Robert R. Freeman, one of the longest-serving school superintendents in the country, has stepped down as the chief of the Dekalb County, Ga., schools.
During his 16-year service, Mr. Freeman oversaw numerous changes in the 86,000-student suburban Atlanta district, including construction of 12 new schools.
During his tenure, the district was embroiled in a major school-desegregation case that gave rise to a high-profile U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1992.
Mr. Freeman said he plans to continue consulting on educational issues around the country and teaching in the graduate school at Clark Atlanta University.
He will be succeeded by J. Reynolds Hallford, the deputy superintendent of the Dekalb County schools for the past four years.
Mary Lee Fitzgerald, a former principal, superintendent, and New Jersey education commissioner, has become the executive director of the Regional Educational Laboratory at Brown University in Providence, R.I. The lab, which serves the Northeast, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, is one of 10 federally funded centers that conduct educational research and develop teaching methods at the elementary and secondary levels. ... Thomas James, the chairman of the education department at Brown University, has left to replace Gerrold Ross as the associate dean for academic affairs at the school of education at New York University in New York City. ... Mike Reed, a former Mississippi principal of the year and the assistant superintendent of the Ocean Springs district on the state’s Gulf Coast, has been named the superintendent of the 2,450-student Bay St. Louis-Waveland, Miss., district.
A former superintendent of the Ionia, Mich., public schools, Robert E. Hagerty, has been named the dean of the school of education at Grand Valley State University. Mr. Hagerty replaces Allan Ten Eyck, who will return to the faculty of the university in Allendale, Mich. ... The C.W. Post campus of Long Island University in New York has appointed Jeffrey Kane the dean of its school of education. He is a former dean of the school of education at Adelphi University in Garden City, N.Y.
