This principal is leaving the Beaufort Co. School District to lead a local charter school

For the second time in less than a week, Beaufort County School District administrators have announced one of its schools will have a new leader next year.

Gary McCulloch, principal of River Ridge Academy, will be leaving at the end of the school year to assume a new role as the Head of Bridges Preparatory Charter School in Beaufort, administrators announced Tuesday.

Last week, Jerry Henderson, principal at H.E. McCracken Middle School, was removed and reassigned to another administrative role within the district. On Tuesday, district spokesperson Jim Foster confirmed that Henderson was moved to the district’s STEM coordinator position, where he will maintain the same $94,000 salary.

Permanent replacements for the two principals will be chosen by the start of the 2019-20 school year, Foster said.

McCulloch will leave the district on June 30, 2019, and begin his new role at Bridges Prep on July 1, 2019.

He was chosen from three finalists, who each attended meet and greets with staff and parents and formal interviews with the school’s board of directors, according to a news release from the charter school.

“...In Gary, we have someone who can bring immediate leadership to the school at an important time as we complete our high school program, continue to grow our enrollment and kick-off construction of our new middle and upper school facility in Port Royal,” David Gault, a Bridges Prep board member who served on the contract negotiating committee, said in a news release.

McCulloch has served as the principal at River Ridge since the PreK-8, Bluffton school opened in August 2015. Prior to becoming principal at River Ridge, McCulloch was principal at Beaufort Elementary School.

When the Beaufort County Board of Education was hiring an interim superintendent to replace the district’s former superintendent Jeff Moss, McCulloch was the only internal candidate named as a finalist for the role. But he was ultimately not chosen.

McCulloch said Tuesday that leaving River Ridge was a difficult decision to make but that he was looking forward to “working directly for a board.”

“It pulls at your heart strings,” he said. “But I know this is the next step in my career.”

Bridges Prep, which consists of about 700 students in grades kindergarten through 11, was chartered by South Carolina in 2012. The school is in the process of completing a full-service campus in Port Royal off Robert Smalls Parkway.

This story was originally published November 20, 2018 at 12:13 PM.