It is official: After working and living here for nine years, Superintendent Victoria Kniewel has accepted a job in Edgemont, New York, a district 20 miles north of New York City, near Scarsdale in Westchester County.
It is quite different from the WW-P district. There are only 1,900 students, who attend two K-6 schools or one 7-12 middle/high school, which is spread out on a single campus-like setting. The smaller scale notwithstanding, the salary will be larger — $250,000 compared to the $192,676 salary that Kniewel currently earns and that would have been reduced under the New Jersey state salary cap.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for me,” says Kniewel. “I was pursued by a recruiter for this position. The salary reduction issue wasn’t what caused me to move. I still had two years on my contract, so it wasn’t an imminent decision. I wasn’t looking for a new position, but I got a great invitation and a great offer. This is the only school district I looked at seriously. The fact that I will be making more money is certainly a factor; it is part of the offer. But it was just one factor.” Kniewel’s salary has been frozen for past three years under the terms of her contract, and she has also voluntarily paid a portion for her own health benefits.
Kniewel’s last day in the WW-P district is June 30. On July 1, she will begin work in the Edgemont district.
“I will be moving to Westchester, where I worked for five years prior to coming to WW-P. I worked in North Salem, NY, and so will be returning to my roots in a small district. Both Edgemont and WW-P are affluent, high-performing districts, which have a lot of community involvement and are trying to advance to an even higher level of achievement. Staying involved with all of the district’s stakeholders was important during my time at WW-P and will continue to be important in Edgemont,” she said.
“I am also a skier, and I am glad to be moving closer to Vermont so that I can ski more often. Most of my family lives in northern New Jersey, where I am originally from, and so I will be closer to them, as well,” says Kniewel.
Pertaining to her successor, Deputy Superintendent David Aderhold, Kniewel says: “I recommended David for the assistant superintendent position, then for the deputy position. We worked very closely together, and I like to think that I played a role in his mentoring and development from assistant principal to administrator. David is strong, compassionate, dedicated, and smart — he’s the whole package.
“The Board of Education has been very smart in thinking about succession planning and continuity — goals we have been working on together. Continuity is the best course of action for the district, and twice the board has taken this path, which has been great for the district.”
When asked about her greatest accomplishment at WW-P, Kniewel says that “I am proudest of how we all work together. When I first got here, I often heard that there were 10 different schools that operated independently — 10 different kingdoms. Now we have shared goals, and a common mission with very clearly articulated ways to reach it, through teacher and principal evaluations, curriculum reviews, and other tools. A school district’s mission is never completed. It is always moving ahead and growing. But I feel very good about the structures that are in place here for people to rely on and utilize.”
“While superintendent, I held regularly scheduled meetings with every defined constituency and maintained an open door policy. My words of advice for the future are to keep working together, meeting with stakeholders, try to keep understanding each other. The community that learns to work together in good times can also work together in tough times because they have the skills and building blocks already in place.”
