School Counseling Director Charles Langille has been promoted to Mascenic’s assistant principal position.
Langille, a 1992 alum of Mascenic, returned to the district as it’s counseling head last year, after serving sing 2007 as a counsellor in the Jaffrey-Rindge School District.
“I love being home,” said Langille in an interview with the Ledger-Transcript on Tuesday.
Langille will be serving as the assistant principal to newly hired Mascenic Principal John Barth, another Jaffrey-Rindge transplant, who served as principal at Conant High School until 2014.
“Working with students and families over the years, in regards to issues such as bullying, harassment and tardiness, I worked closely with the main office administrators and found the role more and more intriguing,” said Langille. “Those times that the administration was away from the building, I filled that role, and I saw my hat changing.”
Langille will be replacing assistant principal Matt Underwood, who resigned effective at the end of this past school year after only being in the position for one year.
Though Langille does not have experience as an assistant principal, he said he sees the change as a unique opportunity to put the skills he has as a counsellor to good use in another arena.
“I bring that key element of understanding the psychology of adolescent behavior, and I feel like I can make that an asset,” said Langille. “I think in general I have an advantage because of that skill set.”
Though he has only been an employee in the district for a single year, Langille said growing up in the area and having attended Mascenic as a student does give him a leg up in understanding the culture of the students and the school.
Langille said he has just started to set his goals for himself in his new position, but said that chiefly he wanted to make sure that all students “feel safe and comfortable” coming to school.
“And that if they don’t, that they know that they can come to me to solve whatever that issue is,” said Langille.
It is also the job of the assistant principal to assist the principal in executing his vision of school culture, said Langille.
“It’s really a team effort,” said Langille. “The principal is the general or the commander in chief, and it’s his job to lay out that vision, and my job to support those goals and that vision for the school in whatever capacity that I can.”
Langille said his role as a supervisor of the school counselors at both Mascenic and Jaffrey-Rindge did provide leadership experience in terms of laying out a vision and goals for the department. Langille has also served on several committees for the Department of Education, including committees on staff evaluation and STEM and STEAM initiatives.
Langille has taken over the assistant principal position, and is currently also covering his former duties as counselling director until an appointment to that position is made.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.