Homegrown principal: Craig Dreves returns to P.C. to lead Park Avenue owls
August 15, 2024 at 12:25 a.m.
Splashes of color highlighted Craig Dreves’s outfit, his bright red sneakers and charming Children Save the World tie—what he calls a staple of his wardrobe—embellishing his summertime business casual attire.
It’s pretty much the usual look, he described.
“In some ways, I’m a big kid. Life is about success, but it’s also about joy and happiness,” he said. “I always say, elementary schools are a place where daises grow out of the cement. This is where kids should be joyful and loving every part of the experience…I think my personality kind of lends itself to an elementary principal position.”
Dreves, 50, relishes the full circle moment coming together as he heads into the 2024-25 school year as the new principal of Park Avenue Elementary School—his rival turned home. As a Class of 1992 graduate of the high school, he’s no stranger to Port Chester. It just took a few years of world travel and a stint of growing experience in the field of education for “the universe to speak” to him and bring him back home.
“I lead with my heart and soul, I don’t know how to do it otherwise,” Dreves said. “So, if I’m going to give my passion and heart and soul to a place, and I would give it anywhere, but isn’t it even better to give it back to your home community that gave so much to you?”
“These schools made me the man I am,” he later added. “So, to be able to come home and dedicate my passion to the place that made me, it’s kind of a unique privilege. I’m really lucky.”
He also sees the full circle moment as a matter of legacy.
The Dreves name is a familiar one; both of his parents are known in the school community.
While his mother Kathy was a longtime administrative assistant at Port Chester High School, his father James served as a well-respected Board of Education trustee for 27 years—esteemed so highly that the district will be honoring a garden in his name on Tuesday, Aug. 20.
“To continue the legacy is a blessing,” he said. “I think I stand on the shoulders of my parents, who already started this foundation, and now I get to make my own impact on the district that both of my parents put so much effort into over the years. In some ways for me and for them, it feels like this continuation, this fulfillment of that circle we’ve all been working on.
“Elementary schools are a place where daises grow out of the cement. This is where kids should be joyful and loving every part of the experience.”
—Craig Dreves, Park Avenue School principal
“It’s gratifying and fulfilling to me in deep ways.”
Dreves was hired at a salary of $191,350 to fill the vacancy left by Rosa Taylor, the longtime Park Avenue Elementary School principal who retired at the end of the 2023-24 school year. Superintendent Dr. Aurelia Henriquez said she feels there’s a benefit to having someone with a history in the community come in to take over a school that had been characterized by such consistency.
“He has deep roots in Port Chester, shared values. He’s very much connected…I feel Mr. Dreves really understands our community and wants nothing more than to pay it forward,” she said. “Talk about a pleasant surprise. I don’t think any of us knew we’d have a candidate who’s so deeply invested to come here and interview.”
But beyond the roots, she said, it’s about his qualifications. And to Dreves, the qualifications are all about the journey that brought him home.
As a young student, Dreves was a “King Street kid,” and “there’s always been a rivalry between King and Park,” he laughed. “I went to school with some of the teachers here. And they’re already being like ‘oh, the King Street kid is finally realizing which is the best school around.’”
He spoke fondly about his experience growing up through middle and high school—feeling the Port Chester pride, playing on the football team and challenging himself with honors classes.
“These schools set me up for success in my university,” he said, which in turn established a lifelong trajectory of seeking humanitarian adventure.
As an undergraduate at Boston College, he took his first travel opportunity through an Ignacio Volunteers trip, dedicating three weeks to humanitarian work in Jamaica. And since then, he was hooked.
After earning his degree, Dreves spent nearly a decade traveling the world. He taught English as a Second Language in orphanages, then he joined the Peace Corps, all experiences that would lead him to extended adventures living in Japan, Romania, Peru, Costa Rica (where he picked up Spanish) and across South America.
“I was young and idealistic; I thought I’d go out there and change the world,” he said. “But ultimately, what ends up happening is the world changes you.”
Traveling and living abroad has taught Dreves about humility, gratitude and perspective—he learned to cherish and embrace his privileges and feels he can empathize with the experience of getting thrust into new cultures. And the latter point, he said, makes him particularly well suited to work at Port Chester Schools, an institute serving a robust immigrant population.
“I also lived abroad and had to learn the language, the cultures and customs. I can relate to people having recently come into our community; I’ve done that, too,” he said. “And I also have a real deep appreciation, a love of Latin culture. Being able to bring those experiences back to my work with my families here, it’s a great thing.”
The irony, Dreves laughed, is that he got so invested in his travels that no one thought he’d ever come home. But eventually, it called to him.
He didn’t initially see himself becoming an educator—for a few years as a young adult he was set on a career as a diplomat working for the Department of State.
“But 9/11 happened, which changed that trajectory. Foreign policy changed and ultimately, I didn’t go that route,” he said. “In a way, I say that education chose me as much as I chose education…I wanted to go see the world, and I used English and teaching as my vehicle around the world. And when I was ready to come home, well, I had always been a teacher.”
Dreves landed his first public schools job in Rye, where he lives today. He worked as a history and English teacher and gave English as a Second Language lessons at Westchester Community College at night.
After eight years, he said he found himself in a place ready for growth.
“My journey, I feel, has always kind of given me the clues of what’s next and where I should be going,” he said. “In Rye, I loved it. It was home. Rye is also a very wealthy community, and I knew my heart and soul was wanting to be dedicated to working with families who may be struggling with different things. That’s where I felt fulfillment.”
The itch took him to Ossining, where he was hired as an assistant principal at the middle school—a job he also loved, but within a few years realized it wasn’t scratching his true passion: children.
“I didn’t have a stitch of elementary school experience, but I said to my superintendent at the time ‘I really think I would be great there,’” he said. And once he made the shift, he never looked back. “How can you not be happy when you go into a classroom and kids are excited to learn? Or when one kid gives you a hug and then 16 more follow in a hug train?”
“It fills me with such a good energy, and then I’m able to bring that energy and hopefully fill others,” he continued.
A few years in Ossining led him to his first elementary school principalship in Nyack, where he had served the last two years. He didn’t leave because he didn’t love it, he clarified. But simply: how could he not take an opportunity to come home?
Dreves said he’s the principal who will wheel a large speaker, which he affectionately named Mookie, to the front door every morning to greet children while garnering as many high fives as he can. And he’s also the type of principal, he described, who cares to foster healthy bonds with his staff.
Since starting on July 15, Dreves said he’s been working toward his 90-day plan of data collection. He’s been talking with fellow administrators, parents, students who were around for the summer program, and critically, the teachers.
Aside from getting to know his staff as people, he said he’s learning about the essence of Park Avenue Elementary School—the magic that makes it work, and the areas that could see improvement. “At this point, it’s about building relationships, building trust, creating joyful opportunities that should exist every day,” he said.
“Careers are sort of a 30-year thing, if you think about it. My first third was teaching, my second third was being an assistant principal, and while I never thought of it as a race, I figured at some point I’ll move into principalship,” he said. “This is likely my final stop in my career. And now I have a wonderful way to impact my community in the final third.”
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