Lambert Roche

  Head of School 2009 - 2018
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  On July 1, 2009,  Aimeclaire Lambert Roche began her tenure as the eleventh head of school at The Bishop’s School, taking the leadership role from Michael Teitelman, who had retired after 26 years as headmaster.
  
  

  Ms. Roche came to Bishop's from the Groton School in Groton, Massachusetts, where she was the Assistant Head of School and Instructor of Latin.
  
  Prior to her arrival at Groton, she spent 10 years at St. Andrew’s School, in Middletown, Delaware, as Department Head of Classical Languages, and Instructor of Latin and Ancient Greek. At St. Andrews, she also served for five years as Director of College Counseling.
  
  

  A graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, Ms. Roche earned an A.B. degree from Harvard University and a master’s from Columbia University.

• Michael Walter Teitelman

  Head of School 1983 - 2009
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  After receiving a B.A. from Albright College in 1960, Michael Teitelman enrolled in Brown University, where he subsequently earned a master’s in teaching. Mr. Teitelman worked at various public and private schools before taking the job of headmaster at Graland Country Day School in Denver, Colorado. He spent eight years at Graland before the search committee, charged with finding a successor to Miss Williams, interviewed him. He was the board’s unanimous choice as headmaster.  
  
  

  When Mr. Teitelman arrived at Bishop’s in 1983 he brought his wife, Marlene, and his sons, Jeff '90 and Mark '88. Mr. Teitelman’s first order of business was to work with the board in the development of a strategic plan that would carry the School through the 20th century and into the 21st. It was a plan that called for increasing operating funds and the School’s endowment, allowing Bishop’s to expand academic and athletic programs, attract the best faculty, increase diversity, and upgrade and renovate the School’s infrastructure.
  
  As a result of Mr. Teitelman’s leadership the School’s Financial Aid Program and endowment grew tremendously. Building projects under Mr. Teitelman included the Taylor Performing Arts Center, the Emily Fenton Hunte Black ’28 Computer Center, the Ellen Brown Scripps Davis ’28 Language Laboratory, the Hunte Fields at the Fowler Athletic Complex, the parking structure, the relocation and renovation of the Reading Room (now the Volunteer Center, and the Michael & Marlene Teitelman Science Center.

• Dorothy Anne Williams

  Head of School 1975 - 1983
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  A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Dorothy Williams earned a bachelor’s degree in music from The Oberlin Conservatory in 1948 and taught music in public school for two years. She returned to school at Columbia Teachers’ College, where she earned a master’s degree, after spending her summer studying music at the Julliard School.
  
  Miss Williams spent ten years at St. Anne’s School in North Carolina before Ruth Jenkins hired her to be the Director of Residence and music teacher at the Annie Wright Seminary.

   

  Miss Jenkins persuaded Miss Williams to join her when she came to Bishop’s in 1963 to be the Director of Residence and Senior Advisor. In 1972, Miss Williams was promoted to Director of the Upper School and, in February 1975, the Board of Trustees appointed her Headmistress.
  
  Miss Williams was involved in the planning of Hunte Field, the Eva May Fleet Athletic Center, the Rutherford Science Wing and the Manchester Tennis Center. Quiet, but with a keen eye for details and the ability to make a quick decision when called for, her most challenging decision was to recommend the closure of the boarding department to the Board of Trustee’s, a decision that she called “the most significant and memorable of my career.” 

• Philip Powers Perkins

  Head of School 1971 - 1974
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  Philip Perkins was educated at the Randolph-Macon Academy and Randolph-Macon College in Virginia. He received a BS in Education from West Chester State Teachers College and a Master’s in Literature from Middlebury College.
  
  Mr. Perkins served as a pilot in the US Air Force during World War II and later taught English at St. Albans School and Grosse Point University School. His career also included being the Principal of the Sidwell Friends School, Assistant Headmaster at the Hockaday School for Girls, and Headmaster at the Marlborough School in Los Angeles.
  
  

  Mr. Perkins was named Headmaster-elect in 1970 and spent his first year working with Miss Jenkins. It was at this time that the plans for merging the San Miguel School for Boys with Bishop’s were first advanced; a plan that Mr. Perkins would implement in early September 1971. In 1973, Mr. Perkins announced his decision to resign at the end of the 1973-1974 school year.  Mr. Perkins died in 1988.

