Ray­mond Sanchez

Tar­ry­town School Dis­trict Su­per­in­ten­dent Dr. Ray­mond Sanchez has been se­lected as Su­per­in­ten­dent of the Year for 2025 by the New York State Coun­cil of School Su­per­in­ten­dents (The Coun­cil/​NYSCOSS).

Sanchez, serv­ing his sec­ond school year in Tar­ry­town af­ter a 10-year stint in neigh­bor­ing Os­sin­ing, will be hon­ored at the Win­ter In­sti­tute in Al­bany in M
Dr. Raymond Sanchez and will rep­re­sent New York as the state’s nom­i­nee for con­sid­er­a­tion as the na­tional Su­per­in­ten­dent of the Year, which will be awarded by the Amer­i­can As­so­ci­a­tionSchool Ad­min­is­tra­tors at its March Na­tional Con­fer­ence on Ed­u­ca­tion in New Or­leans.

“Ray’s recog­ni­tion as the New York State Su­per­in­ten­dent of the Year is a tes­ta­ment to his fo­cus every day on what is im­por­tant–suc­cess and op­por­tu­nity for every stu­dent he serves,” said Coun­cil Pres­i­dent Lars Clemensen, who serves as the su­per­in­ten­dent in Hamp­ton Bays, NY.

“All through­out his ca­reer, Ray has been a leader in the su­per­in­ten­dency, from dri­ving ad­vo­cacy ini­tia­tives that in­creased re­sources in high-need com­mu­ni­ties across New York State and as an ed­u­ca­tional leader, cre­at­ing tra­jec­tory-chang­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for his stu­dents,” Clemensen added. “The Coun­cil looks for­ward to hon­or­ing Ray with this award.”

Sanchez, who be­gan his ca­reer as a teacher in the Ar­ling­ton (NY) School Dis­trict in 1998, ex­plained his phi­los­o­phy as an ed­u­ca­tional leader.

“What has al­ways dri­ven me is a per­sonal maxim: my good in­ten­tions are never enough. The hard work lies not in want­ing to do the right thing, but in ac­tu­ally do­ing it. And that re­quires the ef­forts of many,” Sanchez stated. “I want to thank the com­mu­ni­ties of Os­sin­ing and Tar­ry­town, the many fine pro­fes­sion­als I have worked with, and es­pe­cially my Boards of Ed­u­ca­tion for en­cour­ag­ing mean­ing­ful change on be­half of all chil­dren by rec­og­niz­ing that each child brings the po­ten­tial for achieve­ment and growth– and it is our moral re­spon­si­bil­ity to nur­ture and sus­tain them.”

Sanchez, who is Cuban and was raised in Tar­ry­town, is proud of the com­mit­ment to so­cial jus­tice and eq­uity for all stu­dents that ex­ists in Tar­ry­town and Os­sin­ing. In Tar­ry­town, he has col­lab­o­rated with his staff mem­bers to peel back the lay­ers of the sta­tus quo to iso­late un­con­scious bi­ases, ap­pre­ci­ate cul­tural dif­fer­ences on a more in­formed level, and use data to drive ob­jec­tive de­ci­sion-mak­ing and re­source al­lo­ca­tion.

“The re­search is clear that the ear­lier we can get to stu­dents, the greater op­por­tu­nity we have to erase in­equities, mit­i­gate neg­a­tive cy­cles, and lift young peo­ple to greater heights,” he said.

Sanchez is also proud of the dual lan­guage pro­grams he has in­sti­tuted in both Os­sin­ing and Tar­ry­town–pro­grams help all stu­dents be­come bilin­gual, bi-lit­er­ate, and bi-cul­tural, and which con­tribute sig­nif­i­cantly to a broader ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the power and promise of di­ver­sity and eq­uity ef­forts.

“We are de­lighted for Ray and hon­ored to be part of this recog­ni­tion,” said Tar­ry­town Board of Ed­u­ca­tion Pres­i­dent Michelle De­Fil­ip­pis. “His pas­sion for so­cial jus­tice, his com­mit­ment to eq­uity for all stu­dents, and his re­lent­less sup­port for the power of di­ver­sity is in­cred­i­bly mean­ing­ful to our res­i­dents. In his short time in Tar­ry­town, he has in­spired our ed­u­ca­tors, our fam­i­lies, and our broader com­mu­nity through his tire­less ef­forts to cre­ate a fab­ric of col­lab­o­ra­tion and pride.”
In May, Sanchez, who holds an Ed.D. in Ed­u­ca­tional Lead­er­ship from Man­hat­tanville Col­lege, was awarded an hon­orary doc­tor­ate from Mercy Uni­ver­sity in Dobbs Ferry.

“The New York State Su­per­in­ten­dent of the Year is a recog­ni­tion that hon­ors ex­cep­tional lead­er­ship and this year it is be­ing awarded to Dr. Ray­mond Sanchez, a su­per­in­ten­dent who has demon­strated a com­mit­ment to im­prov­ing out­comes, fos­ter­ing in­no­va­tion, and cham­pi­oning the needs of stu­dents, teach­ers, and his com­mu­nity,” said NYSCOSS Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor Charles Dedrick. “Dr. Sanchez ex­em­pli­fies ex­cel­lence in ad­min­is­tra­tion by serv­ing as a vi­sion­ary leader who in­spires oth­ers. His work is char­ac­ter­ized by a proac­tive ap­proach to ad­dress is­sues through col­lab­o­ra­tion, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, plan­ning, and un­wa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion to his stu­dents. We are proud to have Dr. Sanchez rep­re­sent New York as the 2025 Su­per­in­ten­dent of the Year.”