By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Cranbury Chief School Administrator and Principal Susan L. Genco received a new contract that keeps her running the district through June 2022.
The five-year-deal, approved by the Board of Education Nov. 14, is retroactive to July, school business administrator Nicole Petrone said Tuesday. Genco’s salary for the current school year will be $147,794, but she can earn merit pay to increase her total compensation. The amount of that bonus was not immediately available.
“I am looking forward to working collaboratively with all members of the Cranbury community to achieve the goals and objectives established in our five-year-strategic plan,” Genco said by email Tuesday. “I am grateful for this continued opportunity.”
School board members gave high marks to the woman hired in 2011 to lead the school.
“She’s a strong educator, she’s a strong leader,” said board member Evelyn Spann by phone Tuesday.
During Genco’s tenure, Cranbury was recognized as a Blue Ribbon School by the federal government, last year.
“The students of Cranbury School have benefited with Dr. Genco at the helm and will continue to appreciate positive changes as she and the board execute the strategic plan,” board president Jennifer Cooke said Tuesday by email.
The timing of the deal comes not long after the Princeton school board, in September, approved a new five-year-deal for Superintendent of Schools Stephen C. Cochrane, through the end of June 2022. The communities have had a send-receive relationship for Cranbury’s eighth-graders to attend Princeton High School.
Spann, the Cranbury representative on the Princeton school board, said Genco and Cochrane work well together.
“I think personally, I feel lucky to have her,” Spann said. “And I feel that going on both sides from Route One, for Princeton and Cranbury, she and Steve are very aligned in their philosophies for education. So I think it’s important that we have leaders in Cranbury and Princeton that are aligned in how they think about educating children.”
