Melissa Bailey Photo
Rosalyn Bannon, who plans to resign next month.
The principal at Barnard Environmental Studies Magnet School will begin a new job in a suburban school next month, in yet another mid-year departure that’s draining New Haven’s top talent.
Rosalyn Bannon will resign as Barnard’s principal on Feb. 25. She’s taking a job as the next principal at Silas Deane Middle School in Wethersfield, a suburb just south of Hartford.
After a short stint as a sports reporter at the New Haven Register, Bannon worked in education for more than a quarter-century, as a teacher, literacy coach and administrator.
Most recently, she served as principal at West Rock STREAM Academy, a small K‑4 school. Bannon arrived there in 2012, back when it was still known as MicroSociety Interdistrict Magnet School, with a mission to boost low reading scores. She opened a rebranded West Rock Author’s Academy as a turnaround in 2014, after replacing half the staff.
In 2016, Bannon oversaw the rollout of a federal Magnet School Assistance Program grant that helped teachers significantly boost test scores. With the extra funding, teachers trained in reading and writing workshops over the summer through Columbia University Teachers College, and they utilized a Maker Space to learn engineering, code-writing and gardening. The school also focused on explicitly teaching social-emotional skills, like self-regulation and self-awareness.
Wethersfield’s Superintendent Michael Emmett said he was hiring Bannon because of her “ability to collaborate, combined with a great deal of instructional expertise.”
This year, Bannon took over at Barnard after a district-wide reshuffling of principals.
She was the third principal in three years — an administrative churn that’s lasted since 2016, when teachers took a no-confidence vote against Yolanda Jones-Generette, who’s now at West Rock STREAM Academy.
“Why they can’t keep a principal should be the question,” said Tyhisha Penn, a mom at Barnard. She said that administrators should have promoted Eugene Foreman, the school’s former assistant principal who was transferred to L.W. Beecher Museum School late last summer, rather than bringing in someone new. “All the kids looked up to him and respected him,” Penn said.
Bannon, along with mentor Cheryl Brown, accepts the job as principal in 2012.
Bannon will be the third principal to leave the district since Superintendent Carol Birks was hired less than a year ago.
She joins the chief operating officer, an assistant superintendent, the choice director, the lead school counselor and the lead teacher librarian in heading for the exit mid-way through the school year. By summer, three more principals plan to retire, along with the bilingual education director.
In a Monday letter, Birks assured Barnard families that administrators would try to minimize disruptions at the school, as they try to locate an interim principal and begin the search for a permanent replacement.
“As Ms. Bannon transitions from New Haven Public Schools, we will continue to provide an excellent year of learning and teaching,” Birks wrote. “Identifying a new leader to support the continued growth and development of the Barnard Community is one of our immediate priorities.”
Birks added that Assistant Superintendent Keisha Redd-Hannans and Human Resources Director Lisa Mack would be meeting with the School Planning and Management Team to discuss the search process.