P.S. 234 Principal Announces Departure

By Carl Glassman
JUNE 2, 2006

"He's kicking like a crazy child," Sandy Bridges, the principal at P.S. 234, proclaimed proudly as she sat for an interview last month in her office at the school.

That child, due to be born in early September, is the reason that Bridges will not be returning in the fall to the post she took over from Anna Switzer three years ago, at the school where she taught for eight years before that.


"I've waited a long time to do this," said Bridges, 38, who will move with her husband of six months, Matthew Lugar, to the couple's country home in Connecticut. "I always wanted to have kids. The time has come and I'm thrilled."

On June 1, Bridges sent a letter home to parents telling them of her decision to leave at the end of the school year. She informed them that her choice for a replacement is Lisa Ripperger, an assistant principal at P.S. 183 on the Upper East Side.

Ripperger will be the school's fourth principal since it opened at Chambers and Greenwich Streets in 1988. But she will be the first to come from outside P.S. 234. (Longtime principal Anna Switzer first served there as an assistant principal.)

"There are a lot of smart people in this school community," Bridges said, "and what parents need to know, which is calming, is that there will be a smart person at the helm."

"She's always appreciated this school," Bridges added. "She's checked out the classrooms over the years and been curious about how social studies is taught."

Before taking her current position at P.S. 183, Ripperger was an assistant principal in the Bronx; a consultant to San Diego's Chancellor for Instruction, Anthony Alvarado, the former superintendent of District 2 in New York City; and a teacher at P.S. 321 in Park Slope. She has an M.A. in elementary education from Columbia University's Teachers College.

Offering apologies, Ripperger referred a request for an interview to a supervisor, Karen Ames, who said that, on orders from Region 9 Superintendent Peter Heany, it was too early in the appointment process for her to speak to the press.

Ripperger will hold the title of "interim acting principal" and Bridges said she had not closed the door on returning to the school after a year's hiatus. But the chances of her wanting to be a principal again appear slim.

In the interview, she spoke about the "daunting task" of heading a school and her feelings of missing the teacher-child relationship in the classroom.

"As a principal, you see the kids and there's a lot of little acquaintances and they're very dreamy. But I don't have the same bond with them. It makes me wonder if this is the right kind of thing for me to be doing."

Bridges complained about the mounds of paper work demanded by the city's education bureaucracy, a behemoth she termed as "dysfunctional" in many ways.

"I look at it and I say policy is being made by lawyers, not by educators," she said.

For now, Bridges' focus is on her "fork in the road," as she called it, when she will have the luxury of time to figure out her professional future as she contemplates life with a child of her own.

She said that there is much she will miss about P.S. 234, but she expressed no misgivings about her decision to leave her job.

"I'd be out of here at 3:15 and I'd probably have to miss a lot of work," she said, imagining a life combining new motherhood with her job as principal. "I don't think I'd be as calm and as nurturing as I could be to my little munchkin."