A new era of leadership is on the horizon for schools in Fairport Harbor.
District superintendent Domenic Paolo has announced that he will retire on July 1.
He issued official notice of his decision in a recent letter to the Fairport Harbor School Board.
“I am committed to the long-term success of this neighborhood, and that will never change,” Paolo wrote. “After much deliberation, I have come to the conclusion that now is the best time for the school district to begin the search for its new superintendent.”
The board approved his retirement at its December 20 meeting.
Board members Karen Bidlack, Bill Lukshaw and Sherry Maruschak all voted in favor of a motion allowing Paolo to retire, while panel chairman Tom Fazekas abstained. The fifth board member, Doug Schaefer, was absent from the December 20 meeting.
In an email exchange with The News-Herald on Dec. 21, Fazekas declined to comment on why he abstained on the motion.
Paolo served as Fairport Harbor Schools superintendent for about 16 years. When he retires in July, he will complete a 36-year career in education.
Prior to being named superintendent, he held the position of assistant principal at Chardon High School.
Paolo, said he learned of the opening at Fairport from Joseph Bergant, who led the district from 1998 to 2005. Bergant left Fairport to become superintendent of Chardon Schools.
After Bergant left, the district hired Bill Clark as acting superintendent, Paolo said.
“(Bergant) thought I would be good for the job, and I tried never to let him down,” he said at the Dec. 20 school board meeting.
Paolo applied for the position of superintendent in the spring of 2006. He took up his post as district manager on July 1 of this year.
Paolo said he originally planned to retire about 3½ years ago. He anticipated his retirement would coincide with Fairport Harding High School’s Class of 2020 becoming the first graduating class in district history in which all students would earn college credit or a career degree.
This achievement achieved a key goal of a district plan known as the 20/20 Vision.
Since then, the Classes of 2021 and 2022 have also produced a 100% rate of graduates earning either college credit or a career degree.
“Maintaining this vision is something that I will be proud of, probably the rest of my life,” said Paolo.
However, he postponed his 2020 retirement plans when the district found itself in a favorable position to obtain substantial public funding for the construction of a new K-12 school.
Obtaining this $47 million allocation from the Ohio Facilities Building Commission was contingent on the district voters passing a $5 million bond issue.
“So I stayed an extra year to lock in this new school (funding) with the bond issue,” Paolo said.
Voters in the district approved the November 2021 bond issue by a 70% to 30% margin, according to the final official results of the Lake County Board of Elections.
The K-12 school will be built on the current Harding Middle and High School property at 329 Vine St. Plans call for the new school to be built on green space adjacent to Harding – along New Fourth Street , near the intersection of Vine – rather than in the current building footprint.
The new school is expected to be built by the start of the 2025-26 school year.
After the 2021 bond issue was approved, Paolo told the school board that he thought it was the perfect time for him to retire. But he said the board asked him to stay on as superintendent until the district imposes a replacement levy on the November 2022 ballot.
The substitution levy was established by combining two emergency levies, which totaled 11.45 thousandths, into a single continuous levy of 9.95 thousandths.
With the replacement levy having no expiration date, schools in Fairport Harbor will benefit by “ensuring a steady stream of revenue for long-term budgeting, planning and staffing purposes”, noted the district in a previous press release.
Voters in the constituency approved the substitution levy 68% to 32%, according to the official final results of the county electoral board.
At the December 20 school board meeting, Paolo said he was “proud of what we have achieved in the 16 years I have been here”.
“When I say ‘we’ I mean students, parents, teachers, staff, union members, board members past and present,” Paolo said. “It was a labor of love. I really look forward to the bright future ahead of you.