HILLTOWNS — Berne-Knox-Westerlo secondary school Principal Mark Pitterson says he ventured into administration after realizing that students needed more from school than academics.

“I saw too many students with dysfunctional and uncertain lives that reminded me of my childhood years,” he told The Enterprise this week.

Pitterson, 56, announced earlier this month that he will end his career in education at the district, retiring once the 2021-22 school year is finished.

When asked by The Enterprise how he decided to retire, Pitterson said, “When we are hungry, we know. When we are sleepy, we know. When it came time to retire, I just knew,” adding that his immediate plans “include a copious amount of recreational reading, traveling, getting some exercise and hopefully doing some writing.”

Although Pitterson spent only about six years at BKW, it was during a period of immense change and challenge for the school, which underwent extensive renovations from 2017 through 2021, and had to scramble to find its footing during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“Our district was at a point in time where each school building needed stability in the role of principal,” Superintendent Timothy Mundell told The Enterprise in a statement last week. “Mark has provided that for us,” he said, noting that, in the past six years, the school has added approximately 15 college-credit-bearing courses. 

“He has also been a staunch advocate for students in providing for individual needs and more broad opportunities for them,” he said. Pitterson’s “integrity and character are impeccable and I have appreciated the work he has done for the district, and I wish him the best in retirement.”

Pitterson himself declined to identify any one achievement he’s especially proud of, instead highlighting the strength of the student body amid the pandemic. 

“I am proud of everything that the secondary school was able to accomplish during my time as principal,” he said. “However, nothing that we did as a building compares to the resilience of the students in living through and succeeding during a pandemic. Very few people who are alive today have ever experienced anything like this that they can recall.”

Pitterson, a Black man from Kingston, Jamaica, who worked briefly in Abu Dhabi and has lived elsewhere in the United States, was appointed in 2016, along with elementary school Principal Annette Landry and athletic Director Tom Galvin. Both Landry and Galvin had long been at BKW.

“​​I was in between jobs having recently returned from working in the Middle East and BKW was in search of a principal,” Pitterson said this week, calling it a case of “symbiosis.”

That Pitterson would end up in the rural Hilltowns seems as haphazard as his entry into education in the first place, which he described as a circumstantial occurrence.

“I became interested in education by accident,” Pitterson said. “One of my teachers, Mrs. Crosdale, told my senior class about the opportunity to attend teachers’ college and living on campus while doing so. My interest in becoming a teacher piqued because of the prospect of living on campus. It gave me the opportunity to escape the tyranny of my very draconian father.”

He graduated from Mico University in Kingston, in 1987, and moved to the United States in 1991. He eventually got his doctorate in education from Dowling College, and earned a master-of-arts degree from Stony Brook University while he was working in schools on Long Island.

When asked how his background figured into his time at BKW, where diversity is more apt to be economic than cultural or racial, Pitterson made clear that he felt readily accepted by the school.

“I don’t see myself as having a unique background,” Pitterson said. “We all have different experiences through life’s journey. Race was never an issue for me. I have frequently said, no one has any right to brag about their race. None of us did anything to determine our race. 

“Ergo, I don’t see my race as an asset or a liability in anything. I would hope that in the almost six years that I will have been in the BKW School District, the community — students, staff and parents — would have by now understood and accepted me for who I am and not for what I am.

“I never consider myself as an outsider. I have no logical reason to do so. I have been privileged to work with some amazing people: staff, students, and parents. When I arrived at BKW I received some warmhearted welcome. As I am poised to leave, I have already received some emails with heartfelt thanks. I could not have asked for more.”