BY JENNIFER MCDOWELL

After an 8-5  Manchester School Board vote on Monday, Aug. 13, Mary Ellen McGorry, the assistant principal at West High School, was promoted to the position of the school’s interim principal for the 2007-08 school year.

McGorry replaces former principal Janice Thompson, who retired from the Manchester school district last month and has taken a job as principal in Florida, according to School Board Vice Chairman Leslee Stewart.

About half of Hooksett’s high schoolers attend West, along with Manchester students. Bedford will continue to send its juniors and seniors to the city high school, though freshmen and sophomores will enter the new Bedford High School this fall.

McGorry has been the assistant principal of West for the past two years, but was employed as an English teacher at the high school and also at Parkside Middle School in the three years prior to her accepting that job. She also has a background in law, having been a prosecutor for the Hillsborough County Attorney’s Office before her teaching experiences.

School Superintendent Michael Ludwell admitted McGorry does not have the minimum of five years teaching experience that he typically likes to see in a candidate for principal at any school, but said McGorry was more than qualified to fill the interim post. He personally interviewed McGorry on Monday, Aug. 13, after two hiring committees made up of educators, parents, and community members had already interviewed her.

“I would say that she was the best candidate of the five the committees interviewed,” Ludwell said, adding that her legal background will aid her in her duties as principal.

Stewart said Ludwell brought McGorry to the table as a potential candidate, and that the other candidates considered for the position also came internally from other posts within the school district.

Stewart said she has no reservations about McGorry’s appointment and fully supports her.

“She has proven herself to be an individual that others look up to,” Stewart said, adding that McGorry has done exceptionally well in the role of assistant principal.

“I know that Ms. McGorry is going to put her heart and soul into this,” Stewart said.

Ludwell said her position as assistant principal helped McGorry obtain the job as interim principal, saying that her transition into the new role would “hopefully be much less bumpy” than that of outside candidates.

McGorry, he said, has been very active in the school and community during her tenure as assistant principal and as an educator. She also graduated from West High School, he said, all qualifications which made her more attractive as a candidate.

The only concern Ludwell has for McGorry’s development in the coming weeks before school starts is that her appointment to the position came so late in the summer. For anybody named to that position, he said, it would be hard to acclimate smoothly in such a short amount of time.

“It’s very different when you no longer have that ‘assistant’ in front of your title,” Ludwell added.

Mayor Frank Guinta was not available for comment on voting against hiring McGorry for the  position. His public policy adviser, Mark Laliberte, said that the mayor’s only concern about hiring McGorry was that she did not have enough experience. Laliberte added that Guinta knows McGorry is very committed to the school and the community, and that she is a good person.

Stewart said the search for a new assistant principal to fill McGorry’s empty spot will likely commence soon.