Dr. Henry St. Pierre
The Fort Zumwalt School District Board of Education has named Dr. Henry St. Pierre as Superintendent of Schools, effective July 1, 2025.
“We had great community response to our survey and made that into our questions that we used in all of our interviews,” Board of Education President Erica Powers says. “We really felt we were able to ask questions from all of our stakeholders when we did those interviews. One person definitely stood out. He knows Fort Zumwalt very well and is focused on taking us in the direction that we and the community are focused on.”
St. Pierre graduated with honors from the College of Education at the University of Missouri-Columbia and joined the district as an English Language Arts teacher at North High School in 1996. After four years teaching at North, he went on to serve as an Assistant Principal at West High, while continuing his own education. He earned his masters in Administration, his Education Specialist and his Doctor of Education from Lindenwood University.
In 2006 he was named Principal at East High School. He played a significant role in the planning and construction process, hiring a staff and opening the doors of Fort Zumwalt’s fourth high school in 2007. After seven years, he took a position at the District Administrative Office as the Assistant Superintendent for Special Services, overseeing Special Education, Health and Early Childhood Services. While in that position he assisted with the construction and opening of two more facilities: the Early Childhood Center and the Mike Clemens Center for Adaptive Learning. For the past six years St. Pierre has served as the Assistant Superintendent for Personnel Services. In 2023 he was named Deputy Superintendent and has been heavily involved in writing and implementing the district’s Continuous School Improvement Plan (CSIP).
“Henry was an integral part of writing the CSIP that we have and leading the formulation of the key priorities,” Powers says. “He has been a big part of the changes in staff retention and he has a lot of ideas for the future.”
St. Pierre’s focus on people and organizational culture has shaped the district’s recruitment and retention philosophy, minimizing some of the impact a tight job market has had on Fort Zumwalt. The school district has not escaped the shortages in critical areas such as teachers, substitutes or bus drivers, but it has been able to maintain the level and quality of service it provides by imparting value to its team members. In just the first year of the CSIP, Fort Zumwalt was able to decrease certified teacher departures 46 percent over the previous year. Additionally, support staff departures decreased 16 percent.
“The single focus area that I’ve been working on the past few years, I believe, is the foundation for all of the other focus areas in our CSIP,” St. Pierre says. “If we are able to recruit and retain highly qualified staff then that makes all of the other areas possible, because, at the end of the day, it’s the people in the buildings that do all of the great work that happens in the district.”
St. Pierre will be only the ninth Superintendent of Schools in Fort Zumwalt, dating back to when J.L. Mudd accepted the post in 1951, and the third since 1985.
“We’ve never really done this before,” Powers says of the current Board of Education. “We followed a pretty meticulous process that we want to ensure is there for many years to come.”
St. Pierre replaces Dr. Paul Myers, who is retiring after 26 years with the district, the past two as superintendent. St. Pierre’s focus as superintendent entering the 2025-2026 school year will be the review and revision of the CSIP, which the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has used as a model for other districts in the state.
“The emphasis is not going to change,” St. Pierre says. “We believe that for a successful school or a successful organization you have to have a positive culture. It makes everything else that follows come a little bit easier.
Fundamentally our purpose in education is to serve and support others. That is how I try to prioritize time in my days. Ultimately, service is at the center of what we do.”
