Barbara McCoy
Director

Born in the Mississippi Delta, Barbara spent her childhood growing up in Peru, Colombia, South Africa, Switzerland, and England. She returned to the States for university and graduated with a BFA in Painting from Sophie Newcomb College of Tulane University. She obtained an additional degree in Biology and Illustration and went on to be accepted as the first resident in the Medical Illustration Department at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Barbara then changed her career and followed her desire to teach.

Barbara spent the last 19 years as a teacher in a rural public school in the South, as a Montessori art teacher in Maryland, as a Lead teacher at the inclusive National Child Research Center in Washington D.C., and as a master teacher at Green Trees Early Childhood Village at Isidore Newman School. Barbara wrote and illustrated curriculum guides for PBS, Department of the Navy, and National Zoo, served as program specialist with the District of Columbia’s Public Schools, and was project coordinator for the Hawaiian Bird Exhibit at the National Zoo. In 2009, she received the Susan Piggott Inaugural Fellowship Award. Then in 2011, Barbara pursued a Master of Arts in Art Education at the Corcoran College of Art and Design and George Washington University in Washington D.C. Her journey then led her back to New Orleans. After her first year as a master teacher at Green Trees Early Childhood Village at Isidore Newman School, Barbara then took on the position of Instructional Coach of Teaching and Learning at Green Trees, coaching teachers and providing Student Support in the classrooms which she fulfilled for four years. Barbara then gratefully accepted the position of Director in the fall of 2021, and continues to be eager to share her knowledge and skills, and learn and grow in her practice as an educator, with the Cathedral Montessori School community.

Passionate, inspired by children, she loves her profession as a guide and educator. She believes teaching is the ultimate creative process: ongoing, open-ended, not aimed at one right answer. Her passions include a lifelong love of learning and traveling, her painting, spirituality, cooking, animals, and T’ai Chi Ch’aun, but most importantly, spending time with her three children, Alexander, a chef and restaurant owner in D.C and Baltimore, Nathaniel, a tinkerer, woodworker, and chef at Avo, and Olivia, a dancer, actress, and trainer who started WeHelp in the city to support the mental health of those in the restaurant industry, her dear friends, and her menagerie, Jack, her Dobie, Luna and new member, Marigold, who showed up cold and small on Halloween.

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