20 Years, And Now the Principal
She came to Rye twenty years ago. And now she is the principal.
On Tuesday evening, the Board of Education appointed Suzanne Kelly-Short as the principal of Rye High School. Short has been serving as interim principal since last June, after Derek Schuelein resigned under a cloud and an interim appointment of Dr. Martin Fitzgerald.
Want to know more about the new principal who has worked in our schools for twenty years? Read Meet Suzanne Kelly Short, Interim Principal, Rye High School.
From: Eric Byrne
Date: Tue, Jan 25, 2022 at 9:04 PM
Subject: RHS Principal Announcement
To: Rye City School District Recipients
Dear RCSD Community,
I am pleased to share that at tonight’s Board of Education meeting, Ms. Suzanne Kelly-Short was appointed Principal of Rye High School.
Over the past year, the District has been engaged in a comprehensive search process to find Rye High School’s next principal. As is the case for administrative searches, a representative search committee was formed. For this search, it was composed of High School faculty, support staff, students and parents, and District administrators. The initial search response in the spring of 2021 was more limited than we had hoped and the size of the resulting candidate pool was quite small. After interviewing the top candidates, the committee recommended the District pause the search and resume in the winter in hopes of finding a larger pool of candidates.
The District re-started the search late this fall with the same search committee and did locate a larger pool of potential candidates. After an extensive interview process involving teachers, students, parents, support staff, and administrators, three finalists were invited to participate in a full day of group interviews with RHS students, parents, staff, faculty, District administrators, and members of the Board of Education. A final interview was conducted by the Board of Education. It became clear through the process that the best candidate for the job was already in the job. Suzanne Kelly-Short, the Interim Principal, demonstrated outstanding leadership skills from her first day in July of 2021. Having served as one of RHS’s two Assistant Principals for the past seven years, she knows the school and community extremely well and deftly stepped up to lead the school through the ever-challenging obstacles posed by COVID-19. Ms. Kelly-Short is a strong instructional leader who demonstrates The Rye Commitment in her daily work supporting students, staff, and the Rye community.
Suzanne Kelly-Short joined the District in 2002 as an English teacher in the High School. In 2013, she served as the Middle and High School English Department Chair. She was appointed Assistant Principal at the High School in 2014 and served in that role for seven years. Prior to coming to Rye, she taught at Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains.
Ms. Kelly-Short has a B.A. in English – Secondary Education – from Fredonia State University, an M.A. in English Literature from Lehman College, and an advanced graduate certificate in Educational Leadership from SUNY Stony Brook.
A heartfelt ‘thank you’ to all the committee members for their time and effort during the extended search process. The insights and feedback of the committee were invaluable.
Please join me in congratulating Ms. Kelly-Short on her appointment as Principal of Rye High School.
Sincerely,
Eric Byrne, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools
