Rockville Centre Education Foundation celebrates 2024 Gala honorees

The Rockville Centre Education Foundation will host its 32nd annual fundraising gala on April 6, at Gatsby on the Ocean at Jones Beach.

Founded in 1991, the foundation is a nonprofit that seeks to enhance the quality of public education by focusing on programs that enrich and expand classroom curriculum to foster innovation.

The gala is the primary source of the organization’s funding, and its donors support initiatives proposed by RVC school district staff to ensure that students are prepared to take on the global challenges that lie ahead of them. To date, the foundation has raised more than $1 million for programming.

This year’s honorees are Darren Raymar, the principal of Covert Elementary School for the past 25 years, and Brian Zuar, the district’s director of the arts, both of whom plan to retire in June.

“There is no one who quite compares to these two,” foundation President Mayda Kramer said. “Both have been outstanding, innovative educators in the school district.”

Both men have served on the foundation’s board of directors for more than 15 years and are beloved members of the school community, who Kramer said have served as exemplars of what the foundation is all about.

Raymar, 55, grew up in New Jersey, where he discovered his passion for education after spending several years working as a Hebrew school teacher and a camp counselor. He was a substitute teacher while earning a master’s in elementary education from Hofstra University in 1992, and the following year he began teaching fourth grade in the Lawrence school district.

In 1997, Raymar became the youngest school administrator in New York state when, at age 33, he was appointed assistant principal of Arrowhead Elementary School in the Three Village Central School District in East Setauket. Two years later he was named principal of Covert Elementary School in Rockville Centre.

Over the past two and a half decades, Raymar has become an integral member of the Rockville Centre and South Hempstead communities. He was a co-director of community education in Rockville Centre with his colleague Therese Cohen for many years, and has been an active participant in many districtwide committees and initiatives.

Raymar was president of the South Shore Administrators Association in 2002-2003, and in 2005 he created the Raymar Children’s Fund to help provide Covert Elementary students with extra activities during the school year. The fund also gives money, gifts and grants to organizations and families in need.

The education foundation honored him with the Ruth Fins Memorial Award in 2008, after which he joined its board. He has been an active member of the foundation for the past 15 years.

“I just love the organization,” Raymar said. “The only reason we fundraise is to be able to bring it back to the kids and schools.”

In 2015 he was named the Herald’s Person of the Year for his commitment to his children’s fund, which he said is his pride and joy.

“I’ve done the same job for 25 years, and I still love it,” Raymar said. “But it’s time for me to do something different.”

While he will leave with a heavy heart, he said, he is extremely pleased that U.S. News & World Report ranked Covert No. 10 among elementary schools on Long Island and No. 33 in the state.

Starting this summer, Raymar plans to spend more time with his parents, Janice and Ken, and his brother’s family, Brandon, Melinda, Sami and Ethan, as well as his Yorkie, Marvin, at their home in Long Beach.

He said he would continue to serve as a board member of the education foundation and the children’s fund. He will also work as a field supervisor for Molloy University, and has been writing a memoir, which he hopes to publish in 2025.

Zuar, 67, who is originally from Brooklyn, has been an educator for 44 years — 21 years in Catholic schools and the past 23 years in public schools.

From 1981 to 1999, he taught music at St. Francis Prep in Fresh Meadows, Queens, while working in church music programs in the Diocese of Brooklyn and the Archdiocese of New York. He also chaired the Commission on Church Music, and served as the seminary’s music professor and choir director. Choirs Zuar directed performed twice for Pope John Paul II, once in Rome and once during the pope’s visit in 1995.

Zuar later became the music coordinator for the Pleasantville School District in Westchester County, and for the past 20 years he has been the Rockville Centre district’s director of the arts.

“I really feel like a part of the community,” he said. “The district has such a great music and arts program. I had a great time. I hope I leave it better than when I found it.”

Zuar served as president of the Nassau County chapter of the New York State Council of Administrators of Music Education from 2010 to 2012, and was the executive director of professional development for the organization from 2009 to 2022.

He also spent 17 years on the education foundation’s board of directors.

“I am delighted to be honored by the education foundation,” Zuar said. “I was part of it for so long, and they’ve done so much for my music and arts program over the years. I’m just tickled to be honored.”

New to this year’s gala, the foundation will use Betterworld, an online fundraising platform, for bidding on silent auction items and raffle prizes. The website will go live on March 25.

For information on purchasing tickets and sponsorships for the event, visit RVCEdFoundation.org.