New Bethlehem Academy Head of School starting in July

Bethlehem Academy will have a new face around campus come July 1. The school announced March 7 that Paula Leider would be the new Head of School at BA, and she said she was excited to start. “I am excited to be a part of the community, to be able to get to know the community as a whole, and to really help continue the mission of Bethlehem Academy within the Faribault community,” said Leider.

“I think there’s such a great relationship there between the community and the school, so I hope to continue to foster the blossoming of that relationship.” Paula Leider starts her position of Head of School at Bethlehem Academy July 1. She said she is excited to start working there and looks forward to working with the staff and students.



(Photo courtesy of Kris Sauer) The decision to look for a new leader comes after Mindy Reeder, the previous principal, resigned during the 2023-2024 school year. During her absence, Assistant Principal John Wollersheim served as their acting principal, and other administrators took on additional duties. Erin Langenfeld, a member of the BA board of Directors, said that when they found out Reeder resigned, they decided to move from principal leadership to Head of School.

“[The board] took that time to kind of step back and make sure we could identify a scope of the position and decided that we should shift to a head of school model versus a president-principal model that Mindy and previous leaders had held,” said Langenfeld. “This shifts the focus of the position a bit to help propel the school’s vision into the future and also have the right leadership support under this position, versus a lot of it landing solely on the president-principal role. With Bethlehem Academy, compared to a public school, there’s a lot of work with advancement, fundraising and building relationships with donors and alumni so that this position can have more of a focus on those things.

” Leider got started with teaching at Benilde-St. Margaret’s School in 2001 as an English Language Arts teacher. In 2017, she started working at All Saints Academy as the Principal.

In 2021, she became the Principal at Carondelet Catholic School. She currently teaches English at Hill-Murray School. Being an educator in a Catholic school was something she found important when she was getting her education to become a teacher.

“I wanted to really be able to help students grow in their faith life and see how their faith gives them purpose out in the world, and specifically through service,” said Leider. “Being able to help kids grow in their faith life, whatever that faith life is, is a really important link to helping kids become whole and well-rounded students who really see themselves as being able to connect to their world beyond themselves. You can’t do that well without face being a part of the conversation.

” Leider’s application stood out to the board because of her experience as an educator at Catholic schools. Paula Leider has had a long career working at Catholic schools and got started with teaching at Benilde-St. Margaret’s School in 2001 as an English Language Arts teacher.

In 2017, she started working at All Saints Academy as the Principal. In 2021, she became the Principal at Carondelet Catholic School. She currently teaches English at Hill-Murray School and will start at Bethlehem Academy July 1 as the new Head of School.

(Photo courtesy of Hill-Murray School) “[Leider] has been a part of Catholic education since 2001, and throughout her career, she has demonstrated exceptional leadership growth and a deep commitment to her faith,” said Langenfeld. “We as the board were looking for someone who could propel BA into the future and have many different leadership skills, but also that faith component is very important being a Catholic school.” The position was posted in February 2024, and Leider said she saw it when it was posted but wanted to wait a little bit before applying.

“I wasn’t quite ready to consider it yet, because I wanted to have a year to kind of get back into my teaching and wanted to be able to rekindle the reason I went into education and the reason why I wanted to be with secondary kids and those kinds of things by teaching for a year,” said Leider. “When it came back up this fall, I was like, ‘OK, that’s that’s a sign that I should consider this, because I’ve seen it now twice, and I’m ready now after having a year with back in the classroom to really be able to look at leadership at the secondary level and be able to give those students that age group, my all as a leader.’”.