BY SAM PRADO ROBERTS
Mr. David Cittadino has resigned, effective August 15, 2025, from the Superintendent position after 11 years of service. Cittadino, who worked as a Jonas Salk Principal, High School Principal, and Superintendent accepted a position at Wayne schools for the upcoming 2025-2026 school year.
Prado Roberts: My first question is out of the three positions you’ve had here at Old Bridge schools, Jonas South Middle School Principal, High School Principal, and now, Superintendent, which experience did you like the most?
Cittadino: I would say they’re all different, so it’s hard to really pick one that I like the most. Being the Superintendent allowed me to affect the most change and interact with the most amount of people. That would probably be the most satisfying for me, because I think of myself as a people person. Working at the middle school was an area where I’ve spent most of my career, where I wanted to be, when I first got into education, working with young people of that age, just having such an incredible opportunity to impact young lives and how they could pursue their dreams when they got older. When I was asked to take over at the high school, it wasn’t something I was looking for at the time, but it was an opportunity that the Superintendent thought of me and believed in me, and I was a little apprehensive of that. But, that year was probably the most, I would say, surprising yet, career wise, a satisfaction gain. I met so many young people, and they really, opened up to me. The staff there, I think, was looking for change, and it really worked out well. Some of the young people I still keep in touch with. They reach out to me and come to me for career advice, come to me just to stay in touch. That was a great opportunity, and I loved it.
Prado Roberts: What was the biggest impact you feel you had on our school community?
Cittadino: I think two things. One, to provide safe schools. When I became a Superintendent, the world was kind of changing at that time, and you had a lot of unfortunate events around the nation, with school safety, and I was able to put in practices and measures that kept our staff and our students safe. That has always been something that I’m proud of and I’m passionate about. I think the other thing is just expanding opportunities for students to learn, starting with kindergarten. When I was here, as a principal, it boggled me that we only had half day kindergarten. There wasn’t enough time to even get students acclimated to the school day and already, they were sending them home. The initiative was to go to full day kindergarten, and we’ve seen that make tremendous difference for our students as they eventually graduate. Putting together programs that students have vast learning opportunities or global learning programs where students travel and learn from Costa Rica, Italy, China, France and Germany. Those are just amazing opportunities that students may not have, if not for these programs.
Prado Roberts: What was your favorite memory working as Superintendent?
Cittadino: We had a student who had cancer. The whole township came together through a lacrosse event on Lombardi Field, and it was probably one of the larger events we’ve ever had, and it was really symbolic of our ability to work together and unite for a great cause and rally around one of our own. Just looking around that day and how the whole school community and broader community came together was something I was very proud of, and to this day still brings up sentimental, warm feelings to me.
Prado Roberts: How has the district changed in your time working here?
Cittadino: I think that there has been a tremendous change in the belief system that our staff has for our students – that our students can achieve anything. They truly believe that and welcome and embrace opportunities for everyone to learn. I think that’s one of the greatest accomplishments that we could say we’ve changed towards. We have expanded the horizons of our students and have fewer limitations on what we think they can achieve.
Prado Roberts: What’s a program that we have in the district that you value?
Cittadino: I really would think that it would be [the] special education program. I know, for many parents, the school and the programs that we provide the students with their abilities, is a godsend. Many times, it can be frustrating as families deal with students with different abilities, and I think, with everything we have our in our classrooms, with our students, the teachers do an amazing job and when I’m in those classrooms. I really feel grateful for the staff that’s in there working hand in hand, one on one with students, and seeing these small but remarkable milestones being achieved every day. I think that’s impressive. It’s all the way up to our transition for our planning program, where we have students that are getting ready to leave school and work towards self-reliance and working at our ShopRite [program] and getting those real workplace readiness skills.
Prado Roberts: What are the best qualities of Old Bridge?
Cittadino: It’s our investment in people. That’s something I’ve always valued. I think it’s the most important investment. I think we can say as a community [that] it’s not a book, it’s not a program, it’s not a computer that makes us significantly better as a school district. It’s our investment in humans, how we treat our staff and how we engage with our students, that makes for a better learning opportunity for our students. Our staff feels safe and valued in their environment, and they want to be in the workplace with their students. Our students are going to perform better if our students want to be in school, and they want to come here because they have a trust level and a very close level with the overall school, educators, and administration, that they’re going to want to be there, and nothing is going to improve student performance better than those relationships.
Prado Roberts: What will you miss most about Old Bridge?
Cittadino: Definitely, the relationships and the people. It’s been a home for me for two decades. There have been friendships I’ve made that I’ll still maintain over the course of the years. But as Superintendent, most of my day is here, most of my waking hours are here, so the relationships I’ve made with people are magnified because this is where I work, and this is where I spend most of my time. So, I have many more relationships here with people, and they’ve become family for me, so I think that’s going to be the most difficult part of any transition.
Prado Roberts: What was the significance of having a dog with you in the district?
Cittadino: I’m glad you asked that question, Sam, because I think I’m the only Superintendent in the state of New Jersey that brings a dog with him on a regular basis. I thought, for me, that significance was, again, that investment in relationships. And I saw an opportunity where I would go visit schools and go visit classrooms and children had no idea who I was, especially the younger kids who are just coming into a school district, like, “Who’s this man in a suit?” I saw an opportunity to get a highly trained dog that could work well in this environment, and the first time I brought Daisy with me, the relationship changed. It broke down barriers, and children were like, “Oh, I just want to go over and see this dog,” because [there are] no limitations, and they’re not afraid to make friends with someone. It was definitely that significance where it even went beyond the kids to the staff. It just brings everybody’s cortisol levels down, calms people down as soon as you walk into a room. I would recommend it for any leader to have that opportunity because working with Daisy has definitely [been] something that people will always remember me for. It definitely had value building relationships, and part of that is engagement that I talked about with children. I’ll tell you one last story. A few years back when the Ukrainian and Russian war first began, we started to get a lot of migrant students coming here, fleeing Ukraine. I entered a classroom where there were two young children, who had been in our schools probably about three days, and they didn’t speak English. They were siblings from Ukraine, and the staff was working very hard to just calm them and make them feel safe and welcome as they hurriedly left a war-torn country. I didn’t say a word; I didn’t even know what the relationship was like with a dog. I just happened to go in the classroom, and they both ran over and got down on their knees and wrapped their body around Daisy. The staff was just amazed that that had happened. I came to learn that when they left Ukraine, they had to leave their dog behind with their dad. So, again, she spoke no Ukrainian, she didn’t know those children, but she broke down a barrier and made someone feel safe and welcome, just by her existence.
Prado Roberts: As we close out the interview, do you have any final comments you would like to make?
Cittadino: I truly have a message at the end of my emails that always says, “Believe in Old Bridge.” I think that’s the key takeaway that I can leave Old Bridge with, is that if you believe in the community, you believe in yourselves, you can achieve anything. I hope that I’ve at least put us on the path where we can achieve anything here in Old Bridge.
Posted on 5/12/25
Photos by Sam Prado Roberts and Scott Mazella
Knight Life 