Scarsdale School Board Announces Tenure Decisions

Fourteen Scarsdale teachers and two school administrators were granted tenure at the Board of Education meeting on Monday night May 23rd. Dr. Joan Weber announced the appointments which were given after a rigorous process of mentoring, supervision, evaluations and review of the results of parent surveys and public comments.

The entire School Board, administrators and the newly tenured teachers attended the meeting to acknowledge the staff’s accomplishments and congratulate them.

The list of newly tenured staff includes:

Administrators:

• Sue Peppers: Assistant Principal
• Lynn Shaine: Assistant Superintendant for Curriculum

Teachers:

• Lisa Houston -Foreign Language
• Michelle Boyum – Elementary
• Pam Winders Elementary
• Michelle Asch – Art
• John Van Cott – Elementary
• Sima Cass – Guidance
• Cara Hiller – English
• Kristan Martin – Science
• Lauren Barton – Math
• Elizabeth Karambelkar – Math
• Danielle Koenigsberg Special Ed
• Lauren Mooney – Language
• Margaret Siegrist Science
• Lisa Yokana – Art

Also of interest from the meeting: Superintendent of Schools Michael McGill provided an update on the search for a new principal for SHS. McGill expects the search to extend into the 2011-2012 school year and has assigned Fred Goldberg and Kelly Hamm to serve as interim principals with Goldberg handling exterior affairs and Hamm charged with managing the internal doings of the school. Since McGill also expects both Goldberg and Hamm to retire by 2013 the school is also engaged in a search for a new Assistant Principal.

In addition, since Athletic Director Mike Menna is retiring a search is on for a new Athletic Director for the school. In the past this position also encompassed responsibility for Physical Education, however McGill hopes to be able to maintain two positions – one for Athletic Director and the other to head up Physical Education.

McGill also announced that New York State has issued new regulations for teacher evaluations which will base teacher success on their students results on state tests. McGill called the new system “an assembly line approach” that “eliminates human judgment” from the assessment process. McGill believes that no single person can be held accountable for variables beyond their control and said that the new regulations emphasize results on tests that do not improve learning.”

The Board considered three items relating to gifts and financial support:

First: as a result of previous discussions about the creation of an educational foundation for Scarsdale, Jill Spieler announced that there was consensus among Board members to “move forward subject to community support.” She indicated that the foundation would be a separate not-for-profit entity that would solicit tax-deductible contributions. The Board will create a steering committee comprised of a diverse group of community members including community leaders, philanthropists, business leaders, an accountant or a lawyer and district parents and a school administrator to define the mission of the foundation, assess giving levels, explore the relationship between the foundation and the Board of Education, interface with other community organizations, propose a structure for the foundation and create organizational documents.

Spieler asked anyone who is interested in serving on the steering committee to put forth his or her name, biographical information and state why they would like to serve. Requests should be submitted to Lois Rehm or emailed it to the Board of Education email address by June 20th.

Second, the Board passed a resolution to adopt a one-time exception to the district’s gift policy which now caps annual gifts at $10,000. This resolution, drafted by Michael McGill, will permit school PTA’s to give gifts of up to $30,000. These funds can be used to finance capitol improvements, and 80% of the monies will go to the designated school with the remaining 20% to be used for projects at the Middle School or High School or to fund district-wide initiatives. The funds can be contributed anytime over the next two years.