NEWS INFORMATION FROM

THE OFFICE OF MAYOR STEPHEN R. REED
City of Harrisburg
King City Government Center
Harrisburg, PA 17101-1678
Telephone: 717.255.3040

FOR IMMEDIATE USE
30 January 2005

RESPECTED EDUCATOR NAMED ASST. SUPERINTENDENT OF CITY SCHOOLS

Mayor Stephen R. Reed today announced the appointment of Dr. Sybil N. Knight Burney as Assistant Superintendent of the Harrisburg City School District. A highly regarded educator, Dr. Knight most recently served as the principal of Cambridge Rindge and Latin School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Reed said Dr. Knight will be responsible for student support services for the District. She has graduated or undergone training at Howard, Nova and Harvard Universities, and first began her career as a teacher at Miami Jackson High School in Cape Coral, Florida. In addition to her principalship of the 2,000- student Cambrindge and Latin High School, Cambridge’s only public high school, Dr. Knight also held Adjunct Professor positions at Lesley and Farmingham State Universities in Cambridge, and she was the Intern Supervisor for Harvard University. She will be paid $130,000 annually.

“Dr. Knight is a very highly regarded educator with a national reputation for high standards and the ability to get things done,” said Mayor Reed. “She has national standing in a wide array of academic pursuits and is also lauded for her civic and community service work. Her leadership style and communications abilities enable her to work closely with the community in which she serves and we look forward to her contributions to our continuing reforms of the public education system in Harrisburg.”

Reed said Dr. Knight has successfully conducted an extensive number of grant-funded programs that targeted at-risk and delinquent youth, literacy development and parent involvement. She has been a presentor or coordinator for such specialized programs as Infusing Multicultural Education Strategies and Techniques, Multicultural Awareness for Teachers and Sensitivity Training for Teachers, Preventing Crime in the Black Community Conference, the National Black Development Institute and many more.

“Harrisburg is becoming well-known across the country as a place where exciting things are happening in public education,” said Dr. Knight. “The opportunity to help contribute to this groundbreaking effort is a very compelling motivation, and I am honored to have been chosen.”