New Faces at Stuart Country Day School This Year Include Upper, Lower School Leaders

Trisha Stevenson Medeiros (l) is the new upper school head and Michelle Dowling (r) is the new lower school head at Stuart Country Day School.

Stuart Country Day School of the Sacred Heart began the new academic year this week with two new division heads. Trisha Stevenson Medeiros is the head of upper school and Michelle Dowling is the head of the lower school division.

Medeiros comes to Stuart from the Tower Hill School, an independent K-12 school in Delaware, where she served as the assistant head of the upper school. Previously she worked at the Purnell School, an all-girls boarding school in Pottersville, New Jersey, where she was the library director and coordinator of community service. Prior to working in independent schools, Medeiros spent several years doing technology and library work at the college level. She holds a doctorate in educational leadership from the University of Delaware, a master of information science degree from Rutgers, and an undergraduate degree in earth and environmental science from Kean University.

Dowling, the new head of the lower school, previously served as the head of the upper school and director of placement at The Town School, an independent K-8 school in New York City. A first generation American of Cuban descent, Dowling began her career in education as a Spanish teacher at the Trinity School n New York, and became the middle school assistant principal in just four years. She is a graduate of Convent of the Sacred Heart in New York, a sister Sacred Heart school to Stuart. She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Marymount Manhattan College and a master’s degree in educational leadership from the Bank Street College Graduate School of Education.

“We are extremely fortunate to have both Trisha Medeiros and Michelle Dowling join our leadership team here at Stuart,” Stuart Head of School PattyFagin said in a release about the appointments. “We are in a unique position to shape Stuart’s future and have found two exceptional women to lead both the upper and lower school divisions into the next phase.”