Richard “Skip” McCann passed away Monday, March 14, 2022, from Alzheimer’s disease. He was 84.

Skip was born on November 7, 1937, to Virginia Millicent (née Peterson) and Richard Twinem McCann. He and his sister were raised on Long Island, New York, before the family moved to Chappaqua when he was in grade school.

Skip was sent to Hotchkiss School, a Connecticut boarding school, which may have inspired his lifelong commitment to public education. His greatest adolescent rebellion, never forgotten by his mother, was turning down Yale to attend Amherst College in Massachusetts. He went on to Harvard University for an MA in Education.

From his childhood through young adulthood, Skip spent summers at Camp Pok-O-Moonshine (now Pok-O-MacCready) in upstate New York, progressing from camper to counselor. He would later tell stories of leading even his youngest charges in windswept canoes on Lake Champlain and hikes in the Adirondack high peaks. As a young adult, he bought lakeside property with two other counselors, where they built a cabin that became the annual August retreat for his family.

Upon graduating in 1960, Skip taught English and social studies at Meadowbrook (now Charles E Brown) Middle School in Newton, MA. In 1965, he was called to Washington D.C. to serve in the US Office of Education (OE) during the Johnson Administration. Under his leadership the group received the Superior Service Award from then Commissioner of Education Harold Howe.

Working at OE, he met Gretchen Trenholm and they married in 1968. The following year they left D.C. for four years in Los Angeles where their daughter Carey Elizabeth was born and Skip did graduate work at UCLA. In 1974, their nascent family moved to Drexel Hill, a suburb of Philadelphia, PA. Their son, Andrew Putnam, was born in 1975. Skip joined Research for Better Schools (RBS), where he worked variously with teachers, schools, districts, and state departments of education for more than three decades.

Skip was an engaged and committed father, leaving for work at dawn so he could be home in time to play with his children before dinner. He was in charge of Sunday breakfast and the grill in nice weather, and took control of the dishwasher at all times. He blasted music— Beethoven, Sibelius, and in his older age, Mahler—on the downstairs stereo. His professional and personal enthusiasms had lasting influence on his children, with his daughter an expert in early childhood public policy, and his son a professional musician.

With an empty nest, Skip and Gretchen frequented local theater, in particular the Arden and Wilma in Philadelphia, and were regulars at the Philadelphia Orchestra and the contemporary concert series, Fresh Ink. They traveled—a boat cruise in Russia, a walking tour of Japan, trips to the Galapagos, Costa Rica, Turkey, Italy, and France. He celebrated the birth of his daughter’s son, Griffin Myles, in 2010 and his son’s daughter, Adara Ruth, in 2018.

After his retirement from RBS in 2007, Skip continued working as a consultant for the PA Coaching Project, leading workshops for teachers on serving as coaches to other teachers. He worked until 80, when he and Gretchen downsized from their fieldstone colonial in Drexel Hill to an historic two-flat apartment in Andersonville, Chicago, IL, around the corner from his son Andrew and his family, in 2017.

Skip’s last years were affected by dementia. He found support in Chicago, joining others with memory loss and their caregivers in the Good Memories choir. Like many with dementia, the loss of such support at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic coincided with a steep decline in his condition. He made a last trip to his cabin in the Adirondacks in August 2020. In June 2021, he and Gretchen moved to Oregon to be near their daughter and Skip joined residential memory care.

Skip believed that it is the mission of schools to harness the natural curiosity of all children so that they become lifelong learners. He worked tirelessly in support of this fundamentally civic ideal. His own passion for education never dimmed. He is survived by his wife Gretchen, his sister Ginger and her husband David Giammatti, his children Carey and Andrew, their spouses David Forero and Kyra Saltman, and grandchildren Griffin and Adara.

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