Roanoke Avenue Elementary School will have a new principal in the coming school year.
Longtime principal Thomas Payton is retiring at the end of this school year and will pass the baton to Jessica Farmer, 36, who currently serves as assistant principal at Pulaski Street Intermediate School.
Farmer said her focus will be on building relationships, maintaining high expectations for students and continuing the work already underway at the school.
“I’m excited to join Roanoke and to continue the great work that they have put in place,” Farmer said in an interview Thursday morning. “They’ve made amazing gains, and it’s all because of the faculty and staff and the families there.”
The appointment marks another step in a career that has included experience in general education, special education, English as a New Language instruction and curriculum development.
A 2007 William Floyd High School graduate, Farmer earned her undergraduate degree in early childhood education from St. Joseph’s College in 2011. She began her career as a teacher assistant in the Eastport-South Manor School District before teaching at Riverhead Charter School, where she worked in both special education and general education classrooms in third and fourth grades.
She later joined the South Huntington school district, where she spent eight years as an ENL teacher before serving as a districtwide literacy coach working with kindergarten through sixth grade classrooms across five elementary buildings. She was named assistant principal at Pulaski two years ago.
Curriculum work has long been her passion, she said.
“That’s what I love,” she said. “It’s my drive.”
Her experience spans students from kindergarten through sixth grade, something she believes will help strengthen the transition for Roanoke students as they eventually move on to Pulaski.
Source: RiverheadLOCAL
