NEW ROCHELLE, NY — 
The New Rochelle Board of Education voted last night to approve the hiring of John Barnes as the new principal at Albert Leonard Middle School to replace outgoing principal Dr. Velma Whiteside.
Barnes comes to New Rochelle from the Lincoln Orens Middle School in Island Park, NY.
Prior to Island Park, Barnes was a principal in New York City.
Barnes has taught social studies, fourth grade and music and worked as a curriculum writer.
In 2008, Barnes was selected as one of 5 Executive Principals in the Manhattan school district where his assignment was to turn around a failing school.
At the time of his hiring in Island Park in 2011, the Oceanside Herald wrote:
Among Barnes proposed ideas is to attempt to individualize certain aspects of the curriculum, focusing on certain areas for different groups of students depending on their need. “You build off student’s strengths,” he explained. “If I’m reading a novel with a group of students and realizing some are struggling with sequence of events, we can group the students that have trouble with that and provide them with opportunities to achieve mastery.”
Two members of the board, Naomi Brickel and Jeffery Hastie, expressed great unhappiness with the hiring process. Brickel said in making the decision, the administration and board had ignored the recommendation of the school search committee and, in doing so, shown disrespect to the process and those who participated in it. The school committee had recommended a candidate who was not among the three finalists interviewed by the board.
I am so happy with Mr Barnes
Whatever might have happened in the process, but Mr Barnes is by far the nicest, most enthusiastic, positive, strict but in a very nice way principal I have met so far.
I applaud the board for hiring him.