District gets new superintendent
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Dr. Raymond Bryant. Photo by Abby Wolf
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Dr. Raymond Bryant “extremely excited” to be heading up schools, By Abby Wolf
Warwick — Warwick Valley Central School District’s Board of Education swore in Dr. Raymond Bryant as its new superintendent, replacing Harvey Hilburgh, who served as interim superintendent since June. Hilburgh replaced Dr. Frank Greenhall after he retired due to illness.
Bryant comes to Warwick from the Elmira, N.Y., school district, where - according to a statement on the Warwick School District’s Web site - under Bryant’s tenure, the Elmira district (along with several of its schools) was removed from New York State’s “needs improvement” lists after showing improvement in math, English, science scores and in graduation rates.
Bryant also led several successful initiatives in Elmira, including: an early childhood readiness collaborative; curriculum redesign; increased AP courses and Accelerated College Education (ACE) courses; a collaboration with GST BOCES on a “school at the mall” to provide work experience for special needs students, among other accomplishments.
Bryant said that he is “extremely excited to be here,” that Warwick schools have an “incredible staff” and he is gratified by the “tremendous leadership that (Dr.) Marijane (Reinhard, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instructional Services) has shown.” Bryant added that he is eager to work on improving communication between the schools, staff and administration on the one hand, and parents, students and the broader community on the other.
“This guy’s going to be great on Community 2020 (the new advisory committee to the school board that seeks to improve communication between the school system and the wider community),” said school board President David Eaton. “We’ll be able to hit the ground running.”
Eaton added that the Board “worked tremendously as a team, and voted unanimously” to appoint Bryant.
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Eaton said that Bryant is “extremely experienced, energetic. He’s a font of information…” and “creative at solving problems” He called him “can-do” and said the board is excited with what he can help them do to streamline our systems, especially with regard to technology. Eaton said Bryant did amazing things with technology in the Elmira district. He and the board hope this experience will take Warwick schools “to the next level.”
Toward that end, the board is looking to Bryant to investigate moving its members from paper-based to electronic communication; the superintendent is doing a cost comparison of laptops versus continuing with the present system of papers for memos, agendas and the like. If the budget permits, laptops will be purchased for board members who don’t currently have them. Eaton hopes to save the district money over the long term for paper that doesn’t need to be purchased and in staff time that does not need to be used for copying and collating papers, as well as improving communication among the Board members.
The new superintendent “look[s] forward to many years of working” with the district, and wants to work with the staff to “make this (good district) a great district.”
In other school business
Among the flurry of appointments, retirements and resignations was the appointment of Paul Hughes to the position of middle school interim assistant principal. Hughes has “lots of experience…he’s one of the good ones; we like the job he did,” according to Eaton. The search for a permanent assistant principal is expected to get under way soon.
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The next meeting for the school board is Monday, Sept. 14, 7:30 p.m. at the Dorothy C.Wilson Education Center.
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