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Claudia Smith

Miller Avenue School second graders in Alice Steinbrecher’s class with local veterans Photo courtesy SWRCSD

Miller Avenue School hosted an inaugural Miller Avenue Veterans Day Parade on Nov. 8. Principal Claudia Smith extended the invitation to all community veterans and received dozens of responses. Veterans were welcomed to the school with coffee and refreshments before walking alongside their cherished Miller Avenue students through the hallways. Patriotic music played, and red, white and blue flags were waved by students throughout the hallways to welcome and thank the veterans for their service to the country.

“This was truly a memorable and historic experience for our students and staff,” Smith said. “It was wonderful to thank these American heroes in person.”

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Port Jefferson High School. File photo by Elana Glowatz

Officials are finishing up a large staffing shift in the Port Jefferson schools, recently choosing a new assistant principal for grades nine through 12.

Kevin Bernier is joining the Royals from the William Floyd school district, where he was an assistant high school principal and a career and technical education administrator.

“We are certain that Mr. Bernier, who comes to us with years of administrative experience, will serve our district well and help to ensure that all of our students receive the personalized, rigorous education that our community has come to expect,” Port Jefferson Superintendent Ken Bossert said in a statement this week.

Bernier, who will start at Earl L. Vandermeulen High School on Aug. 24, has a background as a secondary English teacher and is a member of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and of the National Council of Teachers of English, the Port Jefferson school district said. He is a Sayville resident.

The position Bernier will hold opened up after former high school Principal Matthew Murphy announced he would not return for the 2015-16 school year. Port Jefferson officials promoted assistant principal Christine Austen to Murphy’s role, vacating her spot.

As assistant principal, Austen previously handled all grade levels in the district, but officials split that job in two — creating one assistant principal position at the high school and one for the elementary and middle schools. Bernier’s primary education counterpart is former Middle County school district employee Claudia Smith, whom the school board appointed last month to serve the Edna Louise Spear Elementary School and Port Jefferson Middle School.

Those shifts are not the only staffing changes this school year — there is also a new principal at the middle school and a new district special education director.

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Photo by Elana Glowatz

A Miller Place official will change his rally colors to purple and white this summer.

The Port Jefferson school board hired Robert Neidig as the district’s new middle school principal on July 28, a couple of months after three-year principal Antonio Santana announced he would not return to the position for the 2015-16 school year.

Neidig, an assistant principal at North Country Road Middle School for the past eight years, will start at Port Jefferson on Aug. 17, a letter to the community from Superintendent Ken Bossert said.

A recent press release from the Port Jefferson school district said Neidig has two master’s degrees from Stony Brook University and a doctorate in educational administration from Dowling College, and started his career as a social studies teacher in Babylon before becoming an administrator.

At Miller Place, he “fostered a positive relationship between the school and community, initiated character education programs to improve the school climate, facilitated the implementation of the Common Core Learning Standards and served as chairperson for four academic departments,” the press release said.

Until Neidig officially makes the move to Royals country, the middle school has an interim principal, Leonard Bozza, who was once the Longwood High School principal and has previously served in interim roles in Port Jefferson: once as an assistant principal and once as the high school principal.

In addition to appointing the new Port Jefferson Middle School leader, the school board also added Brentwood’s head of speech and hearing, Jodi Cahill, as the new director of special education and Claudia Smith, currently a Middle Country school district staffer, as the elementary and middle school assistant principal.

Cahill has a master’s in speech language pathology from LIU Post and served on Brentwood’s special education committee, the press release said. Smith has been an elementary teacher for 18 years and has a master’s from Dowling College.

“Each was selected based upon outstanding vision, strong content knowledge, and the ability to collaborate with all stakeholders in an effective manner,” Bossert said of the three new staffers.

The district is still looking for an assistant principal for Earl L. Vandermeulen High School, and Bossert said the goal is to have one appointed before school starts.

Neidig, Cahill and Smith are part of a new lineup throughout Port Jefferson schools. In addition to replacing Santana, the district had to find a replacement for Matthew Murphy, the former high school principal, who announced his departure a few months before Santana. Officials recently promoted Christine Austen to the position from her role as the assistant principal for grades pre-k through 12.

Smith is absorbing Austen’s former elementary and middle school duties and the educator who is hired as the high school’s assistant principal will complete that transition.

“This is an exciting time in the Port Jefferson school district,” Bossert said in the press release. “[It is] a time filled with opportunities for growth and development as new leaders join the team.”