LaValva leaving Primary School principal post

BY LAYLI WHITE
Staff Writer

After only one year as principal of Red Bank Primary School, Steve LaValva is leaving at the end of this school year to take a position with the Rumson school system.

When a new principal is appointed, he or she will be the fourth principal for the school since the 2000-01 school year.

At the end of that year, Yvonne Marti de Daniels left the district and was replaced by Karen Leoncavallo. She left the district at the end of the 2002-03 school year and was replaced by LaValva.

In recent years the district has also seen turnover in the top administrator’s spot at the borough’s middle school as well.

Current middle school principal Richard Nolan has been running the school for just a few years. Prior to that, the position had been filled on an interim basis by Sean Cina. He took the job after Dr. Dorothy Carcamo was promoted to fill the district’s director of curriculum and staff development post in 2001.

The district had made plans to name Dr. Henry Major Poteat, then the assistant principal at the middle school, to the top job, but he surprised the district in August 2001 by announcing his departure to take a job in a Pennsylvania school district

Calls to numerous members of the Board of Education were made seeking comment on LaValva’s departure and its effect on the district. Only W. David Tarver, who was out of the state, returned the call before press time and he declined to comment at this time.

Superintendent of Schools Dr. John Krewer also declined to comment on LaValva’s departure beyond saying the administrator will be missed.

The superintendent expressed regret at the district’s losing LaValva, praising the great job he has done in his short stay in the district.

"They [the Rumson School District] sought him out," Krewer said.

LaValva worked as a fifth-grade teacher at Deane Porter School in Rumson from 1998-2000 and worked in that district as an administrative intern as well. He said he is looking forward to returning as a principal to the district where he got his start, but he also said leaving Red Bank Primary School was a very hard decision to make.