By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT — Assistant Supt. of Schools Anthony Buono will retire in June and the school district is launching a search to replace him.

The announcement came at the start of the Board of Education meeting Thursday night.

Supt. of Schools Thomas Scarice said Buono, who oversees teaching and learning in the district, will be missed as a part of his central office team.

“I think everyone knows how humble he is about his work, how diligent he is about his work, how thorough he is about his work. There is a moral compass to everything he does,” Scarice said.

Buono was the third-highest paid administrator in the Westport school district in 2023, according to figures released early last year — $238,538 in salary and $11,052 in vacation compensation for a total of $249,590.

A new grandfather, Buono said after the meeting that retirement is something he has been contemplating for some time.

Buono, a Milford resident, came to Westport in 2018 with more than 25 years of experience in public education. A year later, he was tapped as acting superintendent of the district after the departure of then-Supt. Colleen Palmer. 

A search for a permanent replacement led to the hiring of Scarice.

Buono began his teaching career in Wallingford in 1992. He earned a master’s degree in educational leadership from Sacred Heart University in 2001, an advanced degree in educational leadership from UConn in 2008, and a Ph.D. from Lesley University in Cambridge, Maa., in 2012.

As an administrator, Buono’s first role was as an assistant principal in Groton. Two years later, he was hired by the Branford school district, where he stayed 14 years — first, as an elementary school principal, later as an associate superintendent and then assistant superintendent before coming to Westport.

Scarice said a job listing for a new assistant superintendent for teaching and learning is being finalized and will be posted next week. 

A six-week search process is expected, with the new assistant superintendent selected in April and slated to start work with the new fiscal year in July.

Freelance writer Linda Conner Lambeck, a reporter for more than four decades at the Connecticut Post and other Hearst publications, is a member of the Education Writers Association.