When the Rye City School District launched a country-wide search for a new Assistant Principal at the high school, they received over 130 applications. After interviewing the nine most qualified ones and narrowing the field to four, “it became clear that one of the best candidates for the job was already working here,” remarked RHS Principal Suzanne Short at the March 22 School Board meeting.
Last June, Dr. William Meyer was hired as the Secondary Instructional Staff Developer by the District. “In his work in both the Middle and High schools, Bill demonstrated outstanding leadership skills and instructional knowledge,” noted Principal Short.
Meyer, 42, hails from Michigan, where his mother was a teacher and his father worked for Ford Motor Company. When he was in high school, his father’s job took the family to London. “It was a formative and significant experience for me,” he told the paper in a phone interview this week. Meyer is focused on ensuring that every Rye High student gains the same confidence and breadth of knowledge to go far.
“Students are so disconnected because of Covid,” he said thoughtfully. “We need to make sure we offer them more support when they enter high school and mentor them all the way through.”
What drew him to Rye? “This is a community that is interested in moving forward,” replied Meyer, a Rye Neck resident who doesn’t mind the commute either. He and his wife, who teaches at Horace Mann, a private school in the Bronx, are the parents of two young children.
After earning his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College, he received an M.A. in Administration, Policy, and Planning from Harvard University Graduate School of Education, an M.Ed. in Social Studies Teaching from Pace University Graduate School of Education, and a Ph.D. in Administration, Leadership, and Technology from New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education.
He comes to Rye after 11 years as a Social Studies teacher at Bronxville High. In 2018, he was named Coordinator of K-12 Service Learning for the Bronxville District, and in 2020-21 he served as co-director of the Justice Speaking Series and Fellowship, which brought together students from Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville High, Mt. Vernon, and Yonkers schools. He began his career as a teaching assistant in a third-grade classroom in his home state of Michigan.
His passion for history (and adventure) and his desire to help students find their inner lives early are evident in the children’s books he’s written, among them: “The Secret of the Scarab Beetle” and “Healing Breath: A Guided Mediation Through Nature for Kids”.
Wishing Dr. William Meyer many wonderful adventures in learning at Rye High.
