Gribbin Elementary has a new principal

The Glen Cove City School District Board of Education has appointed Randy Arnold as principal of Gribbin Elementary School for the 2023-2024 school year. Arnold succeeds Francine Santoro, who retired in June.

Since she was a child, Arnold was motivated to expand her academic career. Her parents, immigrants from Jamaica, always encouraged her to be a lifelong learner as they navigated the cultural differences they faced in the United States. 

“Language wasn’t an issue because they spoke English,” Arnold said. “But just learning a new way, and a new mindset was a challenge for them. I’m indebted to them for is the fact that they instilled the value of learning to be lifelong learners forever.”

The 53-year-old is a Queens’s transplant and moved to Baldwin as a teenager where she attended Holy Trinity High School in Hicksville. She graduated at 16. 

Upon entering Molloy University, Arnold’s parents gave her three career options — doctor, lawyer, or engineer. She chose to study civil engineering under duress. Her passion was in education. She says she loves watching “children’s lightbulbs” go off, and watching them become empowered through education. 

“I went to school with wide eyes and thinking that engineering was going to be my thing,” Arnold said. “But it wasn’t, and then ended up taking my foot off the gas and thinking about what I really wanted, and that’s how education came into play.”

She attended Queens College for a masters in literacy. After graduating, she was asked to return as an adjunct professor. She taught young teachers how to hone the craft of literacy while also teaching at the Baldwin Union Elementary School. This was all while she balanced her home life, raising her eldest son, John. 

After two years of teaching at Queens College, Arnold realized she didn’t want to juggle being an elementary school teacher, an adjunct professor and a mother. She left her position at the college but continued teaching in Baldwin. At one point the district offered her a position teaching a program dedicated to science, technology, engineering, and math. As the district’s only STEM teacher, Arnold took on the new teaching position and rotated her time among the district’s five elementary schools. At one point, she visited the Boston Children’s Museum to get a global insight on what STEM could be for her students. She learned about scientific standards, which helped develop her program. She also visited Google headquarters in California to observe their collaboration techniques as well as to further develop her knowledge in STEM. 

After teaching in the Baldwin school district for 20 years, Arnold felt ready for change. While teaching her STEM students online during the coronavirus pandemic, she saw the gravity of the event on her classes, and felt disheartened seeing her students coping with online learning. 

She decided to pursue an administrative role to share her decades of experience in a higher position. She left the Baldwin School District in 2021 and became assistant principal at Freeport Public Schools in 2021. 

After two years, Arnold  left to become the principal of Gribbin Elementary School. One of her goals is to expand students’ talents in creativity, critical thinking and collaboration. She wants students to fall in love with the art of learning and encourage them to be inquisitive and ask questions so the next stages in their education and lives will be less challenging. 

Arnold said she wants the culture of the school to further expand social-emotional learning, a process through which children, adolescents and adults learn skills to support healthy development and relationships. 

“We are delighted to introduce our newly appointed elementary school principal to the district,” Maria L. Rianna, the district’s superintendent, said, “We are confident that her exceptional skills, dedication, and experience will greatly benefit our students. Together, we will work towards providing the highest quality education to ensure the success of our children.”