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The Passaic Valley Board of Education on Tuesday appointed Bracken Healy its new superintendent for the regional high school.
He s replacing JoAnn Cardillo, who is retiring at the end of the school year and has served as superintendent since 2015.
Healy is taking over July 1 after stepping down as principal of Clifton s Woodrow Wilson Middle School, one of the city s two middle schools and with a student population that is slightly larger than PV s campus in Little Falls.
Before hiring Healy, PV s trustees had expressed their desire to find a superintendent who will keep its students, who are fed into the regional district from Totowa, Woodland Park and Little Falls, from leaving for other schools.
Trustees have hired the New Jersey School Boards Association to help with the search. The ideal candidate will set his or her sights on making the school the best it can be and increasing its appeal to local families. We want someone to come and roll up their sleeves and work with the high school s administrators, Yodice said.
The board is also conducting a survey of parents asking them what they want for their children, in a bid to retain families. The district had 1,400 students from Woodland Park, Little Falls and Totowa in 2012. It now has fewer than 1,200.
Cardillo said that when she took over in 2015 she listened to what parents wanted for their children and began to work on it.