Michael Keany
Co-founder and Director
Long Island School Leadership Center
Michael Keany embodies educational partnership. An experienced and vibrant school administrator, Keany – now retired – could have easily worked the interim lucrative “interim” circuit filling in while school districts recruited for principals and other administrators.
Instead, he chose to spend his time sharing his expertise with the next generation of school administrators as co-founder and current director of the Long Island School Leadership Center.
He takes the lead in addressing the growing need for qualified administrators in Long Island public schools. In doing so, he has formed partnerships throughout the education community and beyond. For example, he sought grant funding to support the development of an electronic outreach program, via listservs, that has grown in number to include more than 7,000 subscribers regionwide. In addition, he conducts workshops, arranges online training, and maintains a Web site for current and aspiring administrators.
Keany grew up in Queens Village, N.Y. He attended P.S. 33 Junior High Schol 109 and Martin Van Buren High School. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Queens College.
Keany’s educational career was spent in the Manhasset school district. There he started as a student teacher in the science department in 1967. The following year, he was hired as an 8th grade science and high school chemistry teacher. During these early years of teaching, Keany was constantly encouraged to tap into his creativity in the classroom.
Not one to sit on the sidelines, Keany played many significant roles in the district including high school assistant principal and principal, middle school principal and secondary school principal for grades 7-12, adult school director and director of an alternative program.
His commitment to the field of education is nationally recognized with election to the Headmasters Association, a professional organization of the 100 top secondary school principals and headmasters in the United States. In addition, Keany was past president of the North Nassau High School Principals Association and named Administrator of the Year by the Nassau School Library System.
