Last year, Stephanie Nitchals announced her resignation as the BSM principal due to health reasons. In order to provide more time and care for the search, Matt Weingartz took up the role of interim principal for the 2024-2025 school year. The search for a new, permanent principal has now commenced.

The role of principal consists of creating and reforming curriculums, overseeing staff members and subject departments, and overall, running day-to-day operations. It is a very large responsibility that is very crucial to the overall success and well-being of the BSM community. “The role of the high school principal is to be an academic leader for the high school, to help set an academic vision, to help have a sense of what that experience is for students,” BSM President Danielle Hermanny said.

BSM posted the position in January and has since been conducting background research on each of the candidates. Some brief virtual interviews were also held to help narrow down applicants, and from there, three candidates were selected to attend in-person and more in-depth interviews at the school. These interviews occurred in early-mid March.

Because the principal interacts and connects with all members of the BSM community, there were several committees created to interview candidates and provide feedback. Committees included board members, administrators, faculty and staff, department chairs, parents, and students. “I think the administration and the school has done a really good job of making sure that there have been all kinds of audiences to talk to each of these candidates. Each group was asking different sets of questions, so there was a lot of ground covered,” BSM Science Department Chair Lisa Bargas said.

Because being principal is such an important role, interviews were very comprehensive, with the hope that committee members got a feel for each candidate’s personality, motives, and vision for the school. “I’m really looking for an academic leader who can inspire faculty and students, who seeks to build relationships across families and caregivers and students and faculty, and who has that awareness of the significance of Catholic education,” Hermanny said.

All committee members are taking the search very seriously. “I think the students deserve to have the strongest leader possible. And in order to find that, I think it’s important to see who’s out there and what candidates might meet the needs of the students,” Hermanny said.