Interim administrators to stay on another year: Riverhead school board wrap-up

The two women hired to temporarily lead the Riverhead Central School District will stay on until the end of the next school year, as the district searches for two people to fill the positions permanently, the school board announced last week. 

Interim Superintendent Cheryl Pedisich and Interim Assistant Superintendent for Business Marianne Cartisano, who were hired in October after the abrupt exit of the former superintendent and business official, will stay with the district until June 30, 2025, Riverhead Board of Education Colin Palmer said in a statement read aloud at last Tuesday’s meeting.

Palmer said the board has learned since Pedisich and Cartisano were hired that there were “significant operational and fiscal challenges facing the district that had not been addressed” prior to their hiring. 

“But we’ve also seen over the past four-and-a-half months is how the leadership of these two outstanding administrators has made a huge impact and difference in how our school district operates and the morale of our faculty and staff,” Palmer said. “There is, in the board’s estimation, a palpable difference in both of these critical areas.” 

“We believe that Ms.Pedisich and Dr. Cartisano have pointed us in the right direction and are establishing the policies, practices, and culture that will ensure we continue to deliver an exceptional educational program for our students with a fiscally sound foundation to support these programs.”

Pedisich and Cartisano were expected only to stay on for the rest of this school year, Palmer said, but both have agreed to stay on for another year, which will give the district the time it needs to “solidify positive changes.” Both women are retirees, and the board has the “confidence” that they will receive the necessary waiver from the state Department of Education necessary to remain with the district, Palmer said.

“We’ll also be continuing our work with Eastern Suffolk BOCES, which we started a few months ago, in terms of our superintendent search,” Palmer said. “As in the past, a search will include a survey and staple survey for stakeholder groups to garner input and feedback from the community, the only change being when we would be looking to appoint a new superintendent.”

Pedisich and Cartisano, who are both former school superintendents on Long Island, were hired after the departure of former Superintendent Augustine Tornatore and Assistant Superintendent for Business Rodney Asse. Tornatore resigned pursuant to an agreement reached with the school district on Oct. 24. Asse had informed the board of his intent to resign that same day and was “administratively reassigned at home with full pay and benefits” until he left the district on Dec. 25, 2023.

Both Pedisich and Cartisano are being paid $1,200 per day. Palmer said in an interview Monday that the board has not discussed whether the terms of their employment will change.

Palmer said in the interview that the district hasn’t “really had the systems in place for good top-down leadership in the district. And it hasn’t hasn’t been the form of any one person — it’s just been kind of the way that everything has been set up,” he said.

Pedisich and Cartisano bring experience that allows them to help fix those problems, he said. “So they’re kind of setting us up on a path so that our next permanent superintendent actually has everything in place to be able to fully succeed,” he said.

Since Pedisich and Cartisano have been hired, several positions in administration have been shuffled. At their guidance, the school board created the position of assistant superintendent for human resources. In the business office, an interim assistant business official and a new district treasurer were hired.

Palmer said Cartisano working on both next year’s budget and the year after that will leave the district with “great fiscal health.”

New Regents weighting policy tabled 

A proposal to change the policy that weighs Regents exams at 20% of a student’s final course grade was tabled after objections from two school board members.

The school board’s policy committee had proposed reducing the weight of the state exams to 12% of the final course average, which would increase the weight of each student’s quarterly average from 20% to 22%. The policy change would also allow students who elect to retake a Regents exam for a specific course have only the highest exam grade count. 

The school district initiated a review of the policy last year after the school board voted to temporarily suspend the Regents weighting policy the last two years because of concerns related to pandemic learning loss. Some school board members, including Virginia Healy, have advocated for instituting that policy permanently.

MORE COVERAGE: How much should Regents exams count toward final course grades — or should they count at all?

Healy said on Tuesday that she was happy to see the board consider weighing the exam lower, but said she would like to see the algebra Regents exam lower. “I know other districts, they look at the different Regents and have weighted them differently,” she said.

Trustee Erica Murphy had an opposing view. She questioned the incentive for students taking the Regents exam if the weighting was reduced. “I remember when I took the Regents, that was what we worked towards at the end of the year. 

“I’m just making sure that we’re not [disincentivizing] our children to perform on these tests at a level at which we know they can,” she said.

Assistant Superintendent William Galati said the committee of parents and teachers who discussed the were split between maintaining the 20% weighting and reducing the weighting to 10%. The school board’s policy committee chose 12% in order to strike a balance, he said.

“Discussion was also had that a percentage needs to be allocated for the weighting of Regents examinations in order for students to take this assessment seriously, because it is a culmination assessment,” Galati said. 

Murphy agreed. Students need to know how to take exams after their secondary education, she said.

Healy didn’t. “You go to another state, they don’t have these exit exams,” she said. She said  some colleges don’t consider Regents exam scores. 

The school board tabled the policy. Palmer said the policy committee will reevaluate the weighting policy with more information from Murphy and Healy, with the intention of bringing it back to the board. 

Also during its March 19 meeting, the school board:

• Heard a presentation from Cartisano on the instructional staffing plan for the 2024-25 budget proposal. The proposal requires the district to eliminate 56.8 full-time faculty and staff positions through layoffs and attrition. Parents spoke strongly against the proposed cuts during the meeting.
• Approved an agreement with the Riverhead Teaching Assistants Association to continue to temporarily allow the district to use an outside agency to employ teaching assistants until the end of the school year.
• Approved a settlement agreement and general release with the parents of a student named in a confidential schedule. A copy of the agreement was not made available on the board agenda.
• Approved the audit prepared by the New York State Education Department on its use of funds, and approved a corrective action plan. 
• Witnessed a preview performance of the Riley Avenue Elementary School student production of The Little Mermaid Jr. 

Correction: Due to an editing error, the original subtitle on this article incorrectly stated the reduced weighting of Regents exams currently being considered. It is 12%, not 10% as stated.