It took a few months, but the Department of Education has now acquired an executive director of public affairs from the ranks of Mayor Bloomberg’s reelection team.
Lenny Speiller will be taking over where Micah Lasher left off when he was promoted in September to executive director of external affairs. (Lasher’s external affairs office oversees Speiller’s public affairs office; yes, it’s confusing). Speiller will be responsible for working with elected officials and community-based organizations. This means seeing that DOE legislative goals like eliminating the charter cap and linking test scores to teacher tenure makes its way through the state legislature successfully.
Before working on the mayor’s campaign, Speiller served as chief of staff to Councilman James Gennaro and as campaign manager for State Senator Diane Savino. He’s a graduate of IS 119, Francis Lewis High School and Queens College, the DOE wants you to know.
Other trivia gleamed from Twitter: he liked Avatar; his brother was recently on 30 Rock; and he dislikes returning furniture to IKEA.