Seeking an interim GWL superintendent…again

Greenwood Lake — After only five weeks’ time, the Greenwood Lake School District is again without a superintendent.

Interim Superintendent Harvey Hilburgh held the post for that short time after the district hired him to replace Dr. Richard Brockel, district superintendent, who was “reassigned to assistant superintendent,” according to Greenwood Lake Board President Ronald Sommer.

Now, the board must seek another interim superintendent as it begins to search for a permanent replacement, a process which Sommer expects to extend into 2014.

In published reports, Hilburgh said his exit was due to a “timing conflict,” as he only planned to hold the post until December. When he learned the district would need more time to recruit a permanent replacement, he decided to bow out because he didn’t want to “leave midstream,” according to that report.

Hilburgh was hired in mid-June, when the board decided to change Brockel’s role in the district by a 7-0 vote.

“We wanted to reposition ourselves and we felt this was the best way of repositioning ourselves and moving forward,” said Sommer.

In remarks made at the June 19 board meeting, Sommer said the temporary assistant superintendent position was designed to address “communication, technology, charter school information and other initiatives the Board of Education/district may wish to consider.”

Sommer said “there was significant need for community outreach within the district,” including updating the Greenwood Lake community about all district accomplishments as well as reacting against “unfounded rumors.”

Sommer said the 2010 closure of The Greenwood Lake News, a hyper-local weekly newspaper, cost the district a vehicle to get its message out to residents.

He also said in his June comments that “infiltration of charter schools in Orange County should be of concern to everyone in Orange County — especially to those who currently have children in our district.” The board must understand the potential academic and financial affects and “be proactive as the potentiality comes near,” he added.

However, this past week Sommer sidestepped the question of whether Brockel’s change of job status had anything to do with the lengthy parental high school choice option meetings which took place last year.

“There were board members on both sides of the fence for and against the entire high school issue,” he said. “There were community members on both sides of the fence for and against the high school issue. Everyone had their own opinion as to what the high school contact should look like, whether it was one school, two schools or three schools. I think being either the board president or the superintendent, you take on the persona of the district. That positive or negative energy gets ultimately assigned to the superintendent, more so than the board president.”

He added: “When we looked at everything, we needed to have a communications person, someone dealing with charter school business and we thought that Rich would be a good fit.”

Last year, Brockel led the parental choice option efforts of selecting Tuxedo’s George F. Baker High School, the Chester Academy High School or Warwick Valley High School as high school choice options for their children.

Greenwood Lake students have attended Baker for the past 30 years.

The process was hotly challenged by board members and district families over the spring, summer and fall months.

Last year, the Greenwood Lake board wanted to look at a variety of high school options — in addition to the incumbent Tuxedo district — which eventually included Warwick and Chester.

The board’s perspective was that a high quality high school education needed to be combined with fiscal prudence.

Greenwood Lake high-school-age students must travel to a different district since New York State will not allow the district to build its own high school. At Baker, approximately 80 percent of the student body comes from Greenwood Lake and Baker would face its own viability challenges if it lost that volume of students.

Tuxedo was initially selected as the sole district, but the Greenwood Lake board subsequently rescinded that vote.

Later in the process, only Warwick and Chester were offered as options. But irate parents rallied and formed a grassroots movement which eventually ended in having Tuxedo reinstated as a choice option.

As that happened, the three districts developed tuition rates, with Tuxedo’s being the highest.

Discussions at contentious board meetings focused on the financial affordability of each high school in addition to their curriculums and the merits of the small environment that Tuxedo and Chester would offer versus the medium-sized school environment of Warwick.

Emotions were high as Tuxedo supporters also stressed the history of student success at Baker and the established traditions that aided in that.

In the end, approximately 73 percent of incoming Greenwood Lake eighth-graders chose Baker, with 17 percent choosing Warwick and 11 percent for Chester, a victory for Tuxedo supporters who fought to get that school back in the mix.

Tuxedo, in the meantime, was preparing its own facelift in an effort to ensure its long-term viability, with its board approving the creation of the area’s first Science Mathematics Engineering Technology (STEM) Academy to be launched this September.

Tuxedo is also still considering the creation of a conversion charter school and an international high school.

Tuxedo also established a first-time non-resident tuition rate for families living outside of district boundaries who were interested in a STEM education and wanted to send their children to Baker. The arrangement would work similarly to a private school education.

“Parental choice, that’s what we’re going with,” Sommer reinforced. “Transportation is working on that piece, operations are normal and we’re getting ready for September. For recruiting the new superintendent, we started looking at various firms that do this work. Our original goal was January, but I don’t know if that’s doable.”