Leaders within the West Windsor-Plainsboro district are set to rotate positions for the 2012-’13 school year. At its meeting on Tuesday, May 22, the school board unanimously approved a recommendation for Roseann Bonino, presently the principal of High School South, to take the helm at Millstone River in the fall while Dennis Lepold, the current principal of Grover Middle School, replaces her as South’s principal in September. A temporary void will then be created at Grover, but the WW-P board of education says appointing a principal there is its next step.
At the May 22 meeting, Superintendent Victoria Kniewel spoke about the reasoning behind the changes. “School principals are called upon to be facilitators, role models, and transformers. The underlying role of a principal is the same for all building leaders. Understanding the importance of vertical articulation — moving from each grade level to the next — is as important for principals as it is for teachers.”
Bonino started her career in the district as a high school and middle school Spanish and ESL teacher. She later became assistant principal at South and then took over as principal in September 2010. Bonino will receive tenure in the district will be August 26.
Lepold started as a language arts teacher at South. He was the assistant principal at South before becoming Grover’s principal in 2007. Now he ascends to South’s top position.
Kniewel added that Bonino and Lepold both have “an effective vision of K-12 learning, a strong and sound knowledge of operations and management, and a clear-cut and experienced understanding of instructional leadership.”
Also at its meeting on May 22, the board introduced a new supervisor of science for grades K through 12. Effective July 1, Rebecca McLelland-Crawley will replace Rob Richard, who resigned. McLelland-Crawley’s date to receive tenure will be July 2, 2015.
In other district personnel moves:
— Three teachers have been appointed as permanent leave replacements. At High School South Matthew Coburn replaces social studies teacher Kristine Javick. Two new fifth grade teachers were confirmed for Millstone River School: Krystina Maloney will replace Audrey Trapolsi and Kristen Voorhees will replace Caroline Behrend.
— The following teachers will receive leaves of absence for the 2012-’13 school year: Caitlin Allen, High School North, Patricia Brickner, Grover, Jamie Cook, Maurice Hawk, Heather Horan, Community Middle School, Renee McFall, Town Center, Stacey McGuirl, Maurice Hawk, and Jessica Corriveau, who teaches at Town Center, Hawk and Wicoff.
— The following teachers were reappointed following leaves of absence: Marjorie Laurence, Veronica Christenson, Stacey Duffy, Jennifer Knoblock, Suzanne McMaster, Jianne Meeks, Linda Melski, Brooke Parrott, JoAnn Quinlan, and Robert Vogt.
Twenty-five Indian-American parents, dressed in green T-shirts that read “I Support Hindi in WW-P,” attended the board’s May 22 meeting and spoke during public comments. The parents consist of West Windsor and Plainsboro residents whose children attend Hindi USA language classes on Friday evenings at Grover Middle School from approximately 7 to 8:30 p.m. Hindi USA is an external language learning program. The parents directed a request to the school board for WW-P to consider implementing Hindi as part of the district’s world languages curriculum.
Several parents said that learning Hindi in school would help children be better prepared to work in the global economy and connect with those in India and the diaspora of the Hindi-speaking population.
Mamta Puri, a volunteer teacher for Hindi USA’s classes at Grover, spoke about a Hindi initiative from a teacher’s perspective. Coincidentally, Puri studied under Martin Smith, WW-P’s assistant superintendent for curriculum and assessment, to become a language instructor.
Puri says volunteer teachers with Hindi USA aren’t well-trained to teach a foreign language as it should be taught, and that can hinder the students’ learning of Hindi. The parents want the district’s educators to provide Hindi instruction.
“Most of our volunteer teachers are parents with very little time in the evening, just doing their best to teach the language. I was fortunate enough to be trained as a foreign language teacher at UPenn, and that changed my perspective on teaching. I would like to emphasize that if you have Hindi in our schools’ curriculum then a well-trained teacher will be instructing the students. Kids would have a more structured form of learning a language, and they would be better taught than parents or volunteers who may not have a definite lesson plan to teach them,” Puri said.
Rohit Mehra presented some facts about Hindi for the school board to consider.
“Hindi is one of the most widely-spoken languages in the world. A Hindi course has been offered in more than 100 colleges and universities in the U.S., and most recently it was introduced in schools in Bensalem, PA, to start in September. Many high schools in Texas have been offering Hindi, as does Edison. Based on that, and considering that we have a large Indian community, we would like Hindi represented and introduced in elementary schools in WW-P,” Mehra said.
Board President Hemant Marathe told the group that their request will come before the curriculum committee. The next scheduled meeting of the curriculum committee is Monday, June 4, at 10 a.m. at the district’s central office. Some of the parents indicated that they will attend that meeting.
