Members of the Derby Board of Education voted unanimously Wednesday to appoint William Vitelli, 46, principal at Derby Middle School.
Vitelli is the assistant principal at Joseph A. Foran High School in Milford.
His start date at Derby Middle School hasn’t been determined.
Vitelli, a Milford native, has more than 20 years classroom teaching experience in Stamford and Milford. He’s held the assistant principal job for two years.
He takes the helm at the middle school after a particularly rough patch. The school’s two top administrators resigned after questions were raised about they way they handled a written threat found in a girls’ bathroom in the school.
Derby school officials never fully explained how the response was mishandled, ducking behind the “personnel matter” mantra often used by public officials, but parents complained they were not apprised of the threat as the school went into a form of lockdown.
Vitelli will be paid an annual salary in the $120,000 range, Conway said.
Vitelli was one of 57 candidates for the job. School board members were impressed with Vitelli’s answers to their questions during a closed-door final job interview Wednesday.
Both Superintendent Matthew Conway and school board President Kenneth Marcucio Sr. said Vitelli is a disciplinarian who will be able to provide stability and strong leadership. That’s something parents said they wanted during the search for a new leader, officials said.
“It seems that he is going to be a very good disciplinarian,” Marcucio said. “That’s very important to us here because we want to get back on track.”
Vitelli is cousin to John Pagliaro, a legendary football player for Yale University who hailed from Derby.
He said he is excited to work in Derby and hopes to provide stability to the school.
“I hope through the work I do here (parents) will appreciate my leadership style,” Vitelli said.
