While the transitional period between heads of school at Poly Prep comes to a close, the school will lose one of its longest-standing faculty members, Interim Head of School John Rankin. After 41 years and seven different roles, Rankin is retiring from a long career in education and, for the time being, leaving Poly.
During his time at Poly, Rankin was a member of the English department for nearly 20 years. He served as a teacher throughout the 1980s and early 1990s and then as Department Chair in the late 1990s. “I really was close to a bunch of people in the department. I just had a good experience just being part of Poly in the early days and the actual experience of teaching,” he reflected.
Additionally, Rankin worked as the faculty adviser of The Polygon from 1986 through the late 1990s. “Mr. Rankin was always an incredible mentor,” said Francesca Lisk ’95, former managing editor of The Polygon. “He made working on The Polygon an excellent learning experience, but, mostly, writing with him was just fun,” she continued. “While I felt like Mr. Rankin was a teacher and admired him, he also felt a lot like a friend.”
In the year 2000 Rankin became an Academic Dean, and a few years later, he added Assistant Head of School to his title. In 2020, he co-founded the Philosophy Program and taught the class. One of his students, Ryan Geisler ’25, mentioned that “[he] had a really good way of explaining concepts and relating them to what we were going through in our lives.”Most recently, Rankin was appointed as Interim Head of School in 2023. He has also been named twice as an outstanding New York State teacher.
Rankin started his first year at Poly as an English teacher in the fall of 1984. “I had not really ever planned on being a teacher. I had been trying various things…and then I decided that maybe I would try teaching,” said Rankin. He sent his resume to various job openings, but after coming to Poly for an interview, Rankin decided he wanted to stay. “I ended up liking [teaching] a lot more than I ever thought I would have. [A] bunch of stuff led to another, and I ended up staying forever.”
After Former Head of School Audrius Barzdukas left his position at the end of the 2022-2023 school year, the Board of Trustees appointed Rankin as Interim Head of School. “I’m sure when the board was looking at what would make the most sense in terms of leadership for this year, his name and his experience came to the top,” said Head of Upper School Sarah Bates in an interview with The Polygon in 2023. History Teacher Harold Bernieri also commented on Rankin’s experience at Poly in a recent interview, “he understands how a school system works better than anyone I’ve ever met.”
After being announced as the Interim Head of School, Rankin had to transition into this role very quickly. Nonetheless, he made sure to guide his colleagues in a positive and gracious manner. “I have really enjoyed working for and with Mr. Rankin in his capacity as Head of School for the past two years. It takes enormous bravery and resilience to be able to step into that role at relatively short notice,” wrote Bates in an email to The Polygon.
Rankin has prioritized making Poly a more academically-focused community over the past two years. “I think that one of the things that we got away from…was this more professional culture and a place that felt like a more academic community, where people were more invested just in the teaching than thinking about the teaching,” said Rankin. “I’m not saying we’re 100 percent there right now, but I would say if I [were] trying to do something … I was trying to help us all find our way towards this more professional academic community.”
As an educator in general, Rankin says he has two key val
ues: academic interest and not having a transactional view of school. “I felt a lot for a long time that students were starved for ideas, and what they really wanted were classes and teachers that were interesting to them. And so that was always a ruling idea I had for myself, to make [education] interesting,” said Rankin. “Everybody loses track of this more genuine thing about just learning for the sake of learning. It feels now more so than in the early days…that a lot of times school is really transactional to [students],” he continued. Rankin hopes he has influenced students to have a less transactional relationship with learning by implementing these values into the Poly community. “Mr. Rankin believes deeply in the value of education and what an independent school can do for so many students,” said Bates via email.
Since Rankin was hired as the Interim Head of School while the Board of Trustees searched for a new headmaster, it was known that this role would never be permanent. Now that Dr. Noni Thomas López has been hired as the new Head of School, Rankin will leave this position. Rankin plans to support Thomas López while also retiring. “The Board of Trustees has been talking to me about trying to help Dr. Thomas López out and [being] available for consultation, which I’m happy to do,” mentioned Rankin. “So, I don’t know how much down the road I might become more involved, but I think right now I’m gonna take a break… I’m more or less planning to retire,” he continued.
When he is not helping Thomas López, Rankin hopes to spend much time traveling and reading during his retirement. “[In] these administrative roles, your whole day is just taken up with other matters. I don’t read the way I used to. I’m hoping that in retirement, I get to do more of that,” he said.
Throughout his time at Poly, Rankin has worked alongside many divisions, impacting numerous members of Poly’s community. “I have learned a lot from him: from how to balance competing priorities, to how to make hard decisions, to how to remain a teacher first and foremost, no matter the administrative position,” wrote Bates in an email. “Mr. Rankin has bestowed upon us a lot of institutional memory and a commitment to Poly. I hope he knows that what he has done for us over the past two years as Head [of School] and in his past 40+ years as a faculty and administrative member is deeply appreciated.”
After dedicating 41 years to education, Rankin has mixed feelings about departing from Poly. “So much of who I am, how I think about myself, my very identity, is bound up with my life here. I am not certain that I know quite who I am without it, which is not necessarily a good thing,” he wrote in an email to the Polygon. “Poly is a great place in part because it allows everyone, students and faculty alike, to become who they most authentically are. So even at my advanced age, I look forward to finding myself. As I spend some time lost in the identity desert, I trust that what I am and whatever I may become, Poly will be with me.”
