The St. James R-1 School District Board of Education has hired Bryan Carty as the next principal of St. James High School. Carty will begin the position July 1.

Carty was born and raised between Salem and St. James. He’s a graduate of Southeast Missouri State University and received his Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership and a Specialist Degree in Superintendency from Northwest Missouri State University. 

He brings 15 years in education and four years in administration to the role, including 11 years teaching middle and high school science. He’s also coached track, football, basketball and tennis. Carty is returning to the St. James R-1 School District after previously serving as an assistant principal.

“Working with kids has always been very important to me,” Carty said. “Watching kids chase their dreams and achieve them – I think that’s the core of what we’re doing here.”

He said he fell into the world of education by accident after doing community outreach work with middle school students while he was in college. After realizing how much the experience meant to him, he changed his major to education.

The district’s process for hiring involved two rounds of interviews. Superintendent Tim Webster said hearing feedback from teachers and community members was very important to the district throughout the process.

Webster said Carty’s life experiences outside the classroom and knowledge of the St. James community made him stand out as a candidate. He runs his family’s sixth-generation farm with his wife and kids and said he hopes to continue doing so for the rest of his life. He also has experience working in heavy equipment operation and the railroad industry.

“A lot of our kids are not going to be college bound,” Webster said. “He can show them the fact that that’s okay. Life can still be great and you can still achieve great things…There’s nothing wrong with it, but if you’ve got (a principal) that’s always taken the college route, they might not understand how to help those kids that are not going to take that route, whereas he has done both sides of the umbrella.”

Carty said that helping teachers relate their lessons to real world experiences is important to him, because it helps motivate students and build teacher-to-student relationships. 

“We want people to leave here feeling empowered to go and achieve and do the things that they want to do,” Carty said. “And one of the ways you can do that is help them connect what we’re doing in the classroom to life after high school.”

Webster said he anticipates a smooth transition for Carty because he already has relationships established within the district and community from his previous role as an assistant principal.

“He’s not starting from square one,” Webster said.

Carty is looking forward to reestablishing those relationships, as well as building new ones.

“I know his work ethic because I have had a chance to work with him,” Webster said. “I know his passion for kids, and I’m just excited to see where we can go as a district.”