Schools superintendent to retire in ‘09

Goshen — Goshen’s superintendent of schools says he will take another stab at retirement — and this time he believes it will stick. “I think I may be able to pull it off this time,” he said. Roy Reese told the school board Monday night that he will leave the district in June 2009. He did not rule out an eventual return to work. After all, he had retired twice before, once in 1995 and again in 2002. But now that he’s 68, he said, the grueling schedule and workload of a school superintendent are taking their toll. During the school year, he rises daily at 4 a.m. and is at his desk at 6. When there are evening board meetings to attend or budget presentations to give, his work day turns into a marathon. “It’s time to try to slow down a little,” he said. Before education, there was carpentry. Reese’s early work years as a union carpenter made him desirable later in his career to Beacon High School, which sought his dual experience to shepherd a capital building project to completion. It was Beacon that lured him out of his first retirement. When he first retired, he was Goshen’s high school principal. He said the conventional thinking at the time was that the retirement age in education is 55. But he knew on his very first day of retirement that he had made a mistake. He retired a second time, from Beacon, because he believed a new high school principal, one who planned to be there awhile, should take over once the construction was finished. Then Goshen called. His fond memories of the district made the opportunity irresistible. “I fell in love with this community 24 years ago,” he said. Reese said that although he loves his job, being a superintendent has the disadvantage of taking him away from the part of education he loves most — the students. “I’m a teacher trapped in a superintendent’s office,” he said. Times in the district have been tough in recent years with regard to budgets, among the most important of his duties taking him away from students. Goshen’s last budgets was voted down on the first try, and a December vote on a proposed $70 million building project failed overwhelmingly. An uncertain economy has led voters to turn down a number of special projects in town. This is why Reese said the most important thing an incoming superintendent should do is “learn about the community and be able to represent the community. Have a finger on the pulse.” It’s not possible to provide kids with a great education without the community behind you, he said. Reese said new superintendent should also know that while it’s easy to make big improvements at a struggling school, it’s much harder to take a strong school like Goshen and move it to the next level. At Monday night’s school board meeting, he advised the board to start their search for a new superintendent right away. “June will be here before you know it,” he said. New principal at C.J. Hooker Middle School As Reese prepares to leave, C.J. Hooker Middle School is greeting a new arrival. A cadre of teachers turned out to support Colleen Kane’s bid for middle school principal. And they cheered when the board announced her appointment. Kane was assistant principal at Goshen last year. Before that, she was a guidance counselor for six years at the Cairo-Durham Middle School in Greene County. Reese said the job was not just handed to Kane. Eighty applicants applied for the position, eight got interviews, and there were three semifinalists, he said. “We are very pleased and proud to have her,” Reese said. “She is very competent and capable.” Kane will be paid $100,000 a year. Her contract extends through August 2011. The previous principal, Kent Maslin, left his post after two years on the job. He succeeded principal Ben Bragg.