School head positions filled as school year set to begin

BY DANIELLE MEDINA
Correspondent

BRICK - A summer marked by staff shuffling, curriculum changes and policy revisions concluded Aug. 24 when the Brick Township Board of Education held its last public meeting before school opens Sept. 6.

In June, the district began moving around a number of its administrators to fill in the holes left by retirements and resignations.

Ninety-five percent of the district's open positions have been filled, said board member and personnel committee chairman Brian DeLuca. Two or three teacher openings are still left, which were created after the promotions of candidates to administrative positions.

+ Peter Panuska was named as an assistant principal at Brick Township Memorial High School (BMHS). Panuska previously was a special education teacher at Veterans Memorial Middle School. He was born and raised in Brick and is an alumnus of Brick Township High School (BTHS).

"A lot of people applied for this job, both in district and out," DeLuca said last week.

The assistant principal's job at BMHS was initially given to Joseph DiPietro, who was laterally moved from BTHS after the board's first round of administrative changes in June. Panuska, who will earn $93,463 annually, will replace DiPietro, who is leaving the district in October for a vice principal's position at Southern Regional High School.

Panuska joins BMHS assistant principals Ronald Gerlufsen, who was that school's assistant athletic director and basketball coach, and James Nubile, who moved over from his job as Lake Riviera Middle School (LRMS) vice principal earlier this year.

Rick Handchen has been named as Brick Memorial's athletic coordinator for the 2006-07 school year. Handchen was previously the girls soccer head coach at Veterans Memorial Middle School.

+ James Altobello, teacher at Lake Riviera Middle School, has been promoted to sixth-grade assistant principal at that school. He will earn $92,463 annually.

+ The district also hired two new administrators at the elementary level. Jennifer Joseph, who previously worked as a teacher in Newark, will be the assistant principal at Emma Havens Young; and Jennifer Posa-Whitner, who last taught in Woodbridge Township, will assume the same duties over at Veterans Memorial Elementary. Both administrators will earn starting salaries of $91,463.

"They are both absolute shining stars," board President Sharon Kight said Monday. "They have vast experience at the elementary level."

Despite the shuffling of so many administrators, Kight said she believes the transition will be smooth for the schools.

"We're putting the administrators in early enough to get them familiar with the schools and the administrators," she said. "We've been working nonstop with interviews all summer. this board in particular wants to be very involved in the hiring process."

The board also voted to approve a three-year contract for Assistant Superintendent Walter Hrycenko.

The contract grants Hrycenko a retroactive raise back to July 2005 for $115,000 annually. This year, Hrycenko will earn $121,000. In July 2007, he will receive a $6,500 increase earning him a total salary of $127,500 for 2007-08, to a board resolution.

Hrycenko was working a year without a contract because the board had other more pressing contract negotiations to consider, Kight said.

Hrycenko remains the district's only assistant superintendent since MaryAnn Ceres retired earlier this year. Hrycenko replaced Thomas Gialanella as assistant superintendent in 2003. His starting salary at the time was $104,500.

At Herbertsville Elementary School, a third fifth-grade classroom was added to reduce class sizes in that building.

"It's a stretch for us to do right now, but it's the right thing to do," Superintendent Thomas L. Seidenberger said last week, referring to the district's budget constraints.

On the curriculum front, the district revised a number of courses on the high school level, including Advanced Drama, Biology II Honors, Business II, Ceramic Studio, Chemistry II Honors, Child Care I, Health and Physical Education 9-12, HSPA Prep Literacy, Radio and TV production, SAT English Review, and TV Production II and III.

Algebra I Honors, High School Technology, and Introduction to Business are new courses this year.

On the elementary and middle school levels, the curricula for sixth- and seventh-grade language arts were revised, along with fine arts K-8.