ISD 166 principal Josh Belanger settling into Cook County and new position
The start of the school year is a mere four weeks away.
In addition to welcoming k-12 students back to school on Sept. 5, Cook County ISD 166 will also welcome a new principal to the 2023/2024 school year.
Following the news in January that the former ISD 166 principal Megan Myers would resign, the school began searching for a new principal to take her place. The school announced in March, not too long after the search started, that it had hired a new principal, Josh Belanger, who served as the assistant principal at Coon Rapids High School.
Belanger is entering his 19th year in education, with 17 years in the classroom. After graduating from college, he started his career at Anoka High School as a special education teacher working with students with different learning and cognitive disabilities. After six years as a special education teacher, he transitioned to Junior High Middle School at Benilde-St. Margaret’s, a Catholic College Preparatory School in St. Louis Park, Minn., as a learning specialist. Two years ago, he returned to his alma mater at Coon Rapids High School as a special education teacher before moving into the assistant principal role.
“In that role, I was able to learn a lot in a school of about 2200 kids,” Belanger said. “I was able to work on an amazing admin team of eight people. And so it was a great first year of school administration for me.”
The North Shore and Grand Marais have been frequent destinations for Belanger since a young age. “We did trips as kids to Gooseberry and Split Rock, and I spent my seventh-grade class trip at Wolf Ridge,” he said. “So kind of knew the area, and then got to know it more as an adult and started coming up here during all seasons.”
Once he discovered an open position for a principal at ISD 166, Belanger said it was a “no-brainer to apply.” He added, “Without any real hesitation, we know that when an opportunity came up, we wanted to jump on it.”
Belanger and his family were fortunate enough to secure housing, making the move and decision to accept the position quite smooth. He officially started in the principal position on July 1 and has been enjoying the onboarding process and meeting people in the community.
“That month of July was a lot of meeting people, not just in the school, but people in the community,” he said. “That was July; now that it’s August, we’re just kind of making decisions and getting things done now in preparation for the school year here in a few weeks.”
He said he intends to spend the immediate future learning and trying to absorb as much information about the school, community, and the differences in rural resources from larger urban areas. “I really need to make sure I’m learning the entire community and what our concerns and strengths and areas for growth are.”
As he prepares for the weeks ahead, Belanger said he is “looking forward to those more community events. Like the first home football game, the first play that we do in the theater, the first concert that we have, where the community all comes together to celebrate our kiddos and our school.”
WTIP’s Kalli Hawkins had a chance to meet and sit down with Belanger to learn about his time at Coon Rapids High School and how he and his family are settling into life in Cook County. Audio from the interview is below.
Kalli Hawkins August 9, 2023
