Sewanhaka names new superintendent

Following Sewanhaka Central High School District superintendent Warren Meierdierck’s announcement last December that he would be retiring in June, the district has been working to find a new superintendent to take his place. The district’s Board of Education placed advertisement in The New York Times, held a search meeting in March, and has been receiving leads from a search firm over the past few months.

During the Sewanhaka district’s last BOE meeting, on May 3, BOE president Jean Fichtl announced that Dr. Ralph Ferrie will be the district’s new superintendent, beginning July 1. He has been hired for a three-year time.

Ferrie said before July 1, he will be making several trips to the district, from his home in New Jersey, to get better-acquainted with the administration and students. He has only been able to spend one day in the district, visiting schools, he added.

“I am going to try to make as many visits up there within the next couple months to get the ‘lay of the land,’ and to make sure there is a smooth transition,” Ferrie said, adding that he will also be going through training for the new position at during his visits to the district.

However, Ferrie is already bringing 34 years of educational training and 24 years of training in administration to the Sewanhaka district. At the time of the announcement, he had been serving as an assistant professor at Georgian Court University, a position he has held for the past two years. Prior to that, he served as the superintendent of schools in the Three Village School District, Stony Brook, New York, the Monroe County Township School District and the Absecon City Public School District in New Jersey. He also served as a middle school principal for nine years in Marlboro, New Jersey, and as a high school chemistry and living environment teacher for nine years.

Ferrie said he became interested in the Sewanhaka district because after a few years of teaching higher education, he realized that he missed working in public schools. “That’s where my heart is,” he said. “I thought that higher education would be something I would be interested in doing, but as much as I enjoyed the teaching part of it, it’s the interaction between students, teachers and board members that I love … I was really looking for the opportunity to get back into public education.”

When asked whether it will be difficult to transition into the Sewanhaka district, Ferrie said he is “not concerned.”