Is Payton returning as Phillips Avenue principal?

The Riverhead Board of Education voted Tuesday to move Patricia Nugent — who has been interim principal at the Phillips Avenue Elementary School — back to an assistant principal position, and to move interim Phillips Avenue assistant principal Rita Moloney back to her old position as a literary coach July 1.
So does this mean that former Phillips Avenue Principal Thomas Payton will be coming back?
Superintendent Diane Scricca would say only that “Mr. Payton already is a principal at the Roanoke Avenue Elementary School.”
The board in January voted to reassign Mr. Payton, who had been Phillips Avenue principal since April of 2005, to the Roanoke Avenue Elementary School, and appointed Ms. Nugent, who had been the assistant principal at Phillips Avenue, as the school’s interim principal. They also then moved Ms. Maloney from a literary coach position into Ms. Nugent’s former position.
Dr. Scricca at the time said only that Mr. Payton had been “assigned to work with the principal at Roanoke Avenue.”
School officials never publicly gave a reason for the move.
But Mr. Payton was still considered an elementary school principal, and when the district listed administrative salaries in May, as required by the state, it listed six elementary school principals, even though there are only five elementary schools. Moving Ms. Nugent back to an assistant principal position brings that number back to five.
So is Roanoke Avenue principal Debra Rodgers moving to Phillips Avenue?
Dr. Scricca declined to comment further.
Tuesday’s school board meeting was the last of the current board, as the new school year starts on July 1, and the board will have its organizational meeting at the first meeting in July.
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