Elliott Landon

From Staples High Wiki

Elliott Landon, Ed.D (1940-) is the current Superintendent of Schools for the Town of Westport. Dr. Landon was a native of New York City who majored in chemistry at Brooklyn College and got master's and doctoral degrees from the Teacher's College at Columbia. He taught chemistry and science in New York before moving in 1967 to Port Washington, Long Island to be an assistant superintendent. At age 37, he was hired as superintendent by Ridgefield, CT. In 1984, he was named one of the "100 Best School Managers in North America" by a magazine for school administrators. Before moving to his current position in Westport, he was Superintendent of Schools for Garden City, Long Island.

He took the post of Superintendent from Paul Kelliher in 1999. He is known for the high levels of animosity that some students of Westport have towards him and for his reluctancy to delay or cancel school in the event of snow. Additionally, he has been the man behind the cancellation of ski trips and trips to Washington, D.C. that used to be taken by 7th and 8th graders from Westport.

Most recently, he was grilled by many students for having changed the format of exam weeks. He took away the exam make up days in an effort to reduce the length of the school year, and in the process made each exam period 30 minutes earlier than before. This was to allow for each make-up to take place right after the second exam of each day in order to allow teachers to be done at a reasonable time.

Controversial Decisions

• During a 2002 student protest in support of Marty Lisevick, Dr. Landon refused to speak with the students about Lisevick's dismissal, instead sending Assistant Superintendent John Brady (who would later become Principal of Staples) to try to convince the students to go back to school.
• On Wednesday, March 3, 2005, Landon refused to call an early dismissal despite the threat of whiteout conditions in the afternoon. Although not a significant snowstorm, blizzard like conditions caused accidents of two school buses and caused many more to not show up completely. There was no snow reported at the time of an early dismissal (11:45am).
• Changes to the exam schedule for the 2005-2006 school year (as listed above)

Source: Who's Who in Ridgefield CT G-L