New London — School Superintendent Manuel “Manny” Rivera notified the school board on Thursday that he plans to retire this year, a decision being met with surprise and disappointment from school board members.

Rivera is leaving as early as the end of August and cites personal reasons for the departure. He was not immediately available to comment.

Rivera said in the letter that his retirement is effective at the end of August "or on an agreeable date between now and the next 90 days." His hasty departure leaves a small window for the Board of Education to find an interim superintendent or permanent replacement before the start of the new school year in September.

To further complicate things, the school board will see a shakeup in November, as four members already have indicated they will not be seeking re-election.

In an emailed letter to school board members on Thursday, Rivera said he was wrestling with the decision of whether or not to retire “and give greater attention to other aspects of my life that have been neglected for some time, and I have come to the conclusion that it is time for me to retire.”

Rivera has extended an offer to work as a consultant at no cost to the district to aid work on budgeting and the transition of a new school board while continuing work with a foundation on initiatives that include a multimillion-dollar endowment for tuition-free higher education. 

The district is in the process of completing curriculum for its magnet pathways as it transitions into the state’s first all-magnet district and is expected to start construction next year on a $98 million school to accommodate grades 6-12 at the site of the current high school. It’s the first phase of what will be two new schools including one at the site of the current middle school.

“I am disappointed and saddened by the news,” Board of Education President Scott Garbini said in an email. “We have a lot going on, and this throws a wrench in things. But our job as a board is to continue moving the district in a positive direction, and that is what we intend to do."

Rivera has led the district for the past two and a half years. He started on Feb. 1, 2015, and signed a three-year contract on June 1, 2015. In June 2016 the school board, at Rivera’s request, unanimously agreed to extend his contract another three years, until 2021. He was earning a base salary of $190,000.

School board member Mirna Martinez said she and others were encouraged by Rivera’s big ideas and “out of the box” initiatives, such as his long-term plans to provide for universal preschool.

“I think we all expected him to stick around long enough to see some change, at the very least five or six years in the district. This is not at all what I expected,” Martinez said. ”We’ll make the best of it. We have no other choice.”

Rivera was resoundingly praised for his work in the district and received glowing reviews in his evaluations from the school board, the last coming at the end of June.

“Dr. Rivera has introduced a high level of best practices that for many years have been absent from the district including increased offerings of professional development opportunities for staff. He is a visionary, and worked diligently to acquire grants for the district as well,” was one consensus reached in the June 29 evaluation.

Board of Education Vice President Margaret Mary “Peg” Curtin, who was school board president when Rivera was hired, also expressed disappointment.

“I wish he could stay a little bit longer,” Curtin said. “I think we are in a good place, working well with the state, getting more people into the school systems. I think people especially from out of town seem to be very happy and we’re keeping more New London students in our system. He put a good thing in place for whoever is to follow.”

Board member Jason Catala, who was not always in agreement with Rivera, especially in some of his administrative hires, said the timing of Rivera’s departure was “inconvenient.”

“I feel like maybe he was worn out with the politics of the city and the dealings with the budget,” Catala said. “I do wish him well and will work very closely with the board to find his replacement.”

Rivera was named superintendent in 2015 when the district still was under the thumb of a state-appointed special master.

City residents previously had showed their support for an all-magnet district during a citywide vote, where there was overwhelming support for a $168 million school construction project.

A year prior to Rivera’s hiring, the Board of Education had voted to appoint Chicago educator Terrence P. Carter to lead the district. The offer was rescinded when media reports raised issues about plagiarized sections of his job application, his misuse of the title of “Dr.” and failure to disclose a past bankruptcy.

Richard Foye and Miriam Morales-Taylor served as interim superintendents before Rivera was hired.

While educators have expressed confidence that the magnet school plans are on track, the project still could face financial issues. It was announced last July that an agreement between the school district and the Garde Arts Center to build an arts magnet school at the art center downtown had been scrapped.

The district had to scramble to redesign the high school project to include the arts magnet school but without the $31 million from the state that would have been used for the downtown campus.

Rivera, in his letter to the school board on Thursday, said “we are closing in on final approval from the state to proceed with the design for a $98 million renovated high school for which ground breaking is on track for 11 months from this date.”

Rivera is a New London High School graduate who attended Brandeis University on a full scholarship and earned a master’s degree and doctorate from Harvard University. He started his teaching career in Rochester, N.Y., where he rose to become superintendent in 1991, overseeing a $350 million budget and 54,000 students. He left the public school for a job in the private sector but in 2006 returned to Rochester, where he was named National Superintendent of the Year by the American Association of School Administrators.

Rivera served a 16-month stint as deputy secretary of education in New York followed by another job in the private sector before returning to Connecticut in 2013 to take a job as superintendent of Norwalk Public Schools.

He left Norwalk and came to New London because he saw an opportunity "to come back home and make a difference," he said at the time of his hiring.  

Rivera explains his work in the district in his letter to the school board:

“For the past two and a half years, I have been fully committed to leading and advancing changes in our public school system: building a vision for the future, improving staff morale, developing a strategic plan, implementing operational plans and taking actions to improve instructional and operational practices, re-engineering and transforming the quality of food and food service delivery, making important leadership decisions for our elementary schools, changing the public’s perception about our schools and responding to the demand for placements in our schools from throughout the region.”

“I know that we have turned the corner and the seeds that we have planted have put us on the right course, despite what some in our community may say,” Rivera wrote.

g.smith@theday.com