Greg Troxell named principal of Phillipsburg High School

Tuesday, August 04, 2009
By STEPHEN J. NOVAK
The Express-Times

PHILLIPSBURG | A Phillipsburg High School graduate who returned to rise to 12th-grade assistant principal gained a promotion Monday to the school's top administrative position.

The school board unanimously selected Greg Troxell to serve as high school principal.

"It means a lot to me, it means a lot to the building, the teachers and the staff of the school that you are unanimously standing behind me," Troxell said at Monday's meeting.

"You will not be disappointed," he said to applause from the audience.

Troxell's new position is effective immediately with a salary of $128,667.

District officials in June reassigned then-Principal Mary Jane Deutsch to the Office of Special Services as director of special education workers as part of a shuffling of six administrative positions.

Troxell graduated from Phillipsburg in 1990 and returned as an eighth-grade science teacher in 1994 after attending Penn State University, according to a biography posted on the school district's Web site.

He earned a master's degree in educational administration from East Stroudsburg University in 1998.

Troxell has held several administrative positions in the district. He served as assistant principal and principal of Phillipsburg Middle School before being moved to the high school in 2005.

Troxell also coached Stateliner wrestling in his hometown.

Troxell said his wife was at home during Monday's meeting with the couple's 6-day-old daughter and 2-year-old twins.

"She would have liked to have been here this evening, but I told her I'd see her next summer," Troxell said jokingly to laughter from residents and the school board.