New CiTi BOCES superintendent has followed in his mother’s footsteps; at 45, he hopes to conclude career at the new position
By Stefan Yablonski
Jeremy Belfield officially assumed his new role on July 1 as district superintendent and executive officer of Center for Instruction, Technology & Innovation (CiTi). He has his mother to thank for his career path choice.
“I was born in Rochester. Our family moved to Baldwinsville when my dad accepted a job transfer to the Syracuse area. My parents, Mike and Judy Belfield, live in Phoenix. They’re both retired,” he said. “My mom retired from Phoenix Central School District as the superintendent of schools. My dad worked in sales for a large consumer package goods company. He also worked as a teaching assistant following his retirement from his career in business.”
Belfield lives in the village of Mexico.
“We are fortunate to have most of our family close by. My wife has five siblings. Four, along with their families, live within a few miles of us in Mexico. We often host upwards of 40 family members at our home for Thanksgiving,” he said. “My brother and his family live north of Atlanta, Georgia. We were fortunate to spend time with them during the month of July.
“I enjoy fishing, golfing and spending time with our family. Our family is the proud owner of a basset hound named Beatrice. She’s 6 years old.”
His wife, Laura, is an eighth-grade social studies teacher at Mexico Middle School.
They have twin daughters who are juniors this fall. Emma is at Mexico High School and serves as the sergeant of the JROTC program. She plays the flute and is active in the soccer, basketball and lacrosse programs. Lillian is at Oswego County P-Tech at CiTi, pursuing an associate’s degree in electrical engineering through Onondaga Community College. She’ll be on campus at OCC two days a week this coming year.
“I graduated high school from Faith Heritage, attended Onondaga Community College and graduated from SUNY Oswego with a Bachelor of Science in elementary education. I completed my master’s in curriculum and instruction and certificate of advanced study in educational leadership at SUNY Oswego,” he said.
“When I graduated from high school, I was unsure what career path I wanted to pursue — that is why I started at Onondaga Community College,” he added. “Initially, I studied computer information systems. But after spending time in my mom’s second grade classroom, I quickly discovered that I wanted to be a teacher.”
He was in between semesters at college. His mother wanted to have a little treat for the kids and she asked him to drop it off.
“So I walked into her classroom and it was around the holidays. I saw how much fun the kids were having learning and how enjoyable it was to work with young kids and decided that might be a more enjoyable career path than just trying to fix computers all day. I still work with computers all day long,” he laughed. “Much of my job involves having a laptop handy.”
After discovering the joy of teaching, he switched majors to elementary education. He signed up to serve as a substitute teacher at several schools; completed his degree and “was fortunate to land my first teaching job at Lanigan Elementary School in Fulton.”
“I served as an academic intervention services teacher for math and moved into a classroom teaching position. I knew that someday I might want to pursue a career in educational leadership. So I pursued coursework and I was fortunate to work at the Fulton Education Center supporting the district’s alternative education programs and also assisted the principals at Granby Elementary and Fairgrieve Elementary as part of my administrative internship,” he said. “I was able to secure my first leadership position as the director of pupil services at Mexico Academy and Central School District, which I served in for two years. I was able to shift into the director of personnel position at MACS in 2012 and was eventually promoted to the assistant superintendent for management services in 2016.”
After completing the superintendent development program at SUNY Oswego, he was able to secure a position as the superintendent of schools for LaFayette Central School District in Onondaga County starting on July 1, 2017.
“I had the privilege of working for a great board of education and I worked alongside great educators and staff members in LaFayette. I was also able to build relationships with leaders from the Onondaga Nation, which is part of the LaFayette Central School District,” he said. “Yeah, I was very, very happy at Lafayette. It’s a great school district, very focused on students. It has a lot going on for a small school.
“The Onondaga Nation School, inside the high school, is a small school with 60 students. The Lafayette big picture school is focused on personalized learning and internships. It had high school students out in the community two days a week working alongside folks in all sorts of different jobs. Kids could say, hey I’m thinking about studying this.’ And a lot of time, they would find their passion. Sometimes they’d say, ‘thanks for setting us up. But now after some time doing this it’s not what I want to do.’ And we’d find other opportunities for them.”
