By EVA HANEGRAAFF
NORTH READING — With the retirement of beloved North Reading High School Principal Anthony Loprete after a highly successful 15 years in this position, there are big shoes to fill for the individual hired to take his place.
Because of the obvious importance of this position, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Patrick C. Daly took an incredibly careful and calculated approach to filling this position, incorporating as many different perspectives and points of view as possible. Through his process, he has selected Dr. Miriam Meyer, an individual who Daly has confidence in to be a positive addition to the school and town community.
The first step in Daly’s process, before the job posting was even created, was to let the community in on the plans that were being undertaken. He did this by creating and distributing a timeline that incorporated opportunities for community involvement in many different stages of the hiring process. He started by utilizing focus groups, in which a variety of community members meet together with him and Cynthia Conant, the director of student services, to discuss the attributes and qualifications they sought in a new principal. The focus groups included members of the faculty, staff, students, other administrators, and parents. Daly and Conant took this feedback to create essay questions that future candidates would be asked to answer as part of the application.
Once the job posting was created, applications were then reviewed and an interview committee was formed. Nine of the applicants moved on to the interview phase, and from there, four moved on to become the candidate finalists. These four finalists moved on to the final phase of the decision process in which they met with students, parents, administrators, and staff. Conant and Daly sat in on this phase in order to observe the questions, answers, and interactions between the candidates and the group they were addressing. “It is ultimately the superintendent’s decision to hire a new principal,” Daly explained.
For Daly, he says he was looking for an up-and-comer. “There were a lot of people with multiple years of principal experience that submitted (applications) but we felt that we were ready for that new person to take on,” he explained. Daly was looking for someone who could “grow with us” as well as a person who who was able to “identify what some of the needs are in a school that’s really, really good, that still needs to move forward.”
Throughout the entire hiring process, it is obvious that the incorporation of different perspectives was a major consideration for Daly. To explain his reasoning behind this consideration, Daly said, “It’s a big part of what I believe as a leader and what’s in our district strategy is to incorporate student and community voice into every decision we make.” He continues to explain the importance of all perspectives within this specific decision as he says, “being a principal, you’re not just working with one group.” The students in particular, Daly said, had a major perspective that he wanted to consider in his decision. “Seeing how the students interacted with the candidates and how the candidates responded to the student questions was unbelievable,” he recalled.
In addition to sitting in on the panels himself, Daly offered a secondary way in which he received feedback from the panel members which was through an online form. This form allowed the members of the panel to offer a reflection or their opinion on individual candidates. “It’s so interesting what you receive through that system versus what is even said through deliberation,” he said. To conclude his process, Daly sums up his role by saying, “taking all of that information in to try to make the best decision from everything you heard and all the different perspectives was really important to us.”
On the process, Conant added on that “this process that Dr. Daly developed was so thorough that it allowed us to see all the candidates in all these different environments and interacting with all stakeholders.” Daly continued this same idea by saying, “we don’t have a lot of turnover in our administrators.” He goes on to add, “we want to make sure that we took it very seriously and were very thorough.”
In the end, Dr. Miriam Meyer was selected to take the position of principal next year. On her qualities, Daly explains, “I am very excited with everything Dr. Meyer brings to the table. She has a great background working with students at the high school level for many years as an assistant principal.” He explained more in depth, saying that, “when I think about the challenges for the next five years, I think her background in clinical psychology, special education, and building-based experience; those three things together are going to do a great job working with the team.”
Meyer: Grateful for this opportunity
Meyer herself is excited to take on the new role. Originally from North Andover, she is incredibly grateful for the opportunity to be closer to her family. While Meyer is incredibly qualified, her educational background is not in education.
“I was a psychologist by training first, and then I went into special education for a number of years and then from that I became an assistant principal down in Ayer Shirley,” she said.
She has a PhD in psychology, which she attributes to her perspective on learning. She explains, “In recent years, there has been a big push for social emotional learning and I already had that as my background and so, for me, when I worked with students individually and in groups and then with teachers in classrooms, the social emotional piece was always a large component of what I worked on.”
Her philosophy towards education is also characterized by her saying, “I think it’s critical for students to feel comfortable and safe and happy in the surroundings where they are.”
This background does not always lead to an administrative position at a high school, but for Meyer it did the reason she enjoyed being in schools “was because I could do things on a larger scale than when I was working individually in private practice for a couple of years.” However, for Meyer, a draw to education was more than that. “My dad was a professor,”she explains, adding, “my mom was a German teacher so I grew up in a family where education was really prized. It was valued.”
When she takes on the principal position, Meyer plans to take time to learn how the school operates currently without trying to instill any changes. She hopes to learn from Mr. Loprete and other administrators first, as she gets comfortable in this position. Meyer explains, “I think everyone knows that this will be my first time being a principal, so allowing me some grace, and there’s a lot of learning that I still need to do as well.”
She expresses that she wants to take time to learn from the students within her first period of time at NRHS. “I think the young generation has incredible ideas about changes that can be made based on how society is changing so I would love to hear what your ideas are here in the building, student body wise,” she said.
In bringing in student ideas, Meyer has a few avenues in which she hopes to experiment, in an effort to do so. “In the many different positions I’ve had, I’ve always had an open door policy,” she said, adding, “I think it’s important to be visible and I love being a part of every aspect of the school community, attending different shows and student activities and athletics.”
Upon coming to North Reading, Meyer was met with a community she is excited to be a part of. Of her first impressions she shares, “it really makes you feel like you’re at home as soon as you walk into the building which I think is amazing.”
Meyer knows she is ready to take on this role and is incredibly confident in her abilities to do so. At Ayer Shirley, she is the Assistant Principal, however she takes on some of the responsibilities of the principal as well. “While I’m still growing in the position, I come in with a lot of knowledge because I’ve worked with my current principal in that regard,” she said.
The step up was also influenced heavily by Meyer’s daughter. Meyer recounts, “She kind of looked at me and said, ‘Mama, I think it’s time for you to do what you’ve always wanted to do.’”
In taking this pivotal step in her career, Meyer is excited to do just that and formulate her place within the North Reading community.