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Mark Reed, assistant headmaster at St. John's School in Houston, will take over as Charlotte Country Day's head of school on July 1, the school announced Wednesday.
Margaret Gragg, who has led the private school in southeast Charlotte for almost 17 years, announced earlier that she would retire next summer.
In the private-school world, Reed “is really known as a young superstar,” said Watts Hamrick, who chaired the search committee. “He is all about kids … but he also has a really broad and deep understanding of education.”
Reed will be the first African American to lead Charlotte Country Day, which was founded in 1941, and now has almost 1,650 students and more than 300 faculty. Tuition runs as high as $19,500 a year for the prestigious pre-K-12 college-prep program.
Reed has been a teacher and administrator at St. John's, a private school with 1,200 students, for 19 years. In addition to his work with education, athletics, planning and fundraising at St. John's, Reed is trustee at another college-prep school serving economically disadvantaged youth in Houston.
He is a member of a coalition supporting arts groups and directed support programs for Hurricane Katrina evacuees who entered St. John's.
Reed said he thinks Charlotte Country Day is a good match with his mission and values, which include “fostering intellectual questioning and curiosity, and providing kids with an opportunity to think about a bigger world around them.”
He said he will not arrive with any plans for change, but will talk to faculty, students, parents and the community about the school's goals for the next five and 10 years.
