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Overcast Central dean tapped for Memorial vacancy
Memorial Junior High School has a new assistant principal and it’s a familiar face in the Valley Stream Central High School District.
Bret Strauss, a business teacher and dean of students at Central High School, has moved his office about a quarter-mile north on Fletcher Avenue. Strauss takes over the position held by Lynn Winters, who resigned before the school year began.
Strauss, in his 10th year with the district, was hired as a business teacher and created the school’s Future Business Leaders of America program. He said the student organization made it to the national competition three times, and a “tremendous” number of students have won state awards. The club has grown from 10 students when it first started to more than 40 now.
He noted that students, through FBLA, gained practical, real world skills and many have gone on to some fine business colleges. Strauss said he will miss leading that club as he leaves Central. “That’s something that’s tough to walk away from,” he said.
This was his third year as the dean at Central, where his primary responsibility was discipline. As assistant principal, a job he began on Monday, he is in charge of pupil services. Strauss oversees the guidance counselors, social workers and psychologists, and will be responsible for putting together the master schedule each year. He also will chair various building level committees.
Though he will also handle some discipline issues, Strauss said he will be glad to focus on something other than just student behavioral problems. “I’m looking forward to the new responsibility,” he said.
Strauss has also been the department chairman for the Career and Technical Education program at Central High School and has also been co-chairman of the Business Advisory Council, a partnership between the school district and Valley Stream business community. For the past four summers, Strauss has been dean of the summer school program.
Education is a second career for Strauss. He owned a tuxedo shop in Little Neck for six years before going back to school to become a teacher.
