Teaching was St. James’ new head of school’s first love
DIANE RICH in her new office as head of school at St. James’.
You could say Diane Rich is something of an accidental head of school.
“I never wanted to be head of school. I wanted to do curriculum [and] coaching [and] create an environment where everybody can thrive,” she said last month in her new office at St. James’ Episcopal School, where she began her tenure as head of school in July.
Her outlook changed after taking on leadership posts, hesitantly at first. She was surprised to find she liked the options the jobs offered.
“I like to set the tone and create that sense of collaboration, optimism and dedication to the students and [to work] with educators and staff,” she told us.
Orchids and framed art of plants decorate her office. A fanciful flower pattern is another reflection of her love of gardening and landscape.
Rich also enjoys art, architecture and literature. Her experience of seeing these elements come together on a European backpacking trip made her think, “This might be fun to teach.”
ST. JAMES’ EPISCOPAL SCHOOL on South St. Andrews Place..
More than 35 years on, she is taking her experience and know-how to St. James’, a longtime fixture of the Mid-Wilshire community. She was chosen as the new head by the school’s board of trustees after a national search.
She replaces Peter Reinke, who retired after six years at the 400-pupil, preschool- through-sixth-grade (ages 2 to 12) campus. The school is entering its 56th year at 625 S. St. Andrews Place.
It has a total of 72 faculty and staff.
Rich is a proud Chicagoan. The youngest of five children, she grew up in a suburb outside of the city with a stay-at-home mom and a dad who was a CPA.
It was that backpacking trip through Europe that chartered her life course.
“I took off the fall semester of my junior year [at Boston College] to backpack through Europe with my oldest friend. We started in London, then went through nearly every country in Western Europe: France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria and Italy. We finished in Ireland.”
During her senior year in college, it was a summer job at an espresso bar at a Bloomingdale’s that fine-tuned her life course.
She had been on track for a Ph.D. in English when she was transferred from the espresso bar to the store’s personnel department, where she was tasked with training employees. She loved the teaching aspect of it and began questioning the doctorate path she was on — which would lead to a professorship, publishing and teaching in college, if she taught much at all.
So, she applied to Harvard, where she was accepted in an intensive program and earned her master’s in education.
Her teaching career launched in Cape Cod before she moved to New Hampshire, where she also held leadership positions, including dean and department chair.
For the past decade, she has served in several leadership roles in Rhode Island at Rocky Hill Country Day School (a nursery to grade 12 school). For the past six years, she was head of school.
A trustee at Rocky Hill shared on St. James’ website that Rich is “a fearless leader, empowering collaborator, and passionate about educating children.”
Of her new school, Rich says, “It’s a wonderful, wonderful place.”
She describes how St. James’ is known for its academics and social and emotional learning, as well as something more.
“The schools to which our students matriculate talk about how kind our students are. Here, there’s an element of kindness and paying attention to others…
“People have been so generous,” she adds, as she waves to a child peeping in through the glass door of her office.
Her husband, Tim Rich, is the newly named priest in charge at All Saints Church in Pasadena. They blended their families when they married 12 years ago, like a “little Brady Bunch.”
Their four children are grown now, says Rich, wearing worn-in blue sneakers for her three-block walk from a school-provided home that she shares with Tim and their two dogs.
She became an Episcopalian before meeting Tim. She found her adopted religion more inclusive and more accepting than the Catholic faith in which she was raised.
“They accept homosexuality, and women can be priests.”
And priests can marry?
“Yes, they can!” she laughs.
She met her husband when she was teaching at Bedford High in New Hampshire, and he was the Canon to the Ordinary (it’s similar to a chief of staff) to Bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire Gene Robinson, the first openly gay priest.
Diane Rich is involved in the church as well, and, she has served as a vestry member, a church school teacher and even a cookie room director for the Christmas Fair back in Rhode Island.
“Her participation in the life of a church, and even that as a cookie lady, reflects her love not just for making cookies, but for making community,” St. James’ website notes of its incoming head of school.
COURTYARD at St. James’ School, abutting Sixth Street.
More on St. James’
The school was founded in 1968 by Rev. Dr. Samuel D’Amico as a mission of St. James’ Episcopal Church. Joseph DeBell, a St. James’ parishioner, donated the original school building, an apartment on Gramercy Place large enough for four kindergarten students and one teacher.
Each year from 1968 until 1974, a grade level was added until the school had grades kindergarten through sixth.
In 1981, St. James’ Episcopal School moved to its current location, 625 S. St. Andrews Pl. The DeBell Hall building — funded by Joseph DeBell, the St. James’ parish and the Ahmanson Foundation — was designed for 14 classrooms and reached its full capacity of 308 students in 1984.
In 1997, the commercial property on Sixth Street known as Belden’s Market was razed to create a playing field for the school. The following year, St. James’ established a preschool. In 2001, an additional building was added which included a multipurpose hall, library, technology room, science laboratory and larger classrooms.
In 2009, The Leonetti / O’Connell Family Foundation and numerous parents contributed to the creation of a science lab that led to the implementation of a S.T.E.A.M. (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) program at St. James’.
PUPILS at the school pass between classes at the school.
In 2011, an art room renovation, made possible by the Ahmanson Foundation and parent support, was completed. In the fall of 2012, a new preschool building opened on Gramercy Place.
In 2016, St. James’ launched The Believe Campaign to raise $6 million and secure funding for a complete makeover of every room on campus, a new Spanish classroom and increased administrative space.
Completed in 2018, the campaign raised $6.5 million for its numerous programs.
For more information, visit sjsla.org.
Category: People