Meet some of Riverhead School District’s 43 new professional staff members

Attentive students filled the seats of the Riverhead Middle School library on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week – eyes on the whiteboard at the front of the room, ears tuned to the teacher – furiously taking notes during the lessons.

But these students weren’t school-age kids.

They were the newest teachers, social workers and other professionals hired this year to work in Riverhead’s schools. And they were learning the ins and outs of working here in a three-day New Teacher Institute run by the district.

On the third day, Michael Hugelmeyer, the district’s director of professional development, stood at the front of the library handing out teaching tips sprinkled with lots of humor.

“Teaching is a constant dance,” he told the group. “ You can’t dance by yourself in the classroom…Well, you can, but you’d look silly,” he said to laughter. “You need to engage your students – but always know who’s leading. Remember,” he told the group, “the kids should always be working harder than you. Your hard work is done outside of the classroom, preparing your lessons.”

Forty-three new professionals were hired this year to fill open positions in every building including two half-time positions and a six-month leave of absence. Close to half of the new personnel is dually certified. Some have credentials to teach English as a New Language along with a specific discipline. Others hold special education along with another certification, said Laura Grable, the district’s mentor and interpreter, who helped run the three-day workshop along with Hugelmeyer.

Once the school year starts, each new hire will be assigned a mentor. The mentor will work closely with the newbie to help negotiate problems newcomers may face as they integrate themselves into the district. Grable was very proud of the fact that Riverhead includes all new hires in the mentoring program –“ not just the brand new teachers, but those with lots of experience as well. Mentoring everyone is a big commitment by the district. It shows the new people just how invested the district in them,” she said.

The new hires come to the district from widely disparate backgrounds ranging from tenured teachers to those brand spanking new to the field.

Guillermo Sandoval is a social worker hired to work primarily with a population of students considered at risk – middle and high school aged boys from Central America. Sandoval, himself an immigrant from Chile  at age 10, finds he can relate to the students because he has seen and heard first-hand what they’re going through. Following a stint in the Marine Corps in Iraq and seeing fellow soldiers suffering from PTSD, he took advantage of the GI bill to become a social worker. In his capacity working for the Brookhaven Town Youth Bureau, Sandoval got a chance to work with kids and found, to his surprise, how much he enjoyed it. He’s seen a lot of students who suffer from trauma – they’ve seen gangs and war-like activities, some have left family behind or rejoined family they haven’t seen for years. They may have trouble matching reality to their expectations and he’s determined to help them. “All kids have a chance to make something of themselves. They’re all clean slates,” he said.

Melanie Masurek who will be working in the middle school as a 7^th grade science teacher comes to Riverhead after working as an associate director of education-related grant programs at Hofstra University. She said she’s looking forward to actually “being in the classroom applying lessons” rather than working from the  outside of one.

The middle school will be getting a new art teacher this year. Emily Pavacic has done a few leave replacements in other districts, but her job here is her first full-time teaching position. With a wide smile on her face, she said she’s “really excited about building her own curriculum and introducing new ways of looking at art” to her students.

A special education teacher for several years in another district, Paula Altamonte will be teaching 4^th grade in Aquebogue School. She beamed as she related how excited she was to become a general education teacher and transfer her skills to all her students.

Rachel Seedorf will be teaching social studies in the middle school in a bilingual classroom. She said she’s always loved Riverhead is really happy to be a part of the community now.

This year the district has hired the first of the “second generation” of its teaching staff. Stefanie Loverde is a brand new teacher who said she’s “so excited to get into the classroom.” Education has been a part of her whole life, she explained. Her father Sal Loverde still teaches in RMS, so she’s lived and breathed teaching from that angle, and as a student. But, she says,  “I’m definitely looking forward to being on the other side of the desk.”

Over the three days, the workshop covered a lot of ground for the newcomers. There was a warm welcome by Superintendent Nancy Carney and the members of the Board of Education, reviews of the observation process, explanations of updates and new regulations in both special education and English as a new language and an overview of the district’s available technology.

And there was more.

At several points over the three days, the group was split in two. Elementary teachers learned about the district’s bank of Common Core math module lessons and Teacher Center workshop opportunities, while the upper-level teachers got a tutorial in online grade-book software programs and instructional planning specific to older students. Reunited, they were shown how to access AESOP, the substitute service the district uses, and mylearningplan.com, which helps keep track of the 100 hours of professional development New York State requires of each teacher annually. And there was lots of district and union paperwork, too.

Basically, the workshop was run the way Hugelmeyer told the teachers to run their classrooms. “Learning,” he showed them by example, “is more effective when you switch it up every few minutes.”

The third day of the workshop ended with a bus ride around the district, giving the staff a view of each of the buildings in their new home.

Feedback from the teacher-students was “overwhelmingly positive,” said Grable. “The responses that came back through the follow-up evaluation showed that the new staff feels very, very supported by the district.”