Dear Students, Faculty, Staff, Parents and Community Members,

    I am writing to thank you for a fantastic five years of service at Galway Central Schools. Collectively, we have transformed the District in ways and to extents many thought unattainable. I write this in the context of my upcoming appointment as the next Superintendent of Schools at Mohonasen CSD, beginning July 1, 2018. You can see today’s press release here: http://www.mohonasen.org/mohonasen-board-to-appoint-new-superintendent/. It has been my pleasure to serve the students, faculty, staff, parents and community of Galway and I want to take this opportunity to formally thank you for the opportunity and also to reflect on some of our accomplishments which I am most proud of. 

    While a more exhaustive list of our efforts may be found in the “Then Vs. Now: Galway CSD 4 Year Snapshot” document on our website, a copy of which I sent to all staff and community members at the beginning of this school year, there are a few items and shifts which bear highlighting.

    Moving the district, academically, from the bottom third to the top third of all Capital Region Districts was an unparalleled feat and involved many individuals and groups and many subcomponents. A focus on early literacy and RtI has been, and continues to be, a passion of mine and, together, we have poured our energy into related efforts with spectacular successes. As examples, we piloted a number of new reading series over two years, established a teacher led Reading Committee with guidance from a outside Literacy Specialist and, ultimately, implemented the Core Knowledge Language Arts curriculum which we now use at the elementary level.  Concurrently, we made RtI (Response to Intervention) a well established practice at Galway, K-12, shifting from a reactionary model to a proactive model where we formatively and universally screen students in literacy and mathematics at a minimum of three times per year and bring increasingly intense “tiers” of interventions to bear in order that students succeed to their fullest potentials.

    While ensuring that all students are “joyful, focused and engaged” we didn’t leave learning to chance. Whenever universal screenings revealed that any child was not achieving up to benchmark standards at a grade level, measured through STAR testing and discussed, child by child, at regularly scheduled data meetings, we then gradually implemented research based instructional interventions to ensure that student academic success is