Back to school time looming for new principals

Though students still have a few more weeks before they’ll start a new school year after Labor Day, several new principals will be on the job next week at Lester B. Pearson schools in the Vaudreuil-Soulanges region and beyond.

Last June Westwood senior and junior high schools bid fond farewell to Michel Miller, the man who took over at the helm of the two campuses when they were formed five years ago.

Miller had worked as a teacher and administrator for the past 34 years.

Alana Quinn-Leroux will replace Miller at Westwood Sr. High School in Hudson, while Dion Joseph, a former physical education teacher from McDonald High School in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, will assume vice principal duties at the senior school.

Westwood Jr. in Saint-Lazare will be headed by Hans Bulow, who will take over as principal. Bulow, the former vice principal of Edgewater Elementary in Pincourt, will not have a V.P. at the junior school.

Current Westwood Jr. V.P., Adrian Geller will move on to Dorset Elementary in Baie-d’Urfé, where he will head that school.

Forest Hill Senior principal Marc Klein also retired in June after 34 years as a teacher/administrator. Klein, who opened the environmentally friendly building in Saint-Lazare two years ago, will be replaced by Lynn Morissette, the former V.P. of Saint-Thomas school in Pointe-Claire.

And finally, Mark Massarelli, from Lakeside academy in Lachine, will take over the principal job vacated by Hans Bulow at Edgewater Elementary School in Pincourt.

Jim Hendry from the Pearson school board said they have had a lot of key people retire during the past two years, which has prompted many of the changes.

However, there are not an unusual amount of people being shifted around, he added.

“It’s a process we go through every year at the board… We always look at the benefit to a community to have a principal in one school for a long time but we make changes based on what’s best for a community.”

And while those moving will assumed their new positions as of July 1st, students in the Vaudreuil-Soulanges region will only get to meet them on September 2nd, 2008, the first day back to school for all Lester B. Pearson elementary and high schools.