NORWALK, Conn. – Myrna Tortorello, principal of Marvin School in Norwalk, has been given a new role as principal on special assignment to the superintendent. Sue Ellen O’Shea, assistant principal at Kendall School, will take over as interim principal at Marvin.
Tortorello’s new role was approved by the Norwalk Board of Education at its Tuesday night meeting.
Among Tortorello’s new responsibilities will be the oversight of several federally funded programs, including Section 504 of the Americans With Disabilities Act and the implementation of scientific research-based interventions to ensure academic growth and achievement of students. She will also oversee the academically talented program and support schools in their transition to Common Core State Standards.
The school board also authorized Interim Superintendent Tony Daddona to hire to fill vacant, funded teaching positions. These vacant positions were created by additional resignations and retirements. At this time, all teacher layoffs have been completed, the board said.










Comments (26)
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I urge each and every one of you to take a long hard look at what this woman did to the morale of Marvin School. Once the best school in the district, now the apathy is palpable coming through the door. This school has been given the opportunity to rebuild and renew. She has two years left on her contract and will retire on her second pension if nothing is done. Please, please look into this, write your BOE reps, speak to Tony Dadonna and push for this woman to be removed. At $160,000 annually there are many good teacher whose jobs could have been saved.
EPIC FAIL on the part of the city and the BOE. You should all be embarrassed... voting unanimously to reloate this nut to central office... and at the taxpayer's expense. She should have been FIRED. Then, in 2 years...we get to pay her pension! WOW! A great use of our money. Someone should talk to any parent or teacher at Marvin and find out how well she was performing. I am pretty sure they're cheering and dancing with her gone. But the real sad thing is you hang on to a wretched employee... what message does that send to the rest of the NPS.. and the rest of the city.... just know there are no negative consequences for a job poorly done, there's no accountability.
Mrs. Tortorello exhibited much warmth and genuine concern for the families at Marvin in my firsthand experience with her. I do know she has had some health concerns and I wish her the very best. As she told us "Marvin children may not leave Marvin being the smartest kids, but she hopes they would leave being the kindest" or something to that effect, not to imply that she did not want the Marvin kids to succeed academically, but she was a big fan of the Character Counts program and the whole development as a person. All of the elementary schools should continue to embrace the Character Counts message. I wish her only the best.
Lots of misinformation here. First of all, there has to be a paper trail to even put an administrator on intervention, let alone fire him/her. Daddona was not the elementary principal evaluator until last school year. There were Directors of Elementary Education, namely Carol Marinacchio and Hugh McKiernan. They were the evaluators of the elementary principals, and allegedly gave glowing reviews to this principal. If the principal had been fired, there would be a huge law suit. Lack of information is dangerous! Be careful not to jump to conclusions that are highly inaccurate
I am very familiar with the evaluation process for teachers and administrators. Some people think it is never Mr. Daddona's fault, but there are two factors you should consider: 1) The former director of elementary education was Mr. Daddona's direct report, so if she wasn't doing her job, it was his responsibility to make sure that the job was done. 2) Once he took over the responsibility for evaluating elementary principals, unless he wasn't paying attention, he surely knew the history of any principal who required special attention, and he could have moved fast to begin establishing a paper trail. Apparently he didn't in the case of the Marvin principal.
A question: What did he ever do during the many years he evaluated one or more problematic middle school principals when he was director of secondary education?
But then, it is never Mr. Daddona's fault.
If I understand correctly it was Dr. Marks that initiated the recent review of the principals which had not been done for 10 years.
The lack of review of principals is quite possibly the most disgraceful part of this whole NPS mess. If the BOE and the superintendent made placing quaified and dedicated principals in all our schools their primary goal the battle would be more than half won. Next up, even more important than revising the tenure system would be to revise the last in/first out policy used in the current need to cut employees. Why are non tenured teachers, which is the group that gets cut, have any protection beyond their performance? We all know that last in/first out with no thought to performance is not leaving us with the best teachers.
Put the pieces together-- or ask any of the Marvin folks about their school. It's been awful for many there.
That principal had to go.
As always there seems to be poor review of administrators in Norwalk. This is another failure of the failed Susan Marks regime. If there was enough to fire her, I think some BOE members would be complaining about what happened.
The poor review of administrators in Norwalk may have continued during the Susan Marks regime, but it certainly didn't begin there. There were really bad administrators long before her and even long before Sal Corda. Interesting to note is that the interim superintendent had the evaluation of principals among his duties, both when he was assistant superintendent, and in his role prior to that.
So let me understand this. We have a bad principal that is given a different job with a $160,000 salary in central office rather than get rid of her (and as pointed out above was the resposibility of Tony Daddonna). We also have a principal at Briggs making $160,000 and only has 40 kids. My child has no library and lost an assistant principal. $320,000 for what? HOW IS THIS OK?
dead wood
Unbelievable! Obviously this principal was relieved of her duties and shifted to a "new made up job" This woman has a salary of $160K. Money that could have been used to save the jobs of those hardworking teachers that lost their jobs. WTF! Norwalk is a joke!
A bloated administration with even MORE funds not allocated directly to the classrooms and instruction. I rest my case....
This was a move made by Marks the day she left
While it may or may not have been a recommendation by Dr. Marks, it required board of education approval, as the above story states. I would still like to know the story behind the story because the interim superintendent could have asked the board to reject the recommendation.
I heard the interim was furious about this
I'm sure that is what he has told some people. If it's what the board of ed wanted, I am sure he kept his mouth shut with them.
Considering the principals were reviewed this year for the first time in 10 years it would be interesting to know based on Principal Tortorello's review whether this move is making good use of a valued employee or a way to hide dead wood.
Does anyone know why the district would make such a move immediately before the beginning of a school year? Does anyone know how the district found the money to pay not only the salary, but also the benefits of a well-compensated administrator? Does anyone know how the district judged this position to be more important than rehiring teachers or literacy coaches? Does anyone know how the district judged this position to be more important than reinstating some of the funding cuts that hit the schools?
Finally, does anyone know if there is an unstated reason for this change? I don't recall Norwalk's ever having a "principal on special assignment."