Scarsdale High School Has New Assistant Principal

Chris Renino, Scarsdale High School's newly-appointed assistant principal for instruction, has dabbled in many careers outside school administration. Renino has written a novel and published articles about autism, he is a Shakespeare scholar who instructs teachers every summer and he has also written for the national stage. While doing these things, Renino has also taught English; first for four years at Scarsdale Middle School, and then for 23 years at SHS. This is the first year he will not be teaching.

Renino's office is sparse and neat. A few framed photos and a poster of a dance performance piece are mounted on the walls, and papers are piled neatly on his desk in folders. He keeps the door open, and quickly puts out fires as people pop their heads in, maintaing an easy flow the whole time.

When Renino speaks, he chooses his words carefully, waiting to see if you are following — just as you might expect from someone who's taught reading and writing all his life. But it's clear that Renino is warm to his subject. Once he's sure you're with him, the words flow quickly.

"It's hard to be a teacher for 27 years and suddenly give it up. It's hard to go to sleep and not review the next day's work," Renino said. 

As assistant principal, Renino is in charge of scheduling, budgets,s supervising students and teachers and overseeing teacher evaluations. When he's not in Scarsdale, Renino, 55, lives with his wife, the choreographer Susan Marshall (with whom he has sometimes collaborated) and son in Manhattan's Upper West Side. He commutes, as he has done since moving to the city in the '80s.

Renino began teaching at Scarsdale Middle School in 1984 and came to SHS in 1988. He spoke recently of his eagerness to continue the work he's been doing at the school, developing the district's Scarsdale Education for the Future program, and of his abiding respect for Scardale's community of teachers, students and parents.

"I think we've got great programs," Renino said. "Here's the wrinkle: American education is under close scrutiny. State and federal government are involved in a new way. How do we meet those standards and allow our work to improve, but not alter, what we value?"

"There's no general, one-size-fits all solution to serving our students," he continued. "Each community has its strengths and weaknesses. The question is: In what ways are we excelling, and in what ways can we get better? How has the world changed, and how is education changing?"

Renino graduated from White Plains High School and attended Cornell, where he received a B.S. in Industrial Labor Relations, before earning his M.A. in English education at Columbia Teachers College. 

Renino began his career at Cornell and quickly realized that he leaned toward the liberal arts. After minoring in English and discovering his love for literature, he spent a sabbatical in 1994-95 writing "The Way Home Is Longer," a book about the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers in the year Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. Other artistic endeavors included a later collaboration in 2001 with Susan Marshall, on a dance piece, "One and Only You."

In the "English Journal," published by the National Council of Teachers of English, Renino wrote about using Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to help a pair of autistic teens communicate their surprisingly sophisticated understanding of the language in 2009.

But Renino found his true vocation was in education, particulary in fostering creative and critical thought... even when teaching those values meant shying away from memorizing the plethora of facts often required by newly-implemented standardized tests.

"Students, parents, and those of us in this business all value education...there's a real deep commitment," said Renino, an advocate for creative problem solving. "Fortunately, I don't have to buck tradition.This is something the District has started...We tend to individualize instruction. You have to remind yourself that you've got 25 kids in the class. You have to recognize individual talents and needs."