Dr. Rosemary Bradley

JAMESTOWN – The Jamestown School Board has approved the appointment of a new principal for Jamestown High School starting next school year.  During Wednesday night’s board meeting, the board acted on making Dr. Rosemary Bradley the next JHS principal and also introduced her to the community.

Bradley currently serves as an assistant principal at BOCES in Sullivan County – situated at the southern end of the Catskills.

After being appointed Bradley thanked the board and said she looks forward to working at the High School.

“I want to thank [Board President Paul] Abbott and the board because you have entrusted your students and staff to me and I take that very seriously. I am honored. Thank you Dr. Apthorpe and the rest of the leadership team that met with me and got to know me. You saw past my resume and experience and you looked into my heart. You found something that you wanted for Jamestown and please know that the feeling is mutual,” Bradley said.

Bradley has over 23 years experience as an educator. In addition to her current role as Assistant Principal for Alternative Education Program and Special Education Program at the Sullivan County BOCES, she was also a science teacher for 19 years in grades 6 to 12 in the Rochester City School District. While at Rochester City Schools, she was also a curriculum writer for ELA and science, served as a literacy coach and new teacher mentor, and helped facilitate professional development for staff.

As part of her current administrative role at BOCES, Bradley rolled out new literacy programs, supported teachers in their progress monitoring and instructional planning, functioned as academic summer school principal, improved communications between school and families, worked with special education systems, and worked with high needs/at-risk students.

JHS has struggled in recent years with below average student achievement, primarily due to a high amount of absenteeism.  Bradley said that she is plans to spend her first year at the school doing a full assessment of the challenges and also begin the work to correct them.

“One of my biggest goals is to build relationships. At this point I know nothing and have no answers, however, the number one goal is for me to get to know the staff and the students of that high school. It will be out of that interaction and building those relationships that then I can decide where I need to focus and grow,” Bradley said.

Bradley will replace current principal Michael McElrath, who is staying in the district after this year but will be responsible for a new role as overseeing the operations of the soon-to-be-opened Success Academy at the former Rogers Elementary School.

Bradley will start working in the school district on July 1.

Jamestown High School

JAMESTOWN – The Jamestown School Board will hold a meeting Wednesday night at the administration building on Martin Road for a regular board meeting.  Among the items that will be acted on is the appointment of a new principal to Jamestown High School.

Last week Jamestown Superintendent Bret Apthorpe told WRFA he was looking forward to introducing the new principal to the community. He couldn’t give many details until it becomes official, but did indicate the next high school principal would be a female.

“The new principal will be there, I believe, with the family and she’ll be addressing the board,” Apthorpe said. “We did a Pennsylvania-New York State-wide search. We had 16 great applicants and we’re very excited that Wednesday we’ll be able to share with the public the name of the new principal and she’ll be able to start on July 1.”

The new principal will be replacing outgoing principal Micheal McElrath, who is going to oversee the operations of the soon-to-be-opened Success Academy at the former Rogers School.

Wednesday’s meeting begins at 6 p.m. and is open to the public.

That’s according to Superintendent Bret Apthorpe, who told WRFA last Thursday that the process of reviewing prospective candidates started earlier this year and a list of just over a dozen has been put together.

“We put out postings in New York and Pennsylvania. We’ve had 16 applicants whose applications were filled out in the entirety. We’ll start doing interviews [the week of April 1] and we want to bring a candidate to the board in May.”

The school district is searching for a new principal at the high school because current principal Michael McElrath will be leaving the position to serve as principal of the district’s new Success Academy, which will open in the fall.

Apthorpe said that as the school board begins vetting candidates this week, it will be considering several factors when making their choice.

“Are they somebody who has connections to the community? Do they have a sense of value of the culture of our community? And who’s an expert in guiding a high school like Jamestown’s?” Apthorpe said.

“Jamestown, sadly, is in the lowest 10 percent of schools across New York in terms of student achievement,” he continued. “And what we’ve been doing internally is looking at, literally hundreds of schools, who have worse poverty than Jamestown but yet are high-achieving academically. In the entire district, all of our administrators are going through transformational leadership training. How do we transform our cultures to mirror these hundreds of cultures that are high performing with high poverty. So the new principal would have to come in having the skill set to be able to do that.”

Apthorpe said the district hopes to have a new principal for the high school appointed by July 1, which is the beginning of the new school year.

UPDATE (9:30 a.m. Monday, Sept. 11): Since our initial report, Wayne Reichenbach has issued an apology to the Jamestown School District for his Facebook post. He told WRFA that he based his comments on information he received from a parent of a student in the district, and not from the district itself.

EDITORS NOTE: Updated at 11:20 a.m. Friday to reflect the full statement by JHS principal Dr. Michael McElrath.

JAMESTOWN – A resident from the Jamestown area took to Facebook Thursday night to voice his concern over a purported school policy that he claims “No American flags can be worn on student clothing due to the fact it can be seen as offensive.”  However, school officials say that is simply not true.

The individual voicing his concern over the alleged policy is Wayne Reichenbach of Jamestown, who provided a public Facebook posting not only taking issue with the policy, but also saying he is starting a protest against it.

The full statement by Reichenbach:

As of Friday morning, the post Reichenbach had been shared nearly 300 times.

WRFA has reached out to Jamestown Public Schools Friday morning seeking a response to the post or clarification. According to an email from the school district, “The information in this post is incorrect. There is no new policy and that was never said at the assembly by principal Dr. Michael McElrath.”

In addition, the district provided the following post reaffirming its support of the American flag.

It should be noted there is no mention of such a policy in the district’s official Code of Conduct, other than to say that “Items that are vulgar, obscene, libelous, or denigrate others on account of race, color, religion, creed, national origin, gender, disability, or sexual orientation” are not allowed.

Clothing depicting the American Flag is not included in this policy.

Later Friday morning, Dr. McElrath issued a full statement in response to the allegations:

“The information circulating in a Facebook post regarding a new JHS school policy that the U.S. Flag cannot be worn on student clothing is incorrect. The JHS principals hold individual class meetings with the entire student body. At all of the meetings, dress code is discussed and that in addition to not allowing clothes that promote drugs, alcohol or violence, students are also asked to refrain from wearing any clothing that could be deemed offensive to others. Examples were given of clothing that could be deemed offensive to others including the confederate flag.”
– Dr. Michael McElrath