JENNIFER GUSTAVSON PHOTO | Water Mill resident Richard Malone will serve as the new superintendent at Oysterponds. Joan Frisicano resigned Tuesday night after the board’s reorganization meeting.

The Oysterponds school board hired its administrative consultant, Richard Malone, as the new superintendent Tuesday night after Joan Frisicano resigned from the post she has held for over a year.

Ms. Frisicano declined to give specifics on her decision after the meeting to a reporter, saying only that it was for “personal reasons.”

“I’ve enjoyed being here,” a tearful Ms. Frisicano said during the meeting, after the board approved her resignation. “I’m going to miss everybody.”

Ms. Frisicano began as interim principal at Oysterponds in December 2010 and became interim superintendent after the board completed its buyout of Stuart Rachlin’s contract. She was named permanent part-time superintendent in April 2011.

Mr. Malone, 68, of Water Mill has a long history as an educator.

He was head of the Child Development Center of the Hamptons in Wainscott, head of the Morriss Center /Hampton Day School, headmaster of the Long Island University Center for Gifted Youth and an adjunct professor at both Dowling College in Oakdale and Southampton College.

Mr. Malone has also been a consultant in Smithtown with SCOPE, a private education group chartered by the New York State Board of Regents to provide services to school districts. He was also head of Peconic Montessori in Water Mill, a former Southampton School District superintendent, intermediate school principal in Southampton and assistant principal at Westbury Junior High School, where he was also a social studies department chairman and teacher.

For the past year, Mr. Malone has worked as the district’s administrative consultant and provided the school’s staff with professional development.

“I’ve gotten to know the school very well,” Mr. Malone said after the meeting. “I’m very much interested in moving the Oysterponds school district forward into the future.”

The board approved a two-year contract with Mr. Malone that goes into effect July 16.

In addition to hiring a new superintendent, the board appointed Dorothy-Dean Thomas as its new president to replace Deborah Dumont, who had held the position since she was first elected to the board in 2010.

Ms. Thomas, 45, of Orient, first ran unsuccessfully for a school board seat in 2005. She was first elected in 2010 and has served as board vice president since.

Janice Caufield, 57, of Orient, was appointed to vice president.

East Marion residents Linda Goldsmith and Krista de Kerillis, both of whom won re-election last month, were sworn in to serve another term on the school board.

Pick up Thursday’s issue of The Suffolk Times to read more about this story.

jennifer@timesreview.com