Head of School

Kate Murphy, Head of St. Columba's Nursery School

Kate Murphy has extensive experience in the field of early childhood education. After graduating from the George Washington University with a B.A. in Political Science and Psychology, she began her career as the Site Manager of Jumpstart at Georgetown University, an AmeriCorps program which promotes preschoolers’ language, literacy, and social skill development.

Kate then taught Pre-Kindergarten at a DC charter school for five years before becoming an Instructional Specialist with District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS). In this role, she was responsible for the coaching and professional development of early childhood educators to ensure all children received high-quality services. She was then promoted to become the Manager of the ECE Learning Lab, a professional learning program within DCPS that provided visiting educators the opportunity to observe developmentally appropriate, rigorous and joyful instruction and then set goals for implementation in their own classrooms.

Kate came to St. Columba's from The Community Preschool of the Palisades, where she served as their Executive Director. In this role, she was responsible for managing all preschool operations and a team of educators in their implementation of play-based programming. Kate also holds a M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction with a Concentration in Early Childhood Education for Diverse Learners from George Mason University.