The city Board of Education has hired Lauren Santabarbara to be the school district’s new assistant superintendent, replacing Patricia Murray who is set to become its chief administrator.
Outgoing Superintendent Eric Byrne announced Santabarbara’s 3-year appointment in an email to the school community on Wednesday morning. Her hiring was approved at a Board of Education meeting Tuesday night.
Santabarbara will join the district as its head of curriculum, instruction, and assessment in September after serving three years as the assistant superintendent of instruction at Carmel Central School District in Putnam County.
She will be paid a $245,000 salary for her first year on the job in Rye. She made $216,000 at Carmel in 2024, state records show.
In Carmel, Santabarbara led K–12 instructional programs for nearly 3,700 students and coordinated professional development for more than 700 teachers and staff.
Prior to that role, Santabarbara served as the principal of Carmel High School for two years and assistant principal for seven years before that. She began her career on the Lower East Side of Manhattan as a high school English teacher at Essex Street Academy before moving to Rockland County to teach at Pearl River High School.
Santabarbara holds a bachelor’s degree in english literature from the University of Scranton and a master’s in secondary english instruction from NYU. She lives with her husband and three children in Somers.
Murray takes over on July 1 for Byrne who is stepping down at the end of the month. Byrne, meanwhile, has taken an interim role serving superintendent for the school district in Darien, Conn., for the upcoming school year.