• Ruth Jenkins

  Head of School 1963 - 1971
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  Ruth Jenkins was born in Alaska to missionary parents. Her father had previously served as the Bishop of Nevada before taking a position in Alaska. Miss Jenkins earned a bachelor’s in History and French from the University of Oregon and a Doctorate of Humanities from University of Puget Sound in 1952. While she taught elementary and junior high school in Oregon, Idaho, and Hawaii, it was as Headmistress of the Annie Wright Seminary in Washington that Miss Jenkins came to be respected as a leader in college preparatory education. 
  
  

  Close to retirement age, Miss Jenkins was initially reluctant to leave the Annie Wright Seminary, where she had worked since 1942 to come to Bishop’s. She said the decision to leave was “like taking steps to divorce.” Through her leadership, major renovations occurred on campus: the creation of a new Gillman Hall entrance to the School, completion of Ellen Browning Scripps Hall and the tennis courts. With multiple building projects and the social upheaval of the 1960’s, “RJ” as she was affectionately called, needed all of her wit and pluck as she worked with the Board in planning the merger with the San Miguel School for Boys.
  
  Upon retiring, Miss Jenkins was made Headmistress Emeritus and an honorary member of the Class of 1971. Miss Jenkins died in 1998.

• Florence Stowell Bill

  Head of School 1962 - 1963
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  Born in Missouri in 1908, Florence Bill studied at the University of Chicago.She held positions with the Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges and the Laurel School in Cleveland, arriving at Bishop’s in 1958 from New York University to take the new position of Academic Assistant. Tall and elegant, with quiet efficiency and impeccable manners, Mrs. Bill was a capable administrator. 
  
  

  During the search for a new head of school, Mrs. Bill, who at that time was the Director of Admissions, took the position of Acting Headmistress.  In recognition of her fine work, the Board of Trustees recognized her with the title of Headmistress retroactive to the beginning of the 1962-1963 school year. Mrs. Bill died in 1986.

• Rosamond Elizabeth Larmour Loomis

  Head of School 1953 - 1962
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  Born and raised in Norfolk, Virginia, Rosamond Larmour graduated with honors from Hollins College in 1933. She taught public school for six years before entering Radcliffe and earning a master’s in American Literature and History. 
  
  Miss Larmour returned to teaching and was the assistant to the Dean of the New Jersey College for Women and later the head resident and admissions assistant at Middlebury College. She returned to Hollins College to teach before becoming the Principal of the Upper School at the Hockaday School in Dallas for five years. 
  
  

  Miss Larmour’s varied experience with institutions of learning for women, both at secondary school and college level, allowed her to institute changes that helped bring Bishop’s into the second half of the 20th century.
  
  Warm and approachable, Miss Larmour oversaw changes that allowed students more freedom. For example, they could leave the campus for local high school football games, use radios in their dormitory rooms and regulations for chaperoning became less stringent. An increase in the enrollment led to the hiring of additional staff, including the first male teachers since the early days of the School, and the construction of Cummins Hall in 1959 (dedicated during the School’s Golden Anniversary Celebration). In addition, new faculty housing and a home for the Headmistress were completed.
  
  When Miss Larmour resigned in 1962, enrollment stood at 302 students, a 50 percent increase during her years as head of school. In 1963, she married Richard Loomis, who had served as a Trustee on the School’s Board. Mrs. Loomis died in 2013.

• Caroline Seely Cummins

  Head of School 1921 - 1953
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  Born and raised in Warwick, New York, Caroline Cummins graduated magna cum laude from Vassar in 1910 and later received a master’s degree in classics from Vassar. She was on the faculty of the Cambridge School for Young Ladies and taught there until she resigned in the wake of the school’s merger.
  
  Visiting relatives in Hawaii, she received a telegram requesting her to teach Latin, Greek and English at The Bishop’s School starting in the fall of 1920. She was happy to join her friend Headmistress Marguerite Barton, a colleague from the Cambridge School. 
  
  

  In the aftermath of Miss Barton’s untimely death, an extensive search was launched for a new head, but Bishop Johnson was not pleased with any of the candidates and chose instead to promote the 33-year-old Miss Cummins to the position.
  
  It is clear that Miss Cummins oversaw the demarcation of the campus as we know it today. New buildings included the gymnasium, the pool, the campus wall, the recreation room in Scripps Hall, the second-floor rooms on the east side of Bentham Hall and the completion of the Chapel. She requested the architectural design and construction of the Bishop Johnson Tower.
  
