Challenges and changes were hallmarks of the 25 years that Jeff Mancabelli served in leadership roles at St. John’s College High School in Washington, D.C., as the school’s first lay president from 2010 t0 2024 and earlier as its first lay principal from 2001 to 2010, years that coincided with a great expansion in academic programming and buildings and facilities at the school founded in 1851 by the De La Salle Christian Brothers.
And on July 1, he will take on a new challenge at another historic institution in a different capital city, as the new head of school at the Collegiate School in Richmond, Virginia, a junior-kindergarten through 12th grade coeducational independent day school founded in 1915.
Also on July 1, Kevin M. Haley – who recently served as the chief strategy officer for Under Armour – will begin serving as the new president of St. John’s College High School.
“I enjoy the challenge and the change, I enjoy that as part of my personality,” Mancabelli said in a June 10 interview, one day before his last day serving as St. John’s president.
One year earlier, Mancabelli had announced that he would be leaving St. John’s to take on a new challenge.
“I’ve had an entire year to process, which has been beautiful, because you know that everything you’re attending, everything you’re doing throughout the course of the year is the last time you’re doing it. I think it has given me a distinct advantage of complete appreciation of people, of traditions, of events, and has allowed me that time to really enjoy it,” he said. “…It has allowed me to appreciate and enjoy the journey and process it.”
Those highlights included attending student concerts and being invited to play a part in the school’s spring play, “Beauty and the Beast.” “I was the bookseller in the play, which was fun,” he said.
Mancabelli also had the emotional experience of handing a diploma to his youngest daughter, Leah, who graduated from St. John’s as a member of the school’s class of 2024 on June 7. He and his wife Tracie earlier had witnessed their son Nick graduate from St. John’s in 2017 and their daughter Alexa graduate from there in 2019. Leah will be attending the School of Nursing at Georgetown University and participate in the rowing team there. Nick now lives in Arlington and works for a consulting firm, and Alexa works for a D.C. law firm and plans to attend law school.
“Now with Leah graduating, it was exciting for me to know that the three of them will always have St. John’s as a focal point of their lives moving forward,” Mancabelli said, noting the enduring bonds that the school’s classmates and graduates continue to have as alumni. He pointed out how at each year’s graduation ceremony, members of St. John’s 50th anniversary class join the procession.
Reflecting on his own educational journey, Mancabelli, a native of Pennsylvania, noted he originally moved to Washington to get an MBA, after earning a degree in business management from the University of Scranton in his home city.
“I (initially) had no interest in being in education,” he explained. But he was drawn to Catholic education while working as a prefect with freshman students boarding at Georgetown Preparatory School in North Bethesda. He found fulfillment in that work and in the opportunity to be with and guide students.
Mancabelli, who went on to earn a master’s degree in educational leadership from George Washington University, worked at Georgetown Prep for eight years. He began working at St. John’s College High School in 1999, first serving for two years as the school’s assistant principal for academic affairs. He began working closely with Christian Brother Thomas Gerrow, who was then the school’s president. That began Mancabelli’s 25 years in leadership at St. John’s.
“Having the opportunity to grow professionally is rare in one place,” Mancabelli said. “… I became the first lay principal in 2001, and had nine years working in an environment that was constantly changing and growing, but I also had a phenomenal mentor in Brother Tom Gerrow… I had a business undergrad, (and) I had a deep respect and understanding for Brother Tom, because Brother Tom had a brilliant head for vision, for finance, and so he and I together for 11 years were able to work and share and grow as a team. And that’s probably one of the reasons I enjoyed the work so much. I got to do so much more because of his mentorship and the sharing of the work.”
From 1994-2010, Brother Thomas Gerrow served as St. John’s president, and under his leadership, the school completed two capital campaigns totaling $25 million, increased the endowment by $25 million and increased enrollment to 1,050 students.
While Mancabelli was serving as St. John’s principal, the school introduced its Kairos retreat program, and he led a review of curriculum to produce maps for interdisciplinary instruction.
In 2010, Mancabelli became St. John’s first lay president, succeeding his mentor. During his years in that role, the school made $20 million in physical plant renovations, and the school added $40 million in new construction, including Fernandez Stadium, the Mona Baseball Clubhouse, the Donatelli Center for Visual and Performing Arts, the Center for Performance and Leadership, the Mona Family Center and the Entrepreneurial Center for Innovation and Social Impact.
