BY VINCENT TODARO
Staff Writer
Spotswood Superintendent of Schools Anthony E. Vaz during a library dedication ceremony in September. SPOTSWOOD — Next year will be the last for Superintendent of Schools Anthony E. Vaz.
Vaz announced last week that he will retire effective June 30, 2006. He is announcing the date early to give the Board of Education plenty of time to find his replacement, a task in which he will be personally involved. Vaz and board President Alan Bartlett will chair the search committee and will invite select members of the public to join the committee.
Vaz, who has served as superintendent for five years, is a throwback to the times when administrators would regularly mingle with students and know everyone’s name.
“We tried to talk him into saying,” Bartlett said. “He knows he’s welcome to stay.”
Vaz, 58, has worked in various roles in the Spotswood district for 16 years. He began as a principal, and then served as director of special services and special projects before being named superintendent.
He said the time simply feels right to step aside, and that he is in good health and wants to spend more time with his grandchildren.
“At this point, I’ve enjoyed my career,” he said.
Not all administrators, especially superintendents, can say that. Bartlett acknowledged that administrative turnover is generally high these days, a situation he attributes to “politics and boards.”
The atmosphere is different in Spotswood, however, in part because of a smaller Board of Education. The board has just five members, along with a representative from sending districts Milltown and Helmetta. Most boards have nine members.
“The superintendent does not have to juggle as many personalities and agendas,” he said.
The school district’s opinion of Vaz was seen last year when he was given a contract extension. The original contract would have expired in June. The district replaced it with one that runs into 2006, with an option for the next year. It essentially added a year to his prior contract, but that year included no salary increase, Bartlett said.
“He felt he owed the district something and stayed a year extra,” Bartlett said.
School officials also surprised Vaz in September when, during ceremonies to celebrate the completion of $16 million in school additions and renovations, they announced they were naming the Memorial Middle School’s new library in honor of the superintendent.
When he was a student, Vaz recalled, he had no intention of working in education. He wanted to be a lawyer. However, after taking a substitute teaching job, the education bug bit him.
He began in 1969 as a teacher in Manchester Township. He taught sixth grade and special education, also teaching for one year in Barnegat Township, but eventually became a principal in Manchester.
As he prepares for his retirement, a recent e-mail from a former student reminded him of why he chose his vocation.
The student, a sixth-grader of Vaz’s in 1970, had seen an article about the library dedication and wrote his former teacher. The student had lost his mother while in Vaz’s class, and in the e-mail he credited Vaz with helping him cope. Now a resident of Georgia, he also said Vaz prepared him to achieve success.
“To me, this is what it’s all about,” Vaz said. “I remember him. I probably remember all the students I ever had.”