Principal leaving Performing Arts
By Peter Simon
NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: 06/17/08 6:40 AM
Kevin E. Kazmierczak, principal of the Buffalo Academy for Visual and Performing Arts for the past eight years, is leaving next month to become principal of Tonawanda Senior High School.
Kazmierczak, 46, was a key figure in Performing Arts’ move last September to the former Buffalo Traditional School, which was reconstructed at a cost of $35.8 million to meet the needs of students studying visual arts, communication, music, theater and dance.
He said Monday that he hopes to some day be a superintendent or central office administrator and feels a variety of experiences will help him in that regard.
“You have to be a very seasoned principal,” Kazmierczak said. “You have to have success in different situations.”
Kazmierczak, who will make $108,000 in his new post, served as supervisor of music in Buffalo for one year and taught music in West Seneca and North Tonawanda before that.
He will replace Susan Frey, who took a position as assistant superintendent in the Depew School District last year. Mary Beth Scullion has served as interim principal at Tonawanda Senior High while a search was conducted for a successor. Kazmierczak said he was approached about applying for the job.
Buffalo school system sources said relations between Kazmierczak and Superintendent James A. Williams soured in the last few years and that those differences contributed to Kazmierczak’s departure. The sources cited these factors:
• Kazmierczak recently proposed a vote of no-confidence against Williams at a meeting of school principals, for which Williams publicly criticized him.
• Six students were returned to Performing Arts after assaulting another student in 2007, while the student who was attacked was advised not to return to the school for his own safety. Williams, who said he allowed the students to return to Performing Arts under strict conditions, reportedly felt Kazmierczak was not adequately supportive of that decision.
• Kazmierczak was frustrated by what he considered overly scripted lesson plans from City Hall that, he felt, thwarted innovative teaching methods.
Kazmierczak declined to comment on those issues.
