Colebrook principal also stepping down

By Avice Meehan

Changes in school leadership are afoot in both Norfolk and Colebrook with the nearly simultaneous but unrelated retirement announcements by the school superintendent in Norfolk and the principal of the Colebrook Consolidated School.

Mary Beth Iacobelli, who became Norfolk’s superintendent in 2014, shared her decision with the Board of Education (BOE) at the Feb. 11 meeting. It is effective June 30.

Board Chair Virginia Coleman-Prisco thanked Iacobelli for her dedication and said there will be future opportunities to recognize her many contributions to Norfolk. She said the board would discuss the search for a successor to Iacobelli, as well as the potential for
 sharing a superintendent with another school district, at their March 11 meeting.

“I thought I would stay a year or two and then transition into full-time retirement,” Iacobelli said, in discussing her tenure in Norfolk. Instead, Iacobelli said, things “always seemed to be in a state of flux,” and she found herself wanting to make sure the school thrived. That included seeing Norfolk through the aftermath of the failed consolidation effort with Colebrook in 2014-15; implementation of the multi-age classroom model; the Covid pandemic and, fingers crossed, the plan for installing new boilers at Botelle School.

In a late-February conversation, Iacobelli said her approaching 70th birthday and the needs of her family prompted the “bittersweet decision” to step away and finally retire after 48 years in public education. Before coming to Botelle, Iacobelli served as the superintendent of schools in East Haddam, as an assistant superintendent in New Britain and as a principal in both New Britain and Meriden.

In her letter presented to the BOE, Iacobelli said, “…the ongoing challenge of declining enrollment and a path toward a viable arrangement to address it will require thoughtful collaboration and perseverance. I have every confidence in your ability to navigate these complex issues with the same dedication and integrity that you have always demonstrated.”

Elizabeth Driscoll, principal of the Colebrook Consolidated School, submitted her resignation at the end of January; it is also effective June 30. Driscoll was named principal in 2012 and has been an educator for 38 years, including as a teacher and vice principal in Simsbury.

The search criteria and application for Driscoll’s successor are posted on the school website. Applications are being accepted through March 3. The school is seeking a candidate who can lead “its small and successful rural elementary school to new levels of excellence.” Colebrook was recently designated a top elementary school in Connecticut by U.S. News & World Report.

Collaboration between the two school districts on administrative positions does not appear likely in the short term.

When asked whether Colebrook would consider a joint search in collaboration with Norfolk, Sarah Robichaud, chair of Colebrook’s BOE, said the search for a new principal was well underway. She also noted that Colebrook’s superintendent, Robert Gilbert, is limited to working two days a week “so that would not work in our situation.”

Gilbert said sharing is “complicated by state law.” Retired superintendents like himself and Iacobelli are limited to 45 percent time and compensation; they are each currently at 40 percent. “Taking on two districts instead of one would not work with this formula,” he said.