John Haney became Cranbury’s new chief school administrator July 2
By: Lacey Korevec
Cranbury School’s new Chief School Administrator John Haney wants to know more about where he is before deciding where he wants to go.
"I’m trying to learn as much as I can about the school and I’m trying to meet people and reach out to members of the community," he said Monday. "When you come to a place and you’re new, you want to learn as much as you can about it before you start implementing things."
While students may be off until September, the new administrator is just getting down to business formulating his plans for the rest of the summer and sculpting even bigger ones for the upcoming year.
Mr. Haney, 49, of Hopewell, took over the administrator post previously held by Carol Malouf on July 2 and will earn $128,000 this year. Before coming to Cranbury, he worked as principal of Clinton Public School, a K-8, single-school district in Hunterdon County.
Now that he’s settling into his new position, Mr. Haney said things at Cranbury School are busy, but running smoothly. He said he’s been hard at work creating the school’s master schedule, checking on the progress of getting ready to reopen in September, attending curriculum meetings, interviewing candidates for open positions and getting to know his colleagues.
"It’s a very busy place and that’s a good thing," he said. "You can tell there’s a lot of activity and that’s important because everything we as adults do is for the benefit of the children. So, we work hard to provide the children with a real quality educational experience."
Mr. Haney said he’s also working with staff members on choosing a theme that will interest students and can be woven into school activities throughout the year. Though they’re still in the process of brainstorming and haven’t made any decisions yet, he said they’re considering a green theme that would focus on environmental activism and awareness or one that would focus on a class buddy system, partnering older students with younger ones for activities throughout the year.
"We would like a yearlong kind of theme and we would have activities throughout the year that support the theme and I’m thinking we would also want a culminating activity at the end of the year that would really celebrate that theme," he said. "These are ideas I’ve worked on in the past and I think they’ve been successful and we’ll investigate them and see where they take us."
With the summer having just begun, Mr. Haney said it’s too early to talk about long-term goals for the upcoming year and beyond. But he knows he wants to continue the tradition of excellence he said is already in place at Cranbury School.
"I want to continue having an open-door policy with students and parents," he said. "And I want to build on the many traditions and things that you already have. No place is perfect and we’ll take a look at areas we want to improve and we’ll continue to nurture areas that we think are already excellent."
In the meantime, Mr. Haney said his weekends will be booked with family trips to the Jersey Shore and more summer fun with his family, including his wife, Cindy, his 14-year-old son, Brian, and his 9-year-old daughter, Laura.
"I want to spend as much time as I can with my family during the summer because it gets harder during the school year," he said. "I’m teaching my daughter guitar. My daughter runs with me on occasion. We belong to a swim club. We take the kids there, do some swimming and things. I’m gonna try to get in some reading too."
Aside from bringing his family to the movies to check out some summer hits including "Shrek 3" and "Ratatouille," Mr. Haney said he also plans to bring them to Cranbury for some community events between now and September so that they can get to know township residents.
"We want to be a part of the community," he said. "I want to be visible."
Mr. Haney said he’s thankful to Ms. Malouf for helping him get settled in the new position and answering his questions.
"Everyone I worked with so far has been so helpful and has bent over backwards to help me and they’ve been just a joy to work with," he said. "The secretaries, the custodians, the teachers, they’ve been just wonderful. I’m just thankful for such a great opportunity. I’m thankful to be working in such a great place. I enjoy coming to work."

