MERRIMACK – The Merrimack School District will start its 2019-20 academic term under new leadership, as former assistant superintendent Mark McLaughlin was recently promoted to the role of superintendent.

McLaughlin, who served as assistant superintendent for the last 10 years, is taking over for Marge Chiafrey, who served as superintendent for 18 years.

Prior to his role in Merrimack, McLaughlin was a curriculum coordinator in the Billerica School District, for eight years and also served as a teacher.

Now as superintendent, McLaughlin said he is looking forward to matching tasks with skill sets. He will be working closely with John Fabrizio, the district’s former director of student services, who will now be the new assistant superintendent.

“As I get to known (Fabrizio) in this role, it will be more and more obvious to me how to delegate responsibly,” McLaughlin said.

While McLaughlin will be taking on new roles, there are some elements he will continue to implement into his work days.

“I am a curriculum guy through and through. I can’t imagine completely abandoning that,” McLaughlin said.

New tasks for McLaughlin will include developing a budget that supports the needs of Merrimack’s learners, while keeping taxpayers in mind. He will also work with his new team of administrators to optimize their strengths.

“I’m really looking forward to creating the conditions for success for students and teachers,” McLaughlin said.

“My real interest in education is in the power it has to help young people achieve their goals. When I was a teacher, the thing that excited me the most was those opportunities to help a student problem solve through a challenging academic issue.”

As superintendent, McLaughlin said he can’t think of a better task than helping 4,000 young people and providing them the tools they need to succeed.

McLaughlin falls into Merrimack’s long-standing trend of retaining administrators. Chiafrey served in the role as superintendent for 18 years, but stayed with the district for 40-plus years. Thorntons Ferry Elementary School has seen only three principals in 50 years.

McLaughlin attributes these success stories to the district’s weekly leadership meetings, where all administrators across the district gather to work through problems as a team.

“People like to feel like they’re doing their job effectively,” McLaughlin said. “I think part of the reason people stay is they feel effective, but effective isn’t that things always work great. It’s knowing they are part of a problem solving team.”

“This is tough work. If people sit in isolation and try to problem solve alone, sure, you can do a lot, but when you have a problem and you think of the brain power that colleagues can bring, why remake the cake when people already made it, borrow the recipe.”

Though McLaughlin is excited for his new role, he can’t help but remember his predecessor, Chiafrey, who set the standards high for Merrimack’s administrators.

“My time with Marge was the best professional time of my life. She is a remarkable person and a remarkable leader,” McLaughlin said of Chiafrey. “I’ve never met a person who cares about teachers and kids more than Marge.”

McLaughlin had only positive things to say about the assistant superintendent and superintendent working relationship he had with Chiafrey.

“Our relationship was built on trust, mutual support and being candid,” McLaughlin said. “Whatever I’m really good at, I think came from Marge helping me be good at it.”

He said he feels very confident that this is the type of relationship he will have with his new team of administrators.

“Merrimack is a great community that has a long history of supporting its learners because we’re all in this together, and when you have strong, healthy, happy learning kids, you have a strong, healthy, happy community,” McLaughlin said.

Grace Pecci may be reached at 594-1243 or gpecci@nashuatelegraph.com.