Schools
Support Grows For Renaming School After Longtime Princeton Principal
Bill Cirullo's brother has joined the group that is pushing to rename the school, the Princeton Packet reports.
PRINCETON, NJ — There is more support for renaming Riverside Elementary School after its longtime principal who died in February of last year. Bill Cirullo passed away on Feb. 15, 2016. He was the school’s principal for 30 years.
His brother, Charlie Cirullo, has joined a group of teachers and other supporters who have asked the Princeton Public School District to rename the school “The William D. Cirullo Riverside School,” the Princeton Packet reports. Cirullo told the newspaper that designation is “fine, as long as Billy’s name is on there.”
Princeton Superintendent of Schools Dr. Stephen Cochrane said the district is looking into the possibility of renaming the school based on the criteria for naming a building and a process that doesn’t factor in the district’s commitment to Cirullo, according to the report. School board vice president Dafna Kendal said that process includes getting input from the community.
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Bill Cirullo graduated from the Princeton Public School District, which he first entered when he was in kindergarten. He went on to spend countless years as a teacher, coach and principal in the district that raised him.
“When you work with great people - when you work with visionaries” he once said, “it is like an endless riot of ideas and possibilities.”
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That “riot” resulted in a school garden, a turtle pond, a black box theater, a wonderfully diverse pre-school, and countless curriculum initiatives. As recently as 2015, Cirullo was bringing children together with a landscape designer to create a new playground.
While in school, he starred on the football and track teams at Princeton High School and later coached football and lacrosse at Princeton High School.
He founded the Bobby Campbell Lacrosse Foundation, named in memory of a former player, to bring lacrosse to underprivileged youth, and he coached an adult lacrosse team in Princeton for a decade.
Attached image of Bill Cirullo previously provided by the Princeton Public School District
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