TRR file photo Bruce Wheeler

ECS secondary principal resigns

By DAVID HULSE

ELDRED — After less than a year on the job, Eldred Central School’s (ECS) secondary principal has resigned.

“Bruce Wheeler is, or has, tendered a letter of resignation, and I believe it is the board’s position and the superintendent’s recommendation to accept it,” ECS Board of Education member Andrew Boyar said on April 30.

Wheeler, a former U.S. Army captain, joined the ECS administration last September. He had won some parent praise for disciplinary measures he enacted at the Eldred campus, said Nadia Rajsz, president of the Parent Teacher Student Organization (PTSO) at the Eldred campus.

As to the reason’s for Wheeler’s sudden departure, Boyar said, “I don’t think he was a good match for Eldred. It’s as simple as that. It’s possible that his forte was teaching and not administration,” he said.

Boyar would not neither comment on nor deny reports of student/parental complaints prompting the district to seek Wheeler’s resignation. “I’ll leave that to administration,” he said.

ECS Superintendent Candace Mazur said Mr. Wheeler was not asked to resign and that by law, she could not comment on personnel decisions. She supported Boyar’s remark in saying, “Mr. Wheeler shared with me that his first love was teaching and he wanted to return to it.”

Al Larson, a retired former superintendent at Jeffersonville, has been contracted on a per-diem basis as acting principal and is expected to serve through the end of the school year, Boyar said.