Longtime Poudre High School principal Kathy Mackay resigning to take job in Abu Dhabi
Kathy Mackay had originally planned to pursue opportunities in educational leadership overseas after retiring from Poudre School District.
Those plans changed, though, when she learned an American school with a new campus in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates — run by a former PSD employee she knows — was looking for a new principal for its high school.
Mackay applied over the winter and was recently hired, prompting her resignation from PSD after 25½ years in the district, the past 11 as principal at Poudre High School. She’ll remain at Poudre through the end of the current school year.
“I’m bummed that she’s leaving, but I’m happy for her,” Poudre High social studies teacher Brad Beauprez said.
The superintendent of the American Community School of Abu Dhabi is Monique Flickinger, who was the principal at Lincoln Middle School (then a junior high) when Mackay was working there as an assistant principal from 2005-2008.
“This happened a little bit quicker than I had planned, but it’s a really great opportunity for me and my family,” Mackay said. “I’m not making a complete leap of faith, jumping completely into the deep end, because I know the superintendent. There’s a little bit of safety there, knowing who my superintendent will be.”
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The timing works well, Mackay said. Her oldest son, Collin, is in college at Oregon State, and her middle son, Cooper, is graduating from Poudre in May and headed off to college, most likely out of state. She and her husband and their 6-year-old son, Sterling, will move to Abu Dhabi this summer.
Mackay’s two oldest children both went through the International Baccalaureate program at PSD elementary and middle schools and Poudre High, and Mackay has been involved in IB programs as a teacher and administrator at Lincoln Middle School and Poudre High.
Serving as a school administrator overseas has been “part of a plan,” she said, since her older sons were attending Bennett Elementary School when its principal, Michael Schooler, left to run a school in Africa.
The American Community School of Abu Dhabi serves students in grades K-12 and opened a new campus last fall on Saadiyat Island, near New York University’s Abu Dhabi campus, in the capital city of United Arab Emirates. There are about 400 students at the high school, with plans to grow to about 550, Mackay said.
Classes are taught in English, and about 55% of the students are American. Another 20% are Canadian, she said, and the others are from European and Asian countries, including the UAE.
Mackay has definitely left her mark at Poudre, where she taught history and geography before becoming an administrator. She was an assistant principal at Poudre for five years before becoming principal prior to the 2013-14 school year. She got her start at PSD, she said, working in the video production department before becoming a licensed teacher and administrator.
One of Mackay's first steps as principal, longtime technical education teacher Josh Weissman said, was to call all the department heads together and press each of them on what they were doing to turn their visions for their respective departments into reality.
“She pressed us really hard,” he said. “I was really uncomfortable in that meeting. She hammered us with difficult, probing questions, and she made us all better.”
Her support for career and technical education, Weissman said, has been stronger than that of any other administrator he has ever worked under. Weissman runs Poudre’s popular Pathways in Technology Early College High School program, created out of a partnership between Woodward, Front Range Community College and other industry partners in the area. Mackay has been a strong proponent of other career-readiness programs at Poudre and helped launch a Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program at Poudre this year for students considering future careers in the military.
“I teach high school shop — there’s engineering, design and manufacturing — and often we suffer under benign neglect,” Weissman said. “She’s really taken an active role in helping us create course content curriculum that really meets the needs of our community. She’s done a tremendous job in helping us build those important links with businesses, family members and cultural institutions.”
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Weissman and Beauprez said they were particularly impressed with how well Mackay guided Poudre through the COVID-19 pandemic, taking hits from people on all sides while helping to insulate the teaching staff from “the vitriol and anger that was directed at public education.”
Poudre serves an unusually diverse population, drawing students from mountain communities west of Fort Collins, ranches stretching north to the Wyoming border, areas around the Fort Collins Country Club, Old Town and multiple neighborhoods of immigrant and economically disadvantaged families in north and northwest Fort Collins.
Mackay’s ability to bring those communities together in a single high school while providing steady leadership and elevating its programs has been impressive, Beauprez said. It’s why her resignation is so bittersweet for Poudre’s staff. They’re happy for her personally but sad to be losing her leadership.
“I think the staff generally likes her and is respectful of who she is and how hard she works,” he said. “She’s a really good thinker and she’s flexible, and I think over her 11 years as principal she’s helped keep Poudre steady and also thriving.”
PSD posted a job opening for a new principal at Poudre High on March 19 that says applications will be accepted through April 22.
Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, x.com/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news.
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Poudre High principal Kathy Mackay resigns to take job in Abu Dhabi
