New Principal Chosen to Lead Haverford Middle School

Daniel Horan, the principal of the in Havertown, will become the new principal of the this summer.

The current middle school principal, Carol Restifo, is retiring at the end of the 2011-2012 school year, after spending 41 years working for the Haverford Township School District.

During a school board meeting on Thursday night, the Haverford Township Board of School Directors voted unanimously to appoint Horan the new middle school principal, effective July 1, 2012, with a yearly salary of $134,000.

Horan was sitting in the audience when the board voted on his appointment.

“Dan, congratulations,” School Board President Denis Gray said to Horan. “The middle school is an interesting building at all times … We wish you the best of luck.”

Horan thanked Gray.

Horan is a Haverford Township resident with two children in the school district, one at and another at Haverford Middle School, who will be moving onto the high school in September, Gray said.

Horan began his career in education in 1994 as a 7th grade science teacher at Drexel Hill Middle School, Horan told the Haverford-Havertown Patch after the meeting.

After teaching, he worked as assistant principal of Drexel Hill Middle School and principal of Hillcrest Elementary School in the Upper Darby School District, before being appointed principal of Manoa Elementary School three years ago, Horan told Patch.

The school board approved Restifo’s retirement from the district, effective at the end of the 2011-2012 school year, at a March 15 school board meeting.

“Carol’s one of the nicest, child-centered folks that I’ve ever met,” Gray said of Restifo at the March 15 meeting.

Restifo has spent the past 11 years—from 2001-2012—as principal of Haverford Middle School, but her career with the district started 41 years ago, as a teacher at the Oakmont School in 1971 (formerly an elementary school, the school building now serves as the district’s central administration building and early childhood center), Superintendent William Keilbaugh said at the March 15 meeting.

In 1980, Restifo moved from Oakmont to the now-closed Brookline Elementary School, where she served as the acting principal and then the principal until 1985, when she became principal of , Keilbaugh said.

Restifo was principal of Coopertown until she moved to the middle school 2001, Keilbaugh said. 

The school board did not say who would replace Horan as principal of the . But on Tuesday Keilbaugh replied with an answer.

"We will post and conduct a search. We will have internal as well as external candidates," Keilbaugh explained to Patch in an email.