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For immediate release
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Three new principals have been named to lead one middle and two elementary schools. They are Deborah Ptak at Whitehorse Middle School, Javier Bolivar at Nuestro Mundo Community School, and Sarah Galanter at Stephens Elementary School.
Pending the approval of the Board of Education at its May 5 meeting, all three will begin their new positions on July 1.
Deborah Ptak has been the assistant principal for the last five years at Sennett Middle School which, like Whitehorse, advances students to La Follette High School. For 12 years prior to that, Deb was a school social worker in the Baltimore City Public School System. She holds a master's degree in school administration from Johns Hopkins, and a bachelor's degree in education and a master's degree in social work from UW-Madison.
Deb replaces Anne Nolan, who is retiring after nine years leading Whitehorse.
Javier Bolivar comes to Madison Schools from Victorville, CA where he has been an assistant elementary principal for the last three years including at a dual language immersion school. Nuestro Mundo is also an immersion school (Spanish) as well as being a charter school. He was also a language development teacher for English learners there for eight years.
Javier holds a master's degree in educational administration from Cal State-San Bernardino, as well as a bachelor's degree from Old Dominion and a master's degree from Bowling Green both in music education. He replaces Gary Zehrbach, who is resigning to pursue other interests out of the area.
Sarah Galanter has been the interim principal at Stephens since December. Sarah, who speaks fluent Spanish, was a teacher for four years in the 4-year old and bilingual programs at Glendale before becoming a resource teacher there last September.
She holds master's degrees in educational leadership from Cardinal Stritch and in social service administration from the Univ. of Chicago, and a bachelor's degree in child study from Tufts. Sarah started her teaching career in East Harlem, NY and Chicago, and then served two years in the Peace Corps before coming to the MMSD.
For more information, contact Ken Syke, 663-1903, or Joe Quick, 663-1902.
Public Information Office
545 W. Dayton St.
Madison, WI 53703
608-663-1879
email: newsrelease@madison.k12.wi.us