John McGarry – High School Expansion and Alumni Director

Born (to run) and raised by the salty breeze of the Jersey Shore, John arrived in Providence in 2006 for college. Following entanglements with physics, math, and computer science, he eventually emerged with a piece of paper calling him a philosopher. However, he somewhat jokingly claims his real concentration to be ‘Radio Studies’; he has been involved with BSR, a student-community freeform station, since coming to town.

For the past two years, he served in the Charter Corps AmeriCorps program at Highlander Charter School, serving as a teaching assistant in a 5th grade classroom and teaching afterschool. There, he’s sung songs and built paper cup castles with kindergarteners, and coded computer programs and hacked together robots with middle schoolers. He also worked at vacation camps at ¡CityArts!, helping students make radio theater and screen-printed posters.

This year of VISTA service, John is still at Highlander but in a different role. He is in charge of implementing an alumni outreach system to continue supporting students once they graduate. He also does research for a planned high school expansion project, looking into new and exciting curricular models.

John also spends way too much time in the kitchen, bikes around town and on distant trips, sporadically screen prints, and enjoys reading with his cat, Ripley Sigourney Weaver Koyaaniscatsi.