Nereida Miranda

After ten years of serving as Curtis’ principal, Mr. Gregory Jaenicke will retire in January 2026.

Despite the demands that come with being our school’s principal, he always found time to interact with students and faculty, whether it be through greeting passersby in the hallways, sitting in on various classes, or simply taking time out of his day to lend a helping hand.

Succeeding Dr. Curtis, who guided Curtis for 11 years, Mr. Jaenicke helped to oversee the construction of the 2017 wing and navigated the unique challenges of COVID-19.

Many teachers have expressed their sadness at seeing him go. Working here since 2016, Assistant Principal Naime Velovic said that she will greatly miss him.  “I think he’s a gem of a human because he genuinely cares about the Curtis community,” she professed. “He hired me [as a history teacher], and then he hired me as an Assistant Principal. He was very inspirational to me, and I look up to his leadership style.”

Though it was a difficult decision to make, Mr. Jaenicke felt that it was time. “It was a whole bunch of reasons that factored into it. I did change my mind about 100 times, but ultimately I think it was just time for me to pass the torch to the next person,” he expressed.

“Sometimes I’m envious of those people, those who have a real plan about  when they’re going to retire. I didn’t  have a solid plan. I would always say that when I have the number  of years  and age to retire I’ll see what’s going on in my life and my family’s life.

A number of years ago I  passed the age that I needed to retire. I continued to like  what I was doing, and so I thought, no, it’s not the time. It was a little bit more on my mind after he [my son] graduated, I thought that I’d been around a long time, and that maybe it was time for someone with new with different ideas, and more energy. I found myself slowing down just a tiny bit.”

Many people are also curious as to why Mr. Jaenicke chose to retire now, halfway through the academic year. The reason he stayed? There were a number of new regulations – the phone ban and class-size reduction law – that Mr. Jaenicke hoped to see implemented. “I debated retiring at the end of last school year, but planning for the following school year begins almost now, December to January. We did so much planning in the spring term last year. I really wanted to see all this planning go into effect. That’s really why I didn’t retire.”

Mr. Jaenicke’s career in education began early on. In some ways, its come full circle.  “I was introduced to education as a college student, then as a teacher, then as assistant  principal, then finally principal,” said Jaenicke.

While attending college for business, he was invited to be an assistant basketball coach at Curtis. In fact, it was this experience of working with student athletes that piqued his interest in education. In 1988, he began working as a mathematics teacher at the Catholic high school Notre Dame, and stayed there for four years until moving to Monsignor Farrell. After six years, he came back to Curtis, this time as a math teacher and a basketball coach. He left in the academic year of 2002-2003 to do various jobs in DOE management and stayed there for 12 years. In August of 2015, he finally came back to be the principal.

With just weeks left, Mr. Jaenicke is trying to make the most of his limited time. “It hasn’t struck me as reality yet. There’s still a whole lot of regular, everyday routines and decisions to make. I’m so immersed. In my head right now, I’m still  the principal until I’m not the principal. I check off the days to make every day count.”

“When I think about the ten years I spent here, the highlights are always about students and their achievements and accomplishments,” Mr. Jaenicke reflected. “The graduations, senior award ceremonies, nursing pinning ceremonies, the times where students were being celebrated for their achievements, those are the real highlights.”

Mr. Jaenicke added that, though he won’t work at Curtis any more, he’ll be cheering on the community from the sidelines. “I’ll always be wanting to know how things are going for Curtis and I will always be cheering people on to reach their fullest potential,” he remarked.