Shady Side Academy in Fox Chapel selects California educator as head of middle school

Shady Side Academy in Fox Chapel has selected a California educator to head its Middle School, according to an announcement on Dec. 19 from SSA President Bart Griffith Jr.

Michelle Merson will become the academy’s head of Middle Shool, effective July 1, 2023, to replace Amy Nixon who has announced her plans to retire.

Since 2016, Merson has served as head of middle school at Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences, a K-12 independent day school in Santa Monica, Calif., where she is responsible for 330 students and 80 faculty and staff. In partnership with the consulting firm Independent School Management, she also co-facilitates the summer program, “Leading the Effective Middle School” for new middle school heads and principals.

“We are thrilled to welcome Michelle Merson to Shady Side as our next head of Middle School,” said Griffith. “A remarkably student-centered leader, she brings a unique capacity to help middle schoolers emerge strong, healthy, and well-prepared for high school and young adulthood.”

Merson said she visited Shady Side Academy and found “a shared pride that speaks to the warmth, clarity of purpose and good work of a dynamic school community. The Middle School is a vibrant, joyful place, and I am committed to seeing it flourish in the coming years. The dedication of the faculty to the care and education of students is most compelling for me.”

Merson holds a B.A. in history from Mount Holyoke College and an M.A. in American studies from Pepperdine University. A native of St. Louis, she and her husband, Drew Brody, have two children, Isaiah, 16, and Lindey Jane, 12.

The appointment concludes a search that began last summer to replace Nixon, who has been head of SSA’s Middle School since 2004 and also served as the Academy’s interim president in 2018-2019. She initially joined SSA in 2001 as a Middle School English teacher.