  

  During her second decade as Headmistress, the Wheeler J. Bailey Library was completed, Cuvier Street was closed to traffic, and the transepts and baptistery were added to St. Mary’s Chapel.
  
  

  As early as 1923, Miss Cummins established a student council to encourage loyalty to the ideals of the School, and that same year, the Altar Guild met for the first time. The yearbook took the title of El Miradero.
  
  

  Miss Cummins led the School during the difficult period of World War II, maintaining normal academic standards and school programs. Throughout her tenure, Miss Cummins created an atmosphere at the School that demanded thoughtful scholarship and civilized living of all of its students and faculty. The Episcopal faith was very important to her and chapel services were an intrinsic part of the life of the School. 
  
  

  Although she retired at the end of the 1952-1953 school year, she continued to live nearby and visited the campus often. Miss Cummins died in 1978, leaving her home on Cuvier Street to The Bishop’s School. This gift became the impetus for the establishment of the Caroline Cummins Circle, the planned giving society at Bishop’s.

• Marguerite Barton

  Head of School 1918 - 1921
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  An 1898 magna cum laude graduate of Radcliffe, Marguerite Barton was raised in Boston. She also earned a master’s degree in English Literature from Radcliffe. She oversaw the Allen Brown Library of Music at the Boston Public Library for over a decade and taught English at the Cambridge School for Young Ladies. 
  
  

  Miss Barton arrived at Bishop’s near the end of World War I. A troubled economy was about to turn around, but building had been held off on in the wake of the war. Petite and of slight build, but iron will, Miss Barton was the first to have the title “Headmistress” and oversaw the change of the intramural sports teams to Purple and Gold to honor Ellen Browning Scripps’ alma mater Knox College.
  
  Miss Barton’s sister, Blanche, came to Bishop’s in 1919 and became Assistant to the Headmistress, a post she would hold for over 20 years. Miss Barton died in 1921.

• Margaret Gilman

  Head of School 1915 - 1918
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  Margaret Gilman grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where her father was part of the group that founded Radcliffe College and the Cambridge School for Young Ladies. Margaret took courses in Latin and English at Radcliffe, but left before she receiving a degree to begin teaching. She was the Principal of the Lincoln School from 1889-1911 and the head of the Whitman Hall dorm at Radcliffe in 1911.
  
  

  Bishop Johnson brought Margaret to Bishop’s after Anna Bentham’s death in 1915. A skilled tennis player, she was known for her competitive edge over the faculty and students she met on the court.
  
  Though she was never a student at the Cambridge School for Young Ladies, Miss Gilman favored many of their practices, including uniforms. Held in high esteem by Bishop Johnson, he asked that the new building under construction – Gilman Hall - be named for her when it was dedicated in 1917. Miss Gilman also oversaw the construction of St. Mary’s Chapel, which replaced a much smaller chapel in Bentham Hall.
  
  She was head of school during the World War I when the girls' war efforts included making 10,000 surgical dressings and turning the quad into a potato patch. In 1918, Miss Gilman returned to her home in Boston, where she continued to teach until her death in 1944.

• Anna Frances Bentham

  Head of School 1909 - 1915
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  Anna O’Hara took classes at MIT, but never received a degree. She taught school in the East before moving to Los Angeles to head the English department at the Marlborough School.
  
  It was while teaching at Marlborough that she met her husband, Charles Bentham, who was Rector of the Church of the Ascension in Sierra Madre. They married in 1904.  Bishop Johnson’s initial concept was to create a school in Sierra Madre and, in 1907, he choose the Benthams to head the project. When the location of the proposed school changed, the Benthams moved to La Jolla.
  
  

  Mrs. Bentham oversaw the day school from its rented boarding house and cottage on Fifth Ave in 1909 to its first new structure on Redwood Ave. At the same time, plans were moving forward for the first building on the La Jolla campus, Scripps Hall, which opened in late 1910.
  
  Realizing a need for additional facilities in La Jolla, a second building – Bentham Hall - was planned and dedicated in 1912. At the behest of Bishop Johnson, it was named for the Benthams because of their diligent work towards the success of the new schools.
  
  Mrs. Bentham disliked the finishing school concept, but required good public etiquette of her students, and was known for her quiet charisma. Neither of the Benthams enjoyed good health, and they died within a month of each other in 1915.