by Alex Brooks
The Hoosick Falls School Board held its Reorganizational Meeting on Tuesday, July 14. Rye Mausert 3rd was sworn in as the newest member of the Board, and Laurie Gormley was sworn in for another term after being re-elected. David Sutton was again elected as President of the Board, and John Helft as Vice-President.
New Principal
The most momentous piece of business of the evening was accepting the resignation of High School Principal Steven Leunig and appointing in his place Stacy Vadney, who has served as Assistant Principal of the High School for the past year. Both Board President Dave Sutton and Superintendent Ken Facin crossed the room to congratulate her on the appointment.
Facin said Leunig had “moved on to other opportunities.” He said Vadney has done a great job this past year as Assistant Principal, and he said, “I have the utmost confidence in Stacy,” adding that he had heard nothing but positive comments from the faculty about her. He said the District is advertising for a new Assistant Principal.
Summer Programs
The 17 page agenda for Tuesday’s meeting was full of appointments for a number of summer programs that the District is running. The first of these was a motion to approve almost 50 projects of summer curriculum work at a cost of $67,488. A little over $50,000 of this is paid from the District’s General Fund, and $17,250 is paid by Federal Title I Grants. Facin said, “This is the stuff that is moving the District forward.” He noted that these projects are submitted to him for approval when completed, and he said he has rejected quite a few of them, sending them back for revision and improvement.
The Board approved appointments for a Summer School Special Education Program which will run mornings, from 9 to 11:30 am from July 6 to August 14 at St. Mary’s.
High School Students attending Summer School will be going to the Cambridge Central School because of the construction at the Hoosick Falls school. The Board approved appointments of bus drivers and bus attendants so that the Hoosick Falls District can provide transportation for that.
The Board approved appointments for a Summer Reading Program to be held at St. Mary’s three mornings a week. The program will be attended by 52 students from the District. The Board also approved appointments for two new summer school programs, one for rising fifth and sixth-graders at St Mary’s that will serve ten students, and one for rising seventh and eighth-graders at the Hoosac School that will serve 32 students. Both of these programs run four mornings a week from July 6 through August 13.
The Board also approved appointments for two summer enrichment programs. One is the Summer Science program led by Howard Romack which will take place August 10-14. Fifth grade science teacher Chris Zakrzewski, sixth grade science teacher Amy Sutton and seventh grade science teacher Bruce Bailey were appointed to assist Romack with the program. Twenty-three rising eighth-graders are signed up for the program. The other is a Summer Music Program for grades 5 and 6 to be held two days a week at the HACA building in Hoosick Falls, to be taught by Bill Brown.
Making possible all of these summer programs is a one-time shot of “economic stimulus” money from the Federal government. Superintendent Ken Facin said this includes $102,000 of Title 1 funding and $177,000 of Special Education funding for this summer, the upcoming school year and next summer. He feels that these additional summer programs will make a real difference in improving student performance in the District. Facin said that many of the testing results from the just-completed school year are back, and “We have seen great improvement in student results.” He said the August School Board meeting will be devoted to presenting these results in a “State of the Schools” report.