Hanover
Lisa Sjostrom, 54, will start in Hanover on July 1 as principal of the K-5 Ray School. Members of the Hanover School Board and SAU 70 Superintendent Frank Bass plan to pay a site visit to the Prosper Valley School on Monday, but have settled on Sjostrom as their choice, according to a letter sent to parents by Bass and Hanover School Board Chairwoman Kelly McConnell.
In a phone interview on Friday, Bass said Sjostrom is “visionary, inspiring, obviously very bright. She knows elementary education inside and out, and child development and what’s appropriate at various educational levels. Those things jumped out at us right away.”
Sjostrom — pronounced SHOW strom — said she wasn’t looking to apply for a new job but did so when she saw an opportunity in Hanover, which is known for its talented teachers and supportive community of parents.
“I am absolutely overjoyed and thrilled to be asked to lead this community,” Sjostrom said, noting she is keen on “taking a great school, by all accounts a really strong school, and making it even stronger.”
Sjostrom majored in economics at Yale, where she graduated in 1984, and later earned a Master of Education degree from Harvard, according to her resume. She taught in Brooklyn; was project director for the Harvard Eating Disorders Center; ran a consulting firm called Helping Kids Thrive; then was a school administrator in Massachusetts, including six years as principal of Chatham Middle School on Cape Cod.
Sjostrom moved to the Upper Valley in 2015 to become principal of the newly formed Prosper Valley School, which serves K-6 students from Pomfret and Bridgewater. She helped launch a number of programs, including an after-school drama program and mixed-grade seminars on such topics as green gardening and sound engineering.
Alice Thomason Worth, the Woodstock-based superintendent of the Windsor Central Supervisory Union, said Sjostrom is leaving Prosper Valley with a “solid foundation” her successor can build upon.
“I hired Lisa to open the new Prosper Valley School because we needed someone with vision, good communications skills, ability to bring people together around a common purpose, and someone who knows deeply about teaching and learning to ensure all kids had the opportunity to meet their potential,” Worth said via email.
“She has demonstrated all of these skills/attributes and also proved to be sensitive, warm, and engaging. We will miss her tremendously … but are grateful that she launched our joint district project successfully.”
Bass, who is retiring at the end of the school year, said he consulted with both the Hanover School Board and incoming Superintendent Jay Badams about Sjostrom’s hiring. Her contract, including salary and length of the agreement, are still being finalized, Bass said. He said the Ray School principal job has paid around $102,000 annually.
The other finalist for the job was Kevin Cotter, the current interim Ray School principal and a former Hanover School Board member.
Cotter, who enjoyed support from some teachers and parents, took the job in May after former Ray School Principal Matthew Laramie resigned in February 2016 amid questions about expense account charges.
The letter from Bass and McConnell to parents acknowledged that the decision to hire Sjostrom over Cotter “will not be met with unanimous agreement from all members of our community. To the extent allowable, we have made an effort to make this a transparent and inclusive process.”
Bass also said school officials were committed to honoring an agreement that Cotter would return to the classroom as a sixth-grade teacher at the Richmond Middle School, a job he left to become interim principal.
“He bailed us out in tough straits last year,” Bass said.
Sjostrom, who has been living in South Woodstock with her son, a third-grader who was adopted from Russia, said she hopes to move to Norwich or Lyme to be part of the greater Hanover community.
News staff writer John P. Gregg can be reached at jgregg@vnews.com.