Supt. Laurrie puts his children where his job is… School District leader shows confidence in Niagara Falls Schools

Mark Laurrie, the recently installed Superintendent of Schools for the Niagara Falls School District, has risen through the ranks of this school district and its city.

He was a student of the district and worked in the district for years as an administrator before being appointed by the Niagara Falls School Board to replace Cynthia Bianco upon her retirement.

This ‘raising of our own by our own’ is a sign that, like everywhere else, some people in Niagara Falls get it that all people, all cities, all nations, must rise by their own exertion.

The School Board wisely did not choose some “brightest and best” educator from another state with a long line of initials after his or her name, but chose instead a man who believes in the community, who loves the city, who lived here all his life and went to school here in the very school district which he now leads.

Perhaps most impressive of all, is that Laurrie sends his own children to Niagara Falls schools. While he certainly can afford the best private schools, it is the mark of the man’s confidence in the job he is doing and the people he is working with that ‘what is good enough for your children is good enough for his children.’

From time to time we get callers who have lists of teachers and administrators of our local public schools who they say send their children to private schools. We have chosen not to publish these lists since we believe in the freedom of parents to choose where they want to educate their children. However it does not give one great confidence that teachers and administrators don’t think their own schools are the best place their children may learn.

It gives us confidence in Laurrie, the educator, that his first pick for learning and growing for his own children, like he, himself, as a boy, is the Niagara Falls Public Schools.