By Brian Zanzonico
Dr. Tom Dolan, H. Frank Carey High School principal from 1993 to 2000, was named superintendent of the Franklin Square School District at a meeting April 30.
Currently the principal of Cold Spring Harbor High School in Suffolk County, Dolan will succeed the retiring Dr. Tim Lafferty, who has led the Franklin Square district for a decade. Dolan will officially take over on July 1. "I'm headed back to Franklin Square, and I'm the happiest one of all," he said last week.
Dolan said he left Carey to be a superintendent, and thought he found what he was looking for in Manhasset. But after a short stint there and three years as principal in Cold Spring Harbor, he jumped at the opportunity to return to Franklin Square. "Like Dorothy in 'The Wizard of Oz,' I didn't know everything I wanted was in my own backyard," Dolan said.
After a preliminary search for Lafferty's replacement, Dolan's name was floated to the school board by trustees Audrey Hulsart - who was Carey's PTA president while Dolan was principal - and Jean Fichtl earlier this year. Dolan said he began the screening process in March, and was unanimously approved by the board on April 25.
Given his relationship with the community, Hulsart said, Dolan was a natural choice. "People loved him at Carey," Hulsart said. "He will do remarkable things here in Franklin Square and continue the excellence of Dr. Lafferty."
Dolan said that Lafferty brought stability to the district at a time when leadership was in flux, and added that he hoped to continue the school's academic success. "There was an interim superintendent when I was there," Dolan said. "Dr. Lafferty brought order and helped the district achieve like they never had before."
Dolan, whose close relationship with the community was strengthened by an outpouring of support when his then-teenage daughter was critically injured in a car accident a decade ago, said he looked forward to re-establishing ties with Franklin Square. "I received a very warm welcome," he said. "It was great to see people I hadn't seen in years."
That includes a former Carey student, Kelly Welti-Daddino, who is now a fourth-grade teacher in the Franklin Square district. She remembered Dolan as a hands-on principal who often dropped by "float houses" during Homecoming season with his wife, Karen, to visit students who were building the class floats for the yearly parade.
"We're all excited," Welti-Daddino said. "We're very happy. He's an amazing man, and was an amazing principal. He'll be an even better superintendent."
Dolan, the father of five grown children, taught Social Studies at Hewlett High School and worked for a year in the central administration office at Sewanhaka before becoming the principal at Carey. He is the second local high school principal in less than a year to become superintendent of an area elementary school district. Al Harper, former Elmont Memorial High School principal, replaced Dr. Maria Palandra as the head administrator of the Elmont School District last July.
"My all-time hero, Harry Chapin, ended every concert with 'All My Life's a Circle,'" Dolan said. "Now, for me, being allowed to return to Franklin Square has completed my circle."
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