New Principals Named for McCulloch and Highland Park Middle School

Highland Park ISD has named new principals for both McCulloch Intermediate School and Highland Park Middle School, the district confirmed this month.

The back-to-back leadership changes at two of the Park Cities’ most closely watched campuses will shape the academic experience for thousands of students who feed into Highland Park High School, one of the most competitive public schools in Texas. Parents from Preston Hollow to University Park have watched HPISD administrative moves closely since the district’s academic rankings and property values have long tracked in lockstep.

The district did not release additional details about the outgoing principals or the timeline for transition in the announcement. What the moves do signal is that HPISD is making simultaneous mid-level administrative changes ahead of the 2026-27 school year, which opens in August.

McCulloch Intermediate and Highland Park Middle School serve students in the critical grades between elementary and the high school, where course placement decisions carry real consequences for a student’s academic trajectory. That’s a lot of institutional weight for two incoming administrators to inherit at once.

Parents in University Park and Highland Park have, for years, tied their zip code choices directly to HPISD performance. The district consistently ranks among the top in Texas on state accountability measures, and home prices along Beverly Drive and Armstrong Parkway reflect that reputation. Administrative continuity matters here in ways it might not in a larger, more diffuse district.

People Newspapers first reported the principal selections, though the district had not released the named appointees’ full professional backgrounds as of publication.

The HPISD school board has not publicly commented on what prompted both changes at the same time. Dual principal transitions at the intermediate and middle school level are uncommon, and the timing, less than four months before school resumes, compresses the window for the incoming leaders to meet faculty, review staffing, and set instructional priorities before classrooms fill.

The district serves roughly 7,000 students across Highland Park and University Park. Both McCulloch and HPMS draw from the same tight geographic footprint, meaning many families will have children in both buildings simultaneously. Word travels fast in a district that size.

Superintendent experience at HPISD tends to produce administrators who move into regional and state leadership roles, which can make principal turnover a byproduct of the district’s own success. Whether that’s what happened here, the district hasn’t said.

What incoming principals will find at both campuses is a parent community that is engaged, well-resourced, and not shy about communicating expectations directly to campus leadership. The Highland Park Middle School booster structure alone rivals what many Texas high schools can sustain. That’s not a warning, it’s a context that shapes what effective leadership looks like at these particular addresses.

The HPISD board of trustees meets regularly at the district’s administrative offices, and the next scheduled meeting would be the logical venue for formal introductions or community Q&A sessions with the new principals. The district has not announced any such event as of this writing.

For families currently enrolled at McCulloch or HPMS, the transition doesn’t change the academic calendar or extracurricular schedules already posted for the fall. What it does change is who will be making day-to-day decisions about culture, discipline, and instruction when those schedules actually run.

HPISD’s ability to attract strong administrative candidates comes partly from compensation that is competitive by Texas standards and partly from the schools’ national academic profile. The district placed multiple students in Ivy League admissions cycles in the past two years, and its AP pass rates consistently exceed state and national averages. Incoming principals at both McCulloch and HPMS will carry that institutional expectation from the first day they walk through the door.

The district is expected to release more formal biographical information about both appointees before the end of the spring semester.