Former Va. principal tapped to take helm at Cavendish Town Elementary

By Shawn Cunningham
© 2023 Telegraph Publishing LLC

After nearly three hours of interviewing the candidates and deliberating on Wednesday night, the board of the Green Mountain Unified School District unanimously picked Dale Mann of Arlington, Va., to be the principal of Cavendish Town Elementary School beginning in July.

The board came out of executive session at 8:47 p.m. and Cavendish representative Steve Perani moved to authorize Superintendent Lauren Fierman to negotiate a two-year contract with Mann.

The other candidate was Amanda Tyrrell, a 5-6 Grade teacher at Chester-Andover Elementary School.

Mann served as principal of the John Eaton Elementary School located in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C. from 2011 to 2022. Before that, he was principal of Fairfax Villa Elementary in Fairfax, Va., from 2005 to 2011. Both schools are considerably larger than any of the schools in the GM district with the former having more that 400 students and the latter more than 500. Cavendish is expected to have fewer than 70 students next school year.

In his motion, Perani said,  “We’ve heard very clearly the desire of the Cavendish community to consider their feedback. After reviewing comments from the Cavendish open forum and comments from many community members, I’d like to make a motion to hire Dale Mann.” The motion was seconded by Kate Lamphere who also represents Cavendish on the board.

During a candidate forum on Tuesday night, Mann said he was applying because he was ready for a change and that the small town atmosphere appealed to him. Mann also said that he would make instruction a priority and “carve out time to visit every grade once a week” and be very visible in the school.

In answer to a question about his vision for the school, Mann said it should be  a place that students can’t wait to get to. He said he would have high expectations for student behavior and academics.