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New high school principal appointed
(by Kathryn A. Burger - June 04, 2008)
Park Ridge
High School
will have a new principal as of July 1 - Patricia Bucci, currently assistant principal at
Somerville
High School
.
The appointment came as a result of the district review of its options after the one candidate its recent search identified as acceptable rejected the district’s offer in favor of accepting a principal’s position in his current district. Richard Martinez, the current principal, will leave the district at end of this month.
Faced with the choice of beginning a new search immediately or hiring an interim principal for the 2008-2009 school year and beginning a new search next spring when the candidate pool would be deeper, it seemed likely that the board would favor the latter plan of action.
However, according to Robert Wright, the district’s business administrator, the district opted to go back to the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association, the entity that had recommended eight candidates out of a field of 29 applicants. The district set the criteria and the NJPSA evaluated each applicant according to the district’s parameters. “We went back to them and expanded our search options,” he said.
He explained that the original search criteria included a preference for candidates who were already serving as principals but allowed for applicants from local districts who were assistant principals. The criteria excluded assistant principals from non-local districts. Wright said, “They came back to us with this candidate, who was not among the field eight from the recent search” having been excluded because she was an assistant principal in a distant district.
Bucci holds a bachelor of arts degree in early childhood education from Glassboro State College and a master’s degree in developmental reading from
Trenton
State
University
. Her principal’s certification was through the New Jersey Expedited Certification for Educational Leadership program. She has been with the
Somerville
School District
since 1976, as a teacher at elementary, middle school and high school levels from 1976 through 2004, when she became supervisor of student discipline. She subsequently served at the supervising assistant to the principal, before becoming assistant principal in 2006.
At a special board of education meeting on Thursday, May 29, the board appointed Bucci at salary of $133,000 per year. Wright said Bucci has officially accepted the offer.
Kathryn A. Burger's e-mail address is burger@northjersey.com.
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