Due to medical reasons, BSM’s senior high principal, Stephanie Nitchals, will be concluding her term at the end of the 2023-2024 academic year. On Friday, President Danielle Hermanny announced that Matt Weingartz, current Assistant Principal, will be undertaking her position in an interim role for the upcoming school year in order to provide more time for the search. Taking Weingartz’s spot as interim assistant principal is Matt McMerty-Brummer, Spanish teacher at Benilde-St. Margaret’s.
Weingartz has been pursuing his Doctorate in Education and plans to defend his dissertation on student absenteeism in December. Additionally, he has a degree in Educational Specialist. Nonetheless, the interim position of Principal is a significant change. “The role and job responsibilities are different from an Assistant Principal. An Assistant Principal is responsible for student discipline, so that responsibility will be a change from my past 6 years at BSM. There are more administrative responsibilities with running the day-to-day operations, and supervising different departments,” Weingartz said in an email interview.
Before working at BSM, Weingartz served as a PK-8th Principal in a Catholic school, and will now work to hold onto the same beliefs he had used then. “Being at BSM for the past 6 years, I am a familiar presence, and I feel it will be a positive thing in this time of change to have a familiar presence in the Senior High Principal role. Change can be difficult at times but knowing that I will bring my same energy and attitude to my new role will help in this transition,” Weingartz said.
As the new assistant principal, McMerty-Brummer looks forward to being able to work with more students outside of the ones he currently teaches, and is working with current administration in order to support the school in as many ways as possible. “I have been interning with Mrs. Nitchals for the last year and have learned so much from her mentoring. I know that I still have a lot to learn and I will rely on the entire administrative team next year to help me learn the new role,” McMerty-Brummer said.
Although McMerty-Brummer is prepared to step up for this role, he plans on going back to teaching next year. “I love working with students in the classroom and the current plan is for me to return to the classroom after next year,” McMerty-Brummer said.