When Chris Todd announced his retirement as the district superintendent at CiTi BOCES, several colleagues encouraged Belfield to apply.
“I was fortunate to land this new opportunity to lead CiTi and serve as the local representative for the New York State Education Department for Oswego County,” he said.
Right now, he’s very excited to get to know the staff, students and families that participate in programs at CiTi. He spent time this summer getting to know each of the superintendents from the nine component districts in Oswego County.
“I’m interested to know what services and programs are working well for our students and school districts. I’m also interested in knowing what areas we can improve upon to make sure that our students have opportunities for a bright future either working in Central New York or pursuing future training or college,” he said. “We have a lot of great programs. At CiTi BOCES we run pretty much 12 months a year. We had exceptional education programs this summer at a variety of locations not only on campus here in Mexico but over at Leighton Elementary in Oswego, at Fourth Street at Fulton — we also operated programs, summer school programs, for Sandy Creek and Pulaski. Our folks go pretty much September to June and then we have six-week programs for exceptional education students in the summer.”
“It can be [stressful] at different moments; it’s definitely a rewarding job,” he said of his new administrative role.
“As a classroom teacher you are able to impact the 20 to 25 kids that are in front of you. That is very rewarding. The nice thing about administration, when I was Mexico’s director of pupil services, you impact the lives of about 350 students with individualized education programs, students with 504 programs. I worked on college and career guidance programs.”
When he was tapped to move into personnel, the fun part of that job was “making sure that we secured folks that were the right fit for our students. Meeting those teachers that are fresh out of college that are excited to work with students and support them, it was a very rewarding experience as well,” he said.
“New York has embarked on a major shift in education through the recent adoption of the Portrait of a Graduate,” he said. “This blueprint for how we want to mold and shape learners across New York will allow us to become more innovative in how we deliver instruction and support higher levels of learning in our classrooms and programs.
“New York State Education Department plans to spend the next two years working with educators to help redefine learning standards, develop rubrics that will support more opportunities for deep and rich learning and provide training opportunities for educators to shift to more innovative models of teaching, learning and assessment.”
Belfield said he’s so excited to be a part of this transformational shift for students and educators in New York.
“At CiTi, we offer so many great career and technical education programs, alternative education programs, programs for exceptional education, adult education programs and our incredible P-Tech program. We’re poised for great things for students in Central New York in our classrooms and beyond,” he added. “We have so many industry partners that work with us already at CiTi that are excited to partner with us and support students in landing a rewarding career right here in Oswego County and Central New York. Finding ways to help impact systematic change is probably one of the most enjoyable aspects of the job, helping provide opportunities for people to collaborate.
“I started when I was 36. I turned 45 in September. I hope if CiTi BOCES will keep me, this will be my last stop.”
Lifelines
Name: Jeremy Belfield
Position: District superintendent and executive officer at Center for Instruction, Technology & Innovation (CiTi/Oswego County BOCES)
Birthplace: Rochester
Residence: Mexico
Education: Bachelor’s degree in elementary education; master’s degree in curriculum and instruction; certificate of advanced instruction, education leadership, all from SUNY Oswego
Personal: Parents Mike and Judy Belfield, both retired, still live in Phoenix, southern Oswego County; Judy retired after serving as school superintendent at Phoenix Central School District. Wife Laura is an eighth-grade social studies teacher at Mexico Middle School. The couple has twin daughters who will be juniors this fall. Emma is a junior at Mexico High School and serves as the sergeant of the JROTC program, plays the flute, and is active in the soccer, basketball and lacrosse programs. Lillian is a junior at Oswego County P-Tech at CiTi. She is pursuing an associate’s degree in electrical engineering at P-Tech through Onondaga Community College.
Hobbies: Fishing, golfing and spending time with family.
