WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. By John F. Bailey. June 25, 2007: Timothy Connors in his fifth year as Superintendent of Schools in White Plains, and in the second year of his second contract with the district has announced his intention to retire in two years.

Superintendent of Schools Timothy Connors, May, 2007

Mr. Connors told WPCNR today that his present contract expires in June, 2008. As part of the contract, the Board of Education is required to tell him one year before expiration if they plan to renew his contract.

Connors told WPCNR the Board of Education wanted to renew his contract for three years through 2011. Mr. Connors said he told the Board his wife was retiring in a year and that he could not do that, but that he would stay two more years. Connors told WPCNR he would be leaving the district June 30, 2009

Connors told WPCNR this one year extension would enable him to get the district strategic plan into operation and oversee much of the new construction projects just underway: the new Post Road School, the Mamaroneck Avenue School and the two football stadium renovations.

Mr. Connors  joined the district in 2002. In five years, he  has stabilized and restored public confidence in the  school district, after replacing Dr. Saul Yanofsky when the school board refused to renew Dr. Yanofsky’s contract in 2001, which had created a crisis of confidence in the Board of Education.

He has embarked on a modernization program for the district requiring $69.6 Million in new construction. He appears to have turned around the district's state achievement scores, efforts culminating this year in 70% passing scores at the eighth grade level.  He introduced this year,  a beginning effort to control the rate of district budget increases in the face of declining revenues. (The budget is expected to top the $200 Million level at the time of Mr. Connors' departure, up from $127 Million in 2002 when he arrived).  Connors has introduced a complete turnover in the Superintendent's cabinet.