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Photo: Abby Fox
Alexis Meyer, an East Greenwich native, is going to head Cole Junior High, where she’s worked both as a teacher and administrator for several years. Michael Zajac of North Smithfield is the outgoing principal.
BY ABBY FOX
Alexis Meyer, Cole Junior High’s next principal, after Michael Zajac leaves July 3, is East Greenwich, all the way.
Meyer was raised here, she graduated in 1972 from East Greenwich High School, and throughout her youth she worked at her family’s Kent Restaurant at 223 Main Street, owned by her father, Angelo Lazarides, for almost 50 years.
After living in that small-town scene, she wanted to see a little more of the world, and lived in New Jersey for awhile, working for Prudential-Bache Securities for five years.
But the tug of East Greenwich, family and education all pulled her back in 1985, and ten years later, when her son Christopher was going into second grade, Meyer went back to work, first as a teaching assistant, then promoted to eighth-grade social studies teacher. She’s worked at Cole for seven years, the last four as assistant principal.
“She worked her way up through the ranks, and has a wealth of information from all groups,” said Zajac, who is leaving to take a job as principal of Scituate Middle School, which he said works better for his home and family in North Smithfield.
“Alexis is a good friend, a wonderful colleague, and she will do an outstanding job,” he said. “It’s been an exceptional working relationship.”
“He’s prepared me well and made the transition easy,” she said.
At last Tuesday’s school committee meeting, Meyer was appointed principal, a career milestone which her father was there to witness, and it was greeted by loud applause. School committee member Deidre Gifford praised Meyer for working so well with an age group that many parents have difficulty relating to.
Meyer said afterward that she finds it funny, how people think it’s exceptional to enjoy working with pre-teens. “It’s a unique time; there’s an enormous amount of growth,” she said. “They’re such formative years. Their energy is wonderful and they certainly keep you young. It’s an exciting time in their lives, and it’s great to be a part of it.”
Meyer has a husband and two sons, one a junior in college and a 24-year-old, and her brother and father live in East Greenwich.
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