TOWN OF HOUNSFIELD, New York (WWNY) – After 6 years as superintendent of Jefferson-Lewis BOCES, Superintendent Stephen Todd is retiring from education. Before that, he spent years as a teacher and later as the principal of Watertown High School.
“I’m the luckiest man in the world,” he said.
We asked him what’s the biggest challenge facing education.
“Maintaining consistent civility between people, and we see in our society that’s not always the case now. And even in our wonderful North Country sometimes there’s less civility in the way people are acting,” he said.
Technology in the classroom has been tightened up this year with no cell phones allowed in classrooms. The feedback to Todd has come from teachers and kids.
“I’m hearing that from kids who are saying, ‘You know, I wasn’t looking forward to this but I’ve got to say, it’s leading to more conversations face to face between people,’” he said.
Todd is leaving as enrollment with BOCES is up. While other schools in the North Country may see enrollment as a challenge, he says BOCES is fortunate to have more students.
“The percentage of those students participating in a half day program in career and technical ed at one of our two tech centers has gone way up. We’re looking at about 50% of all the eligible juniors and seniors. We’re up by 46% over the course of the last five years,” he said.
Even though Todd isn’t going to be in the classrooms anymore, it doesn’t completely mean he’s going away.
“My wife and daughter and I are staying right here in this community. I’m going to stay engaged in this community. And we’ll stay very active, so none of that is going to change. It’s just going to be contributing in different ways,” he said.
Todd’s final day comes at the end of the month. Chris DiFulvio will be taking Todd’s place. He was the superintendent of Cazenovia Central School District near Syracuse.
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