SCHOOL DISTRICT Board votes against renewing contracts

The district is projecting a $2.2 million deficit in 2007, a board member said.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
CAMPBELL -- The board of education has voted not to renew the contracts of a principal and its special education director.
On Tuesday, the board defeated by a 3-2 vote recommendations by Superintendent James A. Ciccolelli that Kathleen Yeloushan be renewed for three years as principal of kindergarten through eighth grade and that John Gulgas be renewed for one year as special education director.
In both cases, board members Diana Petruska, Dominic Medina and Karen Repasky voted against renewing the contracts, and board members Robert Dolan and Beth Donofrio voted in favor of renewal.
Supported Yeloushan
The votes followed a 40-minute executive session. After the votes were taken, several members of the audience said they thought Yeloushan's contract should have been renewed.
"She is finally taking our building forward, where we need to go," Ruby Peltz, a fifth-grade math teacher, said of Yeloushan. "We're doing what the state expects us to do in our classrooms. We're bringing up proficiency scores. We're involving parents," said Peltz, who has been with the district for 28 years.
"For too long, we have had no one to help us. The principals are overwhelmed," Peltz said. The board's new K-8 building enrolls about 1,130 pupils.
"She's our curriculum principal. She makes sure that we're meeting the standards. She provides leadership for the teachers," said Karen Pico of Goretti Drive, who has three children enrolled in the district schools.
Although she acknowledged that running the new consolidated K-8 building is easier with three administrators than two, Repasky said, "We're facing some very tough financial times. During financial difficulties, tough decisions have to be made."
In its financial forecast, the district is projecting a $2,187,000 deficit in 2007, Medina said. Medina, a former mayor of the city, also noted the city's current fiscal crisis.
Renewed
By unanimous votes, the board endorsed Ciccolelli's recommendations to renew Richard Gozur as high school principal for three years, Robert Martinko as assistant high school principal and Damon Dohar as principal for grades five to eight, both for one year. All of the resolutions had been tabled since a board meeting a week earlier.
Yeloushan, who was previously Struthers Middle School principal, had been hired three years ago to facilitate the transition from Penhale Elementary and Reed Middle School to the newly opened, combined K-8 building and to provide top leadership in the new building.