Warwick introduces new principal
By Abby Wolf WARWICK — Warwick has a new middle school principal.
Cindy Mantas-Leandro comes to Warwick from Pearl River high school, where she was recently assistant principal. Previously, she was an English teacher in the Niskayuna school district.
“She comes out of the teaching ranks," said Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Raymond Bryant at the school board's organizational meeting Monday night. "She's grounded."
He said there was a consensus that Mantas-Leandro was the right choice.
Bryant added that she is married to a middle school teacher at “(cough) Monroe-Woodbury.
The board also swore in its officers, including new board member Sharon Davis, and honored its retirees (please see related story).
New textbooks approved The board agreed to buy new textbooks that meet new state and federal Common Core Learning Standards, and to bring up the percentage of students who meet state and local benchmarks for K-8 English Language Arts (ELA). Currently, fewer than 80 percent of Warwick's students meet those standards, based on the state's ELA assessments for grades 3 to 8, AIMSweb MAZE probes for grades 1 to 8, and kindergarten AIMSweb test of Early Literacy (TEL).
The AIMSweb Web site describes it as a "web-based assessment, data management, and reporting system....that can be used with any curriculum" in grades 1 through 8.
Textbook does not equal curriculum. Bryant said, although the two terms are often used interchangeably.
“Textbook is supportive of curriculum, not a be-all, end-all," he said.
Based on the district's pilot study earlier this year, Warwick teachers believe that both “Prentice-Hall Literature Common Core Standards Edition 2012” and “Reading Street: 2013 Common Core Edition” will meet the rigors of Common Core learning standards and the needs of students and teachers at all levels, while providing reading resources for grades K through 6.
Charter school supporters ask again about Pine Island
Shannon Hochswender, representative for the proposed DIRT charter school, said she submitted a letter of intent on June 21 to the state education department, and will next submit a full charter school application to the state.
She and her board have been looking at vacant school buildings in the area as they searching for sites for the proposed schools. She asked the board to reconsider her group's previous request to lease the former Pine Island Elementary school building, which the board had earlier rejected. The DIRT backers are looking for a lease period extending from July 1, 2013, through July 1, 2014.
Paul Ruszkiewicz, another DIRT supporter, said his group “looked at Florida, Minisink, Goshen," but prefers Pine Island Elementary because it would keep down transportation costs.
He read a letter from the Pine Island Chamber of Commerce asserting that the proposed environmental- and agricultural-oriented curriculum would “benefit (the) children's studies and the local community.”
School board member Paul Caskey said he was worried about the revenue the Warwick district would lose if its students left to attend a charter school.
In a June 1 letter to Ruszkiewicz, school board president David Eaton wrote that, after consulting the board's attorney, the board decided not to lease the Pine Island building "to any entity whose purpose or mission is in conflict with the mission of the Warwick Valley Central School District." But the district "is very interested in working with the Pine Island Chamber of Commerce to find a lessee(s) that not only provides rent to the WVCSD but also helps to support and grow the Hamlet of Pine Island.”
In March, a group of parents, educators and community members told the board they were applying to found a charter school, saying they wanted a more innovative curriculum and fewer restrictive mandates. DIRT is an acronym for Developing Innovative Rural Thinking.
For The Warwick Advertiser's earlier story, "Growing a new school from DIRT," visit http://bit.ly/NjQCSq.