Melissa Bailey Photo
A “high energy” assistant principal in Fair Haven named Sandra Kalizewski will be crossing town to take the place of a longtime principal in Westville.
At its meeting Monday at Hill Regional Career High School, the school board tapped Kalizewski (pictured) to become principal of Mauro-Sheridan Magnet School.
Kalizewski replaces Denise Coles-Cross, who is retiring after leading Mauro and Mauro-Sheriden for a whopping 22 years.
Coles-Cross (pictured) showed up Monday to support her replacement.
Kalizewski is currently an assistant principal at K‑8 Clinton Avenue School in Fair Haven. Before that, she worked for three years as an instructional coach in math, according to a district press release. She has a 6th-year degree from Sacred Heart University and 13 years’ experience in education. She starts her new job on July 1 with a salary of $135,161.
A district statement described the peppy educator as “high energy” and “high talent.”
In brief remarks before the board, Kalizewski pronounced herself “very lucky” to be joining the school.
“I have big shoes to fill, but I’m looking forward to the challenge,” she said.
The Mauro-Sheridan job is one of four that opened up due to principal retirements this year.
Monday’s appointment leaves New Haven with just one vacant principal post, at Davis Street Arts Magnet School. “A number of finalists are in consideration” for that post, with “further discussion and assessment” set for later this week, according to the school district statement distributed Monday.
Principals in schools with vacant assistant principal jobs are interviewing candidates. Superintendent Garth Harries expects to “make a set of priority AP [assistant principal] decisions in the coming week,” according to the statement.
Two Returnees
Two retired school administrators, Charles Williams and Eleanor Turner, have been hired back to “provide leadership coaching and support for school leadership and staff” at the struggling Lincoln-Bassett School. In the wake of a blistering state audit that revealed a deep adult division in the school, in addition to longstanding problems with instruction, attendance and behavior, the superintendent recently decided to replace the principal, Yolanda Jones-Generette, who had taken over the school just last summer.
The school board Monday approved hiring Williams and Turner as consultants from April 1, 2014 to June 30, 2014, with a salary of $32,500 each.
Two New “Residents”
The school board Monday also created two grant-funded positions for “residents” who will spend a short stint working with New Haven schools.
Kelly Kovacic (pictured), a doctoral candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, will come to New Haven for one year. Her mission will be to “help New Haven Public Schools strengthen and improve the relationship and support between schools and central office,” according to the district. Kovacic, a former California teacher of the year, spent 10 years teaching at a charter school on the UC-San Diego campus.
Siddhartha Chowdri will join New Haven’s school district for two years as part of the Broad Residency Program for Urban Education. Chowdri will help the district’s incoming chief financial officer, Victor De La Paz, get a handle on the school system’s finances. He will design and manage better ways of managing the budget.
The Broad Academy, of which Superintendent Harries is a graduate, is funded by billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad. The foundation, as well as Harvard’s education school, will chip in to subsidize the residencies. The district will pay each resident’s salary — $65,000 for Kovacic and $95,000 for Chowdri — through grants. Kovacic starts June 23; Chowdri, July 9.
Harries said the residencies are evidence of New Haven’s stature in the national school reform debate.
“It’s a measure of the work we’ve done with the district that folks from around the country want to come here and learn from experience,” Harries said.