WILMINGTON- After four years at the helm of Deerfield Valley Elementary School, principal Mario Cruz has announced he won’t be coming back to the school in the fall.

Cruz has accepted a position at an elementary school in New Britain, CT. Cruz says that, although he’ll miss the students, families, and teachers at DVES, he’s looking forward to his new position as principal of a school of about 700 students, most of whom are Hispanic and African-American. “I’m looking forward to continuing to develop my own sense of culture and diversity,” Cruz says. “One of the things I miss, being here, is the ability to continue to explore that side of my career.”

Cruz ranks the cultural education he brought to the school among his top achievements. At DVES, it was often Cruz, originally from Puerto Rico, who brought diversity to the school. One of the reasons he was at DVES, he said, was to “expose children to a man of color and diversity, to show them what diversity looks like outside of Wilmington, VT.”

Cruz taught students Spanish, but he also exposed them to a wide variety of cultural diversity. He implemented an Asian studies program at the school that included Chinese language lessons from a visiting Chinese teacher. The school hosted teachers from Thailand and China. Earlier this year, the school raised money to bring Buddhist monks to the school to create a mandala, a sand-art creation of cultural and religious significance.

In 2005, Cruz was picked from a field of 25 applicants to replace longtime principal Kathy Larsen. At the time, Cruz was the special education liaison at Mohawk Trail Regional School District. He brought varied experience in special education and regular education. He served as a bilingual special education teacher in Brooklyn, NY for 10 years. He also worked as a treatment provider for Spanish-speaking sex-offenders, and as a field coordinator for a national child sexual abuse prevention program.

When he was hired, Cruz was pursuing his graduate degree in school administration at Castleton State College. Wilmington School Board members agreed to sponsor his studies, provided he commit to at least three years as DVES principal, a commitment he has more then fulfilled.

Cruz says being a principal in Vermont presents some challenges.

One of the chief challenges is “providing an excellent education program while continuing to look at budget cuts and staffing, and balancing that with the nightmare of taxation in the state,” he says.

Windham Southwest Supervisory Union Superintendent Dr. M. Peter Wright says Cruz has met the challenges head-on, while maintaining the school’s reputation for achievement and high scores on state-mandated standardized testing. “He has been a real trooper,” Wright says. “He has initiated a lot of curriculum changes that have been good for the school, and he has been right on top of ‘best practices.’”

Cruz’s last day is Thursday, and Wright says he already has 20 applications for the position. The board will soon hold a special meeting to appoint an interview committee to “sift through” the applications.

Wright says the next principal will have to deal with many of the same challenges, including maintaining stability in the grade configuration and teaching staff. “It’s a shell game when you’re depending on enrollments to balance the wheel,” Wright notes.

A proposal to combine elementary schools with Whitingham is another challenge that could be on the horizon for the next principal.

Although he’s leaving DVES, Cruz says he’ll remain connected to the community. He and his partner, Brian Davis, will maintain their primary residence in Wilmington.

Cruz says Davis, a native Vermonter, “has taught me the beauty of Vermont. We’ll keep our roots here. I’ll work in Connecticut, but live in Vermont. We’ll still see people in the post office and at the market downtown.”