Shaun St. Onge, the current principal of Manchester Memorial High School, was selected to become Merrimack Valley High School’s next principal.

St. Onge, who previously served as assistant principal at Merrimack Valley High until 2020, will succeed Sam York starting in July. Earlier this year, York was selected as the next business administrator for the school administrative unit that includes Merrimack Valley and Andover.

 “I’m super proud of Memorial High School. I love the community, love the students,” St. Onge said in an interview. “But personally, when there’s an opportunity to return to a place where you have roots and a place that feels like home, you’ve got to do what’s best for yourself and your family, and I’m excited to be back at Merrimack Valley as the principal.”

St. Onge started his career as a paraprofessional at what is now the Merrimack Valley Learning Center. Prior to returning as assistant principal in 2014, he worked at a residential facility, served as a special education teacher in Manchester, and led the life skills program at Bedford High School. A former football player at St. Anselm College, he has also coached football and baseball throughout his career as an educator.

Superintendent Randy Wormald said that St. Onge’s return to Merrimack Valley will be “like coming home.”

“He had relationships with folks here and he got some great experience down at Memorial,” Wormald said. “All the way through the process, there was just a lot of excitement.”

St. Onge attended Kingswood Regional High School and studied history in college. He initially aspired to become a social studies teacher but took a job as a paraprofessional when he was hired out of college to coach at Merrimack Valley High.

“As a paraprofessional, I fell in love with special education,” he said.

While he said it is premature to lay out specific priorities as principal, St. Onge plans to take a holistic, personalized approach to the 750-student school.

“Public education is evolving to a place where we have to really hone our focus on each individual learner as a whole person and that includes the academic learning, but also their social emotional well-being,” he said.

“And as systems evolve and as culture evolves, it’s important to have that drive our focus and have that mindset that what we’re doing today in education shouldn’t be what we’re doing in five or 10 years in education, and it shouldn’t be what we did 20 years ago,” he added. “Things will continue to evolve, and we have to be innovative and creative on how we personalize learning for each student.”

St. Onge said he will seek input from teachers and students on how the school should continue the change and grow. He hopes the community will come to know him as someone who cares about their perspectives and is there to support children and families.

“I’m really looking forward to being back and working for a district that really sees value in all that it does,” he said.

 

Jeremy Margolis can be contacted at jmargolis@cmonitor.com.