By Isabella Ying
Shortly after The Potomac School closed its doors for the summer on June 23rd, Mr. Doug McLane and his family loaded into their car and towed a U-Haul trailer southbound. Just as they neared Greensboro, North Carolina, Mr. McLane turned to Ms. McLane in concern and asked, “Do you feel anything pulling?”
“Don’t worry about it,” she told him. “You’re fine.” But he looked back, and “there were sparks coming out of the car,” he said. They pulled over to the side of the interstate to enjoy every road-tripper’s favorite activity: waiting on a spare for their U-Haul’s popped tire.
Their long-awaited savior eventually arrived with the coveted tire. “We got it fixed and got back on the road,” Mr. McLane said, triumphantly. This trial is also, perhaps, a metaphor for the school year. “You have something planned,” he reflected, “then sometimes things change. And you have to adapt.”
With this road bump overcome, the McLanes arrived in Atlanta intact. While the two kids, Garret and Kira, were at sleepaway camp, Mr. McLane had to buckle down for his fast-approaching first day of work. On July 1st, he stepped into Lovett as Head of Upper School.
Mr. McLane’s roots in education trace back to (surprise) his own high school days. But perhaps most surprising is that a passion for Spanish set him on his current path. At his small-town public school in mountainous northern New York, a guidance counselor knew he loved learning Spanish.
“My guidance counselor saw this opportunity for me to travel as an exchange student to Argentina,” he said. And so, a young Doug McLane began his first adventure abroad. There, he became proficient in Spanish, which he would go on to study in college. But even more so, it motivated him to find purpose in understanding the experiences and perspectives of people around the country and the world. “I got really excited about that,” said Mr. McLane.
As an undergrad, he discovered he wanted to work in education. At first, he simply wanted students to be interested in learning Spanish like him. Later, he became interested in leadership roles to “help schools make sure that there are systems in place,” with opportunities and trusting adults to nudge kids to “explore their purpose,” just as his guidance counselor had done years prior.
Mr. McLane’s chance came when he was a Spanish teacher in New Jersey.
“Somebody was like, ‘Hey, I think you should consider a leadership role,’” he recalled. So, he took on a student life leadership role similar to our deans. He continued teaching, but became excited and invested in “working with students and families and faculty in a different way and beyond the classroom.”
After working in New Jersey and Virginia, Mr. McLane began thinking about the next steps in his career. Someone he was connected with pointed him to the position at Lovett, and he quickly felt drawn to it. He was not only familiar with Lovett’s national reputation, but he also learned about the community before beginning the interview process.
He admired the “community’s focus on knowing each kid,” he began. “It really is impactful work.” Lovett’s core values stood out to him: “They’re developing [students’] social, emotional well-being, their academics and intellect, of course, and who they are as people.” He saw Lovett as a place where people were comfortable being themselves and finding what they uniquely excelled at.
Right now, Mr. McLane is focused on getting to know the people and “see how the classroom and the athletics and the arts… help promote the educational program and the mission of the school.” For starters, he met with small groups of faculty for coffee throughout July, during which he learned more about Lovett’s culture from their perspective.
This was all happening at a time when he didn’t have an office because of construction. “I was starting a new job in a new place and didn’t have an office,” he said, not too upset because he was able to work in different spaces, from the lower school library — “that was a good space to work,” to the counseling suite. Of course, he did have to work around power, WiFi, and AC outages.
He finally settled into his new office in the completely renovated admin suite in August.
While he won’t be teaching any classes this year, he has an energetic freshman advisory (“Shout out to the McLane Advisory”) and looks optimistically to the future in the classroom.
When he wasn’t acclimating to Lovett, Mr. McLane spent his short summer getting to know Atlanta. He went to the aquarium (“I don’t think you can be here for more than a week [or] they kick you out if you don’t go to the aquarium”), but was “majorly” disappointed. “I did not see the whale shark. I’m like, ‘How do you hide the whale shark?’” Perhaps he should ask our resident marine biologist and Dean Dr. Reynolds.
As a big soccer fan, he basked in the hype of Atlanta hosting the World Cup. He has also faced some culture shock: “All this ‘y’all’ and ‘yes, sir,’” he marveled. “I’ve had so many people be like, ‘Oh yes, sir.’” To that, he thinks, “Wow, that’s so weird.”
But he appreciates the southern hospitality and admires how “a couple of students just randomly stop me in the hall, and they’re like, ‘Hi. So how do you like being a principal?’” He believes that “It feels genuine… maybe it’s part of the culture,” he said, “but I think people are excited to meet us.”
So a journey that started with a roadside U-Haul breakdown has become a lot more promising. “There will be popped tires,” Mr. McLane said. “We’re gonna change them and get back on the road.”
