Welcoming ‘Mr. O’ to LWA

The goals we had in mind were stabilization, globalization and leadership. And the board has fulfilled every one of those.”

Vince Gerbino, President, LWA board of directors

Noted LWA graduates

Lawrence Woodmere Academy was formed in 1990, merging Lawrence Country Day School and Woodmere Academy, which traces its history to 1912. Some notable names have passed through its hallways.

Hall of Fame sportscaster Bob Wolff: class of 1938.

Elizabeth Glaser (née Meyer), founder of the Pediatric AIDS Foundation: class of 1965.

Jake Burton Carpenter, the father of modern snowboarding: class of 1968.

David Kessler, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner: class of 1969.

Woodmere resident Ann Salpeter Shockett, president of the National Federation of Republican Women: class of 1970.

Neil Levin, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, who died in the Sept. 11 attacks: class of 1972.

Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal lawyer, now serving a three-year prison sentence: class of 1984.

Source: LWA Centennial

After a difficult beginning to 2019, Lawrence Woodmere Academy is rebounding as the year ends with the dual announcements of a new headmaster and an effort to establish a sister school in China that is scheduled to open next September.

Brian O’Connell, 52, the principal of Scholars’ Academy in Rockaway Park, was introduced as the new head of school at LWA’s faculty holiday party on Dec. 11. Vince Gerbino, president of the school’s board of directors, also announced that the nonsectarian private school in Woodmere was joining forces with the China Education Network and Kaisa, a Chinese investment group, to create the LWA Asia International School in Shenzhen, a city that borders Hong Kong, in an area that is known as China’s Silicon Valley. Shenzhen has a population of more than 12.5 million.

“2019 has been a crazy year, a transitional year for Lawrence Woodmere Academy, but we had some goals in mind when we started out in 2019,” Gerbino said at the party. “The goals we had in mind were stabilization, globalization and leadership. And the board has fulfilled every one of those.”

After two incidents of long-term sexual abuse came to light in 2018, the board forced out Headmaster Alan Bernstein in January, the board was reconstituted, and administrator duties were redistributed.

Lifelong Five Towns resident and LWA summer camp director Barbra Barth Feldman, who was named head of school in January, died on Aug. 8. Later that month, veteran New York City educator Mary Barton was named interim head of school. She is expected to remain as a consultant to help set up the school in China. O’Connell’s first day is March 2.

“We owe a debt of gratitude to Mary,” Gerbino said. “She came at a very tough time and heartbreaking moment for us. She not only filled some tremendous shoes, but became part of the LWA fabric almost instantly. She and I have been working together very, very closely over the last few months, and I think she is part of the LWA family already.”

Mr. O’s story

O’Connell, a Rockaway native and resident, spoke to the teachers and administrators at the party. Summarizing his career with colloquial language and humor, the winner of several education awards — including this year’s Blackboard Award for Excellence in Education Leadership, from New York Family magazine, and the Daily News’ Hometown Hero Award in 2012 — laid out his vision.

“The reality is, we’re going to fix the infrastructure, we’re going to leverage whatever resources and partnerships we have and create to give you the state-of-the-art technology you need to be more efficient at your work and the kids to be more efficient learners,” O’Connell said. “We’re going to fuse the best practices that are already existing in LWA with the most contemporary teaching practices that are out there on the street right now, and we’re probably going to invent a few on the way.”

If not for some sage advice from his mother, Dominica Toto, who’s now 91, O’Connell might be sitting in a corner office of a Manhattan office building. “When I was a young man, I was … interviewing with investment banks and brokerage firms,” he told the Herald. “She said, ‘You could never sit still, and teachers are never bored.’ She worked in Far Rockaway High School and scrubbed pots and pans. That put me through college. She had some insight that teaching is exciting, and put the bug in my head.”

He began substitute teaching, and got his first full-time position as a phys. ed. teacher at Public School 203, in the Mill Basin section of Brooklyn, in 1991. Then he was assigned to P.S. 236, also in Mill Basin, as an early childhood reading/math intervention and fifth grade teacher. There he became known as “Mr. O,” and was eventually promoted to assistant principal.

One of his mentors was the late Irving Rahinsky, a resident of Hewlett who was the principal of P.S. 236 for 30 years before he retired. He died in 2005. In 2003, O’Connell was named principal of the Belle Harbor School, P.S. 114.

When Barton became the principal of P.S. 236, she oversaw O’Connell’s development as an educator. “First of all, he’s a very strong person — he’s very committed, very committed to education,” she said. “He looks to bring new and exciting initiatives to equip students with the skills they need for the 21st century. The students are the beneficiaries at any school he’s a part of.”

O’Connell launched the Scholars’ Academy Gifted Program as a sixth-grade pilot program at P.S. 114 in 2004. The following year, he was the founding principal of Scholars’ Academy Middle School. In 2007 he was the founding principal of Scholars’ Academy High School. The academy is now a sixth- through 12th-grade public school.

O’Connell said he wanted to push LWA to the “next level,” by improving on what he believes is the school’s excellence by creating more rigorous instruction. First, however, he must deal with the school’s recent past, whose details can easily be found through a routine internet search.

“Step One is to be extremely visible, and make it visibly clear to students and clear to staff that we are going to prevent untoward interaction,” O’Connell said, adding that the internet poses dangers to children and adults, and that lessons on how to make difficult decisions could be part of a program of “preventive education.”

China and the future

In January, Barton, Gerbino and board member Michael Nussbaum will head to China to meet with the China Education Network and begin setting up the LWA Asia International School. When filled to its planned capacity, it will be a pre-K-to-12th grade school. The network is an international education corporation that works in partnership with a group of universities and schools in the U.S. and China on educational programs and services.

Barton, who has 34 years of experience as an educator, said that the school will be bilingual — English and Mandarin — and use the same curriculum as LWA: Global Scholars, whose aim is to produce students with an awareness of diverse cultures who are well-informed about world events.

“My role with the China Education Network is to ensure that the LWA curriculum, LWA course and the school life is replicated and the children learn with a more progressive way of teaching and learning opportunities,” Barton said. “The [Chinese] students will have an opportunity to study here, and the children here will have opportunities to study in China.” Details still need to be ironed out, she added.

Lifelong Woodmere resident Lindsay Breslauer, a 2007 LWA graduate, heads the pre-school and serves as alumni relations coordinator, organizing events such as the alumni basketball game, which was held on Dec. 7. She said she believes the school is moving in the right. “I love the changes planned for the school, and want nothing more than to see the school succeed,” Breslauer said at the party. “. . . We have so much to offer.”