Wantagh High School leaders to retire

I’ve never felt like a second, like I’m on a lower level.”

James Brown, Wantagh H.S. assistant principal

With 62 years of experience in Wantagh public schools between them, High School Principal Carolyn Breivogel and Assistant Principal James Brown would be forgiven if they appeared grizzled and worn, the wizened veterans of countless encounters with adolescents. Instead, they are energetic and upbeat in outlook and youthful and fit in appearance, ready for the next chapters in their lives as they prepare to retire.

“That’s what happens when you spend your life working with kids,” Breivogel said. “They keep us young.”

Breivogel has spent her entire career at Wantagh High School, while Brown began with a brief prelude at Seaford Manor Elementary. 

Breivogel, a 1986 graduate of St. John’s University, said she “went straight into the classroom.” She taught English for two years while earning her guidance certification at night. 

After graduating from SUNY Stony Brook in 1986, Brown attended graduate school at C.W. Post (now LIU Post). He completed his internship as a guidance counselor in the Wantagh district and served for a year as a counselor at the Manor School before returning to Wantagh Middle School.

Both began working as counselors in 1990.

Brown’s long-range ambition was to serve as an administrator. He was told he would need to have some experience as head of a guidance department if that ambition were to be realized. And for that, eventually he would need to move from his position at the middle school to the high school.

Breivogel and Brown knew each other well before their career paths merged. “The two schools just had one guidance department,” Breivogel explained. 

In 2001, the high school promoted Assistant Principal Terry O’Connor to the top spot. He wanted Breivogel as his deputy, but she was concerned about her charges as a counselor. So she called Brown.

“She said, ‘They’re making Terry the new principal, and he wants me to be his assistant,” Brown said. “She said, ‘I can’t do it unless you take over my kids.’” 

Initially, Brown had no interest in moving across the parking lot to the high school. “I loved being an elementary counselor,” Brown said of his stint in Seaford. “But after 11 years as a middle school counselor, I thought maybe it was time to move on. I hemmed and hawed, but eventually I said yes.”

After three years, he was named to head the department.

“I felt I was able to make much more of an impact” in the new position, Brown said. Among his signal achievements, he extended the guidance program to the elementary level. “It took me three tries,” he said. Eventually, the Board of Education agreed.

A step up — together

In 2008, O’Connor was preparing to retire. Once again, the school turned to Breivogel. And once again, she turned to Brown.

At first, Brown was simply part of the search team. “I said, ‘Do me a favor: Come and look at some of these candidates with me,’” Breivogel said. “We looked at maybe 25 candidates or so. None of them really wowed us, but eventually, we settled on three possibilities.”

During the selection process, Breivogel said she had a greater sense of teamwork working with Brown than she had with anyone else. She turned to him and said, “You know who the right person for the job is: It’s you.”

Again, Brown demurred. “I said no. I said I was happy in my current job. She said, ‘No, you’re not.’” 

Breivogel told Brown he would have a much larger influence throughout the school as assistant principal and many more opportunities to make an impact. Asking Brown to be her assistant “was the best decision of my life,” Breivogel said.

In the years since, “I’ve never felt like a second, like I’m on a lower level,” Brown said. 

“We’re equal,” Breivogel agreed. 

The two shared a vision, for the school and its students, Breivogel said. She described two triads the two have used to guide their partnership since they took on leadership roles. 

First, they focused on people, programs and plant. “We wanted to clean up the plant — the campus — paint it and make it more inviting,” Breivogel said. As far as staff, “We only hired the best.” 

“When we interviewed candidates, one question we always asked was, ‘What do you teach?’” Brown said. “If they said ‘math’ or ‘English,’ we knew we didn’t want them. The right answer is ‘kids.’”

The second triad focused on academics, arts and athletics. 

“Jim happens to have very, very strong musical theater background,” Breivogel said. “So he said, ‘I’ll take the arts piece.’ I said I’d take on the athletics piece, with the various competitions and, especially, the spirit part. We shared the academics. We knew we wanted more rigor in the classroom, more college-level classes.” 

“Preschool through 16 was a big push around here for a while,” Breivogel said. “The idea was that we don’t just stop preparing kids for what happens after high school. We prepare them for what happens after college  — and even beyond that. I was in the thick of that for a while, but that was always on our radar, even before it became a formal program.” 

Their approach meshed well with ideas of social and emotional education that were beginning to gain currency, she said. The result is a school that has been recognized for excellence in academics, arts and athletics alike.

As for the next chapters, Brown, who is unmarried, plans to spend more time working in his second career — musical theater. He is also part owner of a home care business and hopes to expand that.

Breivogel is the mother of three grown daughters — two in Atlanta and one in Orlando, Fla. She and her husband, a retired New York City firefighter, plan to move south. “I was a working mom, so I didn’t get to spend as much time with my own kids as I would have wanted,” she said. “I want to be able to spend time with the grandchildren.” 

Breivogel grew up in Bellmore, where her father was a 1939 graduate of Mepham High School. Eventually, she bought her own home across the street from the home where she grew up. 

“We’re an Italian family,” she said, while admitting to some nervousness about being far from her roots. “Family is home.”