VB School Board names Brian Roberson new assistant BHS principal

At the Oct. 17 special meeting of the Van Buren Public Schools Board of Education, Brian Roberson was named the new assistant principal at Belleville High School.
The post was vacated recently when Stacy Buhro was promoted to BHS principal, a spot vacated by Abdul Madyun who became Human Resources Director for the district.
It was Madyun who recommended Roberson for the position.
Madyun said there were 180 candidates who applied for the assistant principal’s position, with eight of them working for the school district. He said there were three rounds of intensive interviews until the decision was made to recommend Roberson.
The board unanimously approved a one-year contract at a salary of $92,652.
Roberson has 15 years of experience working for the Detroit Public Schools and taught for a few years in Texas before moving to Michigan. He served as a District Curriculum and Instruction Committee member for the Detroit Public Schools, Lead Educator, Building Designee, Athletic Coordinator, and Behavior Modification Specialist within a school setting.
Roberson lives in Van Buren Township and two of his children have graduated from Belleville High School. One child is a student at Owen Intermediate School.
“We believe that he will complete our BHS team,” Madyun said in his recommendation of Roberson. “Students will find him to be very approachable.”
Roberson earned his bachelor of arts degree in Elementary Education in 1996 from South University in Baton Rouge, LA, and his master of science in Educational Leadership in 2010 from Concordia University in Ann Arbor.
Principal Buhro said she heard good things about him years ago when he got his leadership degree. She said now the district will get to know what a wonderful guy he is.
Trustee Sherry Frazier said she was impressed that he had been a male Kindergarten, first- and second-grade school teacher. “That was brave, real brave,” she said, noting children in those grades don’t sit down very long.
Frazier said because of his children who had gone through the Van Buren schools, “He is familiar with our system.”
In other business at the Oct. 17 meeting, the board:
• Welcomed new board member Alice Crawford, who had been sworn in before the meeting. She was named by the board to fill the vacancy created when Martha Toth resigned to move out of state. Crawford will be on the board until the end of December; and
• Approved a contract for $26,300 out of the sinking fund to Peter Basso Associates (PBA) of Troy for designing mechanical engineering controls for Tyler and Savage Schools. PBA’s bid was the highest of three, but it was recommended by Director of Plant Operations James Williams. The systems in place currently are not energy efficient, Williams said. The current system is in significant need of upgrading which ties in both mechanical and control components, Williams said. He said the last time these issues were addressed in these two schools was in 1985. This contract is for designing the controls and mechanicals for the project. He said he plans to have the bid documents go out Dec. 15 and have them back to the board in January, with construction to start in the spring. The two other bids for design were SES of Berkley, $19,800 and Sellinger of Livonia, $22,000.