Dr. Bret Apthorpe, Jamestown Public Schools superintendent, held his final Facebook Live session on Friday to discuss the end of the school year. Submitted photo

Dr. Bret Apthorpe, Jamestown Public Schools superintendent, held his final Facebook Live session on Friday. Apthorpe, who has served as the district’s superintendent since 2017, will retire on June 30.

“I never dreamed I would be going like this,” he told viewers. “I, personally, like the ability to interact with people and given the way things are this has been a great way to do it.”

The live stream capped a busy week for the district: Apthorpe’s successor, Dr. Kevin Whitaker, was appointed by the board of education at a special meeting on Monday; Tuesday marked the deadline to drop-off absentee ballots at the administration building while the deadline in which ballots can be received via mail was extended a week; four principal vacancies were filled at Wednesday’s board meeting; and Thursday marked the official “last day of school.”

“In 33 years, we’ve never ended school this early,” said Apthorpe. “It’s been a year of firsts and it will certainly be a year of many, many more firsts to come. I appreciate our teachers, principals who brought a nice closing for the school year and I appreciate our parents who were quickly appointed as teachers this year and have been teaching their kids. It’s just been a real team effort and I can’t thank everyone enough for making the best lemonade they can with the lemons that we have.”

Apthorpe also praised the board’s selection of Whitaker as the next superintendent.

“Dr. Whitaker is very well-known, very well respected in the small city school realm so he has a lot of experience working with city schools and city schools in poverty,” he said. “He has not only talked the talk, he has walked the walk. He has a proven record of dramatically improving student achievement with schools in poverty. I’ve known Kevin for a long time. A really down-to-earth guy, great family, great sense of humor, cool, really smart. One of the smartest people I know. I’m really excited.”

He also said that he has already had discussions with Whitaker, the assistant superintendent for accountability and school improvement for Geneva City School District, regarding the transition on July.

“It’s not an easy thing when you transition to a high-level job in a school to another high-level job in a school because you have hands in both camps, if you will,” he said. “But we’ll be working with Kevin and help him with his transition. I’m really excited for him to meet our Jamestown school family. I know you’ll love him.”

The selection has given Apthorpe, disappointed in ending his career amid a pandemic, some ease, he said.

“It’s a nice feeling for me because I feel strongly about this school and this community and I really wanted to see this whole pandemic thing in the rear-view mirror before I left, knowing that Dr. Whitaker is going to be the new captain makes me feel good,” he said.

Apthorpe also addressed Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s announcement Sunday that outdoor graduations could be held with up to 150 people in attendance. While the mandate will not change the district’s current plans for graduation on June 25, with a rain date for June 26, Apthorpe praised high school principal Dana Williams and his staff for organizing the ceremony.

“I would ask everybody to come to terms with the fact that we have a great graduation planned for the kids and let’s celebrate the kids,” he said. “Let’s not get caught up in the colors or type of pomp and circumstance. It’s for the kids. The kids need to see us celebrate with them.”

He also lamented that the district was not able to celebrate retirees and newly tenured teachers as they normally would have this week.

“Nothing beats the real thing, but I know our board president, Paul Abbott, would have much preferred to have a reception with cake and meet people and principals introduce their tenure teachers,” Apthorpe said. “We hope there will be an opportunity to do that again in the fall. But, I wanted to take this opportunity to say ‘Thank you’ to our retirees and thank you to our newly tenured teachers.”

Brief mention was also made of the district’s plans to re-open, noting that a committee has been formed with approximately 40 professionals from the district.

“Now that school is over with, we really turn our attention to the re-opening of schools,” he said. “It’s really a herculean task. The state tells us that they’re going to give us guidelines sometime in July, but we’re not waiting. We’re trying to get out there to understand the questions and there are a bazillion questions.”

He added, “When we do get those guidelines, we’ll be knowledgeable and able to move swiftly because September will be here before we know it.”