District names 2 building leaders
Pleasant Avenue, Warren Street get new principalsBy MICHAEL ANICH, The Leader-Herald
JOHNSTOWN - Two educators who have not served as principals have been named the city school district's newest elementary principals.
Even though the two new principals have never served in that position, Greater Johnstown School District officials said both administrators have strong educational backgrounds.
"They both have teaching backgrounds," district Superintendent Katherine A. Sullivan said today.
Sullivan announced that Jeffrey Vivenzio, a reading first coordinator and data coordinator for the Eastern New York Regional School Support Center in Albany, has accepted an offer to be the new principal of Pleasant Avenue Elementary School.
Sullivan said Vivenzio is the supervisor for a federal program for reading at the center, and he previously worked at New Covenant Charter School in Albany.
Sullivan said Vivenzio will earn about $68,000 as principal of Pleasant Avenue Elementary School.
"I'm very excited to have the opportunity to work with such a wonderful school district and community," Vivenzio said today.
The superintendent also announced that R. Scott Ziomek, an administrative intern at Marie Currie Institute in Amsterdam, has accepted the district's offer to be the principal of Warren Street Elementary School. The institute is a magnet school. Sullivan said Ziomek will earn about $61,000 annually.
Ziomek couldn't be reached today.
The Greater Johnstown School District Board of Education Thursday night decided to offer the two building principal positions to Vivenzio and Ziomek, but allowed the men the weekend to decide whether they wanted to accept.
Sullivan said she did not have an effective date yet for the new principals. But she said she anticipates them starting soon, and the board making their appointments official Aug. 13, with retroactive start dates.
Board President Robert Curtis said today that Vivenzio and Ziomek were chosen from more than 20 principal candidates.
"We're very excited," he said. "It was a tough pool of candidates. It was outstanding. Both schools are very fortunate to get two quality candidates like we chose here."
The opening at Pleasant Avenue Elementary School was caused by the resignation of former Principal David Blanchard who resigned effective July 1 to become the principal of Wood Road Elementary School in the Ballston Spa Central School District in Saratoga County. He had been the principal of Pleasant Avenue Elementary School the past two years.
The opening at Warren Street Elementary School existed because former Principal Anne Christiano was permanently denied tenure by the Board of Education June 10 and was released June 30. She was appointed by the district in July 2005, and the board had initially denied her tenure April 30 in what Curtis termed an "advisory" vote. Christiano also was denied tenure by the board in 2008.
During the early spring, Jansen Avenue Elementary School's tenured teachers and support staff wrote a letter to the district expressing "anxiety and trepidation" about possibly working under Christiano at Warren with their school closing at the end of the school year.
Michael Anich covers Johnstown and Fulton County news. He can be reached at johnstown@leaderherald.com
|
Discobulous
|
|
|---|---|
|
07-27-09 2:40 PM
|
As Tarzan said to Jane, "It's a jungle out there."
|
|
IKnooow
|
|
|
07-27-09 12:54 PM
|
Christiano was released into the wild to find another job.
|
|
Discobulous
|
|
|
07-27-09 12:27 PM
|
So what do they do with Christiano?
|
|
JoePhillip
|
|
|
07-27-09 12:02 PM
|
Those are pretty good prices for such big stepping stones.....
|
|
SaitoSan
|
|
|
07-27-09 11:09 AM
|
Tammy20, can you share any dirt about these people - or didn't your BOE vice-president mom give you any?
|