Truro's student services director to replace retiring superintendent

TRURO — After seven years as the superintendent of Truro Central School, Michael Gradone is set to retire at the end of this school year. His replacement will be a familiar face. 

The School Committee voted last month to hire Stephanie Costigan, the director of student services and current acting principal for the Pre-K through sixth-grade school. 

“She knows the school. She knows the community,” Gradone said in an interview on Monday. “She should be able to hit the ground running.” 

Costigan started working in the school 14 years ago as a special education teacher. She later went on to be the director of special education before her current role as the director of student services. This year she also took on being the acting principal, and filling that position will be one of her first tasks, she said. 

“I love Truro and its community,” Costigan said. “The students are wonderful and the staff even more so.” 

She will officially take over the job from Gradone in July, and the first priority will be to continue helping students navigate the pandemic. The 115-student school is currently fully in-person, with the exception of a few families that have decided to be remote. 

After that, she said the priority will be to refocus on student achievement that has been slowed by the pandemic. 

The superintendent role in Truro has historically been a part-time position, but Costigan will continue to work full time, remaining also in her role as director of student services. 

“She’s going to be full time, but she’s going to be wearing two hats,” said Kenneth Oxtoby, chairman of the school committee. 

The committee conducted an internal-only search, and Costigan was the only person to apply, he said. 

“She really, wholeheartedly, is a leader, and it seemed like a good opportunity for somebody who knows the district,” he said. 

An ad for the principal job was recently posted, and Oxtoby said he didn’t think that having a complete leadership change, with new hires for both that job and the superintendent role, would be in the best interest of the students, parents and community. 

Gradone, former superintendent of the Nauset school district, had told the school committee last fall that he would be retiring this summer. 

COVID has made education tough, and Gradone, 73, said he felt it was time to hang it up. 

“At my age, it’s time to move onto another stage of my life,” he said.