And in 2013, St. John’s became the first area private school to institute a 1:1 iPad program for students. Also during those years, enrollment tripled in the school’s Cadet Corps leadership program, and a new classroom wing opened. During the 2023-24 school year, St. John’s had an enrollment of 1,270 students, who came to the school from all parts of Washington, D.C., and the nearby Maryland suburbs, and from as far away as Woodbridge and Great Falls in Virginia and Southern Maryland and from north of Baltimore.
An article in St. John’s Scarlet & Grey magazine summarizing the school’s growth during those years noted “the generosity of St. John’s donors, the vision of the De La Salle Christian Brothers and the servant leadership of Jeffrey Mancabelli.”
When asked what accomplishments he was most proud of during his years in leadership roles at St. John’s, Mancabelli noted, “We’ve invested in the faculty and the growth of providing for them. We’ve raised or elevated the student experience, both physically, with the physical plant, but also programmatically, but the essence and core of being St. John’s College High School, a Catholic school in the Lasallian tradition, we’ve never wavered. We never sacrificed it.”
In a statement, Brother Robert Schaefer, the provincial of the De La Salle Christian Brothers, praised Mancabelli’s leadership at St. John’s, saying, “Over the years, Jeff has integrated the Lasallian charism into his way of living and his way of leading. St. John Baptist de La Salle reminded his Brothers that it was the spirit of faith in the presence of God and zeal for the education of young people that would sustain our mission. Jeff has come to embody the spirit of our Institute and as a result, St. John’s is a place where young men and young women have come and have grown in the image and likeness of God. We Brothers are very grateful for his faithful leadership and fidelity to the spirit of the Christian Brothers and the Lasallian mission.”
Mancabelli – who graduated from the Lasallian Leadership Institute – noted how his formation in the Lasallian tradition established by St. John Baptist de La Salle, the patron saint of Catholic teachers, shaped his approach to education.
“The entire forming of my educational philosophy over the last 25 years has been a student-centered mission, where the relationship between the teacher and the student is paramount, calling students by name, recognizing and bringing to light their individual gifts, whatever they may be, and always making sure you highlight those,” he said, noting how the Christian Brothers see students as being “entrusted to our care,” which involves a holistic approach to education, caring for their moral, spiritual, academic, social and emotional development.
The team of faculty and staff at St. John’s “get the mission,” Mancabelli said, adding that its students learn “they have a responsibility that’s bigger than themselves, and they need to care for the person next to them and do for others, that’s one of the things that St. John’s instills. They get it, it’s not about them, it’s about what they can contribute, using the gifts that they have to support others in their lives.”
In 2024, St. John’s Board of Trustees established the Jeff and Tracie Mancabelli Endowment Fund to recognize his leadership and the support of his wife. The endowment fund, which had raised $500,000 as of this spring, will support Lasallian faith formation for faculty and programs for St. John’s students.
“My ability to be successful is in direct relationship to what her support has been,” Jeff Mancabelli said, praising his wife.
Mancabelli noted that St. John’s next president, Kevin Haley, comes with a great understanding of the school, since his two oldest sons graduated from St. John’s, and his younger children will be attending there. He said Haley also “brings a depth of leadership experience that will help St. John’s into its next entree into the future.” The letter to the St. John’s community announcing Haley’s appointment noted his family connections to St. John’s, his deep Catholic roots in this area, and his leadership in varied professional environments over the years, including in government, private and public companies, philanthropic and for-profit board work and as the chief strategy officer for Under Armour.
Asked how it felt to be part of something new after being in a leadership role at St. John’s College High School for the past 25 years, Mancabelli said he was looking forward to becoming the head of school at the Collegiate School in Richmond. That school was founded in 1915 to help young women prepare for college at a time when those opportunities were lacking. Over the years, the school became coeducational. The Collegiate School now serves 1,700 students.
He noted that he had changed leadership roles at St. John’s three times during his years there.
“I look at change as a very positive thing,” Mancabelli said. “…Professionally, it is a different environment for me, as a junior kindergarten through 12th grade (school), so it’s going to push me in new directions, which is exciting. I’m going to have new professional challenges… So I will definitely not be bored, and I’m thoroughly excited.”
After 25 years at St. John’s and eight years before that at Georgetown Prep, the educator was preparing for a new chapter in his life. As the interview ended, Mancabelli noted how Catholic high schools in the Archdiocese of Washington are sometimes seen as rivals, but “at the end of the day, we’re all part of the same family. We all want the same thing. We want to provide a Catholic education, to instill a moral compass in our children.”
