EAGLE School

This article — featuring new Assistant Director Jamie MacDougall — was originally published October 5, 2026, The Regal EAGLE, EAGLE’s digital newspaper for students and staff. The interview was conducted by ClaraV. (8th grade).

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Jamie is our new assistant director at EAGLE School, working in the position that May Mijares used to fill. This is an interview about Jamie’s career, interests, and goals for working at our school. 

How did you get to be an assistant director at our school? Have you had a similar position at other schools?

What job did you want to have as a kid? Did you always know you wanted to work in a school?

Honestly, I know it’s a little bit nerdy, but I have known that I’ve always wanted to work in a school. I would, with my friends, set up these ‘schools’ in our neighborhood. I thought it was going to go one of two ways: either school or camp director. What I love about EAGLE is it kind of feels like a little bit of a mash up of those things. I love that there’s an ultimate frisbee club, I love that there’s a letterboxing club, and it feels like we have all these choices of these more camp-y things, and everybody’s outside a lot. It kind of has the fun and spirit of camp. Also, the thing I didn’t like about camp: you have new kids every week; and with school you can have this continuity of community, and that’s what I love. 

Do you have other jobs right now, or are you here full-time?

I’m here full time. Sometimes in the summers I work at a gifted camp called Yunasa. We go out to Colorado for ten days, and a bunch of people from across the United States who are fourth through twelfth grade come out to that camp. And we do all sorts of cool things, like meditation, yoga, rock climbing, hiking, and nature art. And then we do ten days in Michigan with another group of students. Some kids come to both, but some just go to one or the other, because it’s ten days. It’s super fun. So that’s kind of my only other gig right now, other than that secretly—I tell Ellen all the time—when I’m at home I like to pretend I’m a librarian, so I have a lot of books and I catalog them. My only other job this year is to be a cross-country super-fan!

What do you like most about your current job as an assistant director?

I love that I get to do so many different things, every day something different happens. Even though you kind of have a plan for the day, things can change, like maybe you need to sub in a classroom, or maybe, you know, I got invited to go into fifth grade LA/SS/D and do a breakout room, that was super fun. I’ve been able to go into Nest and participate in color day, so I really like that. 

What hobbies do you have? I know you ran a quidditch club, could you tell us about that?

I’m a big Harry Potter fan, and I do take some issue with J. K. Rowling as a person in these moments, but I love that she’s created this world of magic and friendship and inclusivity. And yes, we had a quidditch club. There is collegiate quidditch — UW has a quidditch team, Harvard has a quidditch team, I don’t know if Edgewood has a quidditch team — but I think across the United States, and internationally, there are hundreds of quidditch teams. 

So I thought it was fun to kind of bring it here. We played with third and fourth graders. It’s kind of like ultimate frisbee on a broom, and with a quaffle. Meanwhile, dodgeball is happening because you’ve got people throwing balls as bludgers in the middle, and then you unleash a golden snitch: somebody runs around with flags on their belt, and someone has to catch the golden snitch and that’s when the game ends. You’ve got three games going on, so it’s like the perfect EAGLE School game because you’ve got to be creative, you’ve got to be strategic, and you’ve got to have a little bit of ability to persist.

So I love that, I love hanging out at the Fitchburg Library. I think that the librarians there know a ton, which is really great. I also love hiking and kayaking, so it’s been cool to get out on the new trails in Madison.

Do you have any goals for working at EAGLE School, and if so, what are they?

I’d love to be here for a very long time, but because it’s my first year, the way that I kind of navigate things is just to kind of come in and observe and see what the community is like. And so far, as a strategic goal for the community right now, I don’t know that I have anything super concrete three months in, other than that I think we’ve got a really neat group of people, so I’m just continuing to find ways to make connections between students. And maybe students between grade levels, because sometimes, you know, if you’ve got a grade level of thirty people, your best friend may not be one of those other 29 people. So how do we find ways to interact between grade levels, and maybe even between the olders and the youngers? How do we build on those peer mentorships? I know the Nesters are always excited when they get to meet their buddy. 

And then continuing to build parent community, too. To talk a little bit more about gifted education in parenting. So yeah, having more parent education programs. And then Betsy and I are working on helping to smooth out that transition to high school as well, and thinking through how we start to help people make connections. This year we’ve said the theme is a little bit of connecting the dots. This year I get to see all of the dots, and then talking with students and teachers and parents to figure out how we can more efficiently connect some dots, but also sometimes connecting dots to make a more beautiful picture might not be efficient, but it’s totally worth it if it’s going to be a more beautiful situation.

Is there anything else you wanted to say?

Thank you, Jamie, for this interview, and we are all grateful and excited to have you on our EAGLE staff!