Danbury Superintendent Announces Retirement After 15 Years

DANBURY, CT — Superintendent Sal Pascarella has announced he will be retiring in June. He has been with the school district for 15 years, and an educator for 50.

Pascarella called the current school his most challenging, as well as "one of the most rewarding," in a letter to the community Thursday.

"I am blessed to have spent the closing years of my career in such a place of caring and compassionate people. I have had the honor of working with a highly professional and knowledgeable administrative team who supported my vision and worked hard to implement the very best for our students. Our dedicated, collaborative group of teachers and staff consistently put the best interests of Danbury’s diverse student body at the center of their decision making and actions," Pascarella wrote.

He leaves as the district is juggling a couple of projects meant to ease the school system's chronic overcrowding. These include the proposed $93 million Danbury Academy, which would be located within the Summit development, and the less pricey Ellsworth Project which will add seven classrooms to the Family & Community Engagement Center on Osborne Street.

Steering the ship of schools through the choppy seas of the coronavirus was a trial, Pascarella said, but one that left the district stronger for it:

"While the challenges of operating in a pandemic have been great, the silver lining has been our ability to usher in a new age in technology access for our students, giving every student access to a laptop, shoring up our infrastructure to support all of the new technology, and intensively training teachers in the new world of blended learning."

Pascarella said he was most proud of the development of many of the district's employees who "started with us as teachers and have grown to lead student-centered teams, administrative teams, and whole buildings with such great success, because we recognized their many gifts and created space for them to achieve, ultimately to the benefit of our students."

Pascarella's last day will be June 30.