New Riverhead school official Emily Sanz wears many hats

When the position of director of English as a Second Language was abolished by Riverhead’s Board of Education in April, community members were concerned, and district Superintendent Augustine Tornatore was quick to respond.

“We are looking to be able to hire somebody who will be able to meet more needs of our students,” the superintendent said at the April board meeting, adding that a new job listing was forthcoming, “to offer more to our students with this new position.”

“More” is the operative word: The new role is titled Director of Social and Emotional Learning, English as a New Language, Community Outreach and Special Programing.

In May, the district tapped Emily Sanz for the position. She started July 1 on a contract that runs through June 20, 2027, at an annual salary of $161,485.

“Integration is key with my title,” Ms. Sanz said in a recent interview.

As director of social and emotional learning, Ms. Sanz makes sure students are working on their social and life skills.

“We’re working on creating empathy with our students,” she said.

As director of English as a New Language, Ms. Sanz ensures students and their families have the resources they need to navigate the curriculum while learning English. She is most excited about helping with the district’s dual language program, which she said is running throughout all district elementary schools and kindergartens.  Expanding this initiative is part of the district’s five-year strategic plan unveiled last summer, which includes increasing department staff, providing learning essentials for ENL students, broadening Seal of Biliteracy award opportunities for students and expanding bilingual programs and world language programs for K-12 students across the district.

“Dual language is making sure that everyone has that language diversity, the linguistic diversity, the ability to be bilingual, bi-literate,” she said. “So it’s not just ENL students, it’s students in the Riverhead school district that are able to be a part of this program, which is beautiful.”

As director of community outreach, Ms. Sanz has been working with two parent liaisons and their teachers on special assignment.

One teacher meets with families and provides resources, according to Ms. Sanz. The other teacher will be focused on social-emotional learning and family-community engagement, as well as making sure that parents are aware of available resources. She will be spearheading the shift of the district’s parent portal, Parent University, to Parent Café, which is “designed to help parents learn ways to work with their children and help them achieve,” according to its website.

“We’re giving parents a seat at the table. We want to hear their voice,” Ms. Sanz said. “We want to hear what resources they need and making small workshops more intimate and providing whatever we can to help them out and to make sure that they’re successful so that they can support their children in the district.”

Ms. Sanz said that her primary goal in this new position is improving community outreach.

“What better way to actually be successful in this overarching title?” she said. “I need to build those relationships with families, and I really need to hear: What are their wants, what are their needs, what resources do we have to make available to families? So that’s my No. 1 goal and there’s multiple parts of my job, but it’s all interwoven with that.”

Ms. Sanz worked in the corporate world for 14 years until she decided to change gears and get into education. Her mother was a Spanish teacher, and her sister taught reading.

She moved to the region from Queens and became an ENL teacher. She worked for the district at Phillips Avenue Elementary School for six years before deciding to seek an administrative position and returning to school for her doctorate. She then worked at Westbury Union Free School District as director of diversity, equity and inclusion for two years before accepting her current position.

Ms. Sanz is trilingual and speaks, reads and writes English, Polish and Spanish. Her mother is from Poland and her father is from Uruguay. She grew up speaking Spanish and Polish at home and learned English in school.

Lori Koerner, the district’s assistant superintendent for human resources and elementary education, has been working very closely with Ms. Sanz to help her transition into the role.

“I’m very confident that we’ve hired the right person to do the job and to do it well,” Ms. Koerner said.