This school year, New Trier High School added four new assistant principal positions to the administration as part of the new Graduating Class Teams meant to increase the school’s capacity to provide students with academic and social-emotional support. 

The new administrators look forward to seeing the impact the class teams have on New Trier and the growth of students over their four-year high school experience. 

Trish Sheridan, assistant principal for the class of 2024, was the junior adviser chair for the past nine years. In that role, she supported students over the course of a year, but once they became seniors, she could not see them grow further. Her new role helps her and other administrators see that progression of growth, which was previously not possible. 

“I’m really excited about this role and being able to watch a student grow and develop over those three years from sophomore to senior year, and eventually from freshman year until graduation,” Sheridan said.

That aspect of the class teams is what Sarah Struebing, assistant principal for the class of 2025, admired back when she was a music teacher.  

“My favorite thing about being a music teacher was watching kids grow, being with them through their challenges, being with them through their celebrations, and really getting to know their families and supporting them through that,” Struebing said. 

The class teams seek to provide students with increased support but also want to provide them the opportunity to have input into the school decision-making process. 

“Administration can be student-centered,” Sheridan said. “We can have more interface with students.” 

The administration is now developing ways to involve student leaders from each graduating class in planning service projects. In addition, administrators want to hear what issues are important to students. 

Scott Williams, assistant principal for the class of 2024, is excited to interact with students in a new way compared to his previous role as assistant principal for student services. In that role, he was responsible for supervising the adviser program and was the homeless liaison, residency officer, and chief disciplinarian for the school. 

“In my previous role, me knowing a student was because, typically, there was something going on for them, either they made a choice and needed an opportunity for growth, so they had some discipline thing going on, or they had some unique family crisis going on,” Williams said.

The administrators want to cultivate a learning environment where students feel welcomed and have the chance to grow. 

“I work in schools because I believe that schools should be the center of the community, and that means everyone needs to have a home here,” Struebing said.

The concept of school being a home for students stuck out to the assistant principal for the class of 2027, Dan Paustian, who was the social work coordinator at the Northfield campus for the past ten years.

“I have always felt that there is so much opportunity to engage with students in a place that they spend a lot if not most of their time in class, in school, and some people have sports,” Paustian said. “There is a lot of time devoted. I think really meeting someone in their environment, in this case students, is awesome.”  

Paustian, a 2002 New Trier graduate in his seventeenth year working in schools, wants to help current and future generations of Trevians discover their own version of success.

“I really have a sense of responsibility and commitment to hopefully contributing to New Trier in a way that is beneficial for current students and families to understand themselves a little bit better, to develop and cultivate their interests,” Paustian said. “And to go on their journey, once they leave this place, to accomplish what is meaningful to them.”