Brendan Gilley

Mr. Brendan Gilley arrived at SWR last year as a substitute teacher after a two year leave replacement at Southampton Intermediate School. This year, he is a probationary teacher with English 10 and 11 classes. Mr. Gilley attended Suffolk Community College and St. Joseph’s College, earning his master’s degree at Stony Brook University. He originally majored in computer programming, but made the decision to switch to English.

“After a while I realized that I don’t really want to be stuck in a cubicle writing code. It felt very lonely. I felt like I couldn’t talk to anybody. My second love was literature—reading, writing, watching movies, and analyzing things like that. I realized that I couldn’t code for the rest of my life and wanted to talk to people.”

In high school, Mr. Gilley was deeply involved in track and field and cross country. Now, he attends many SWR sporting events, and was at every football game this past season.

“I make a point to go to any school event that a student invites me to.”

Mr. Gilley says that he loves SWR as a school, stressing just how kind everyone has been to him here from the students to the administrators. He loves that the students are ‘engaged,’ and ‘polite.’

“This is the best school that I’ve ever taught at, I love it so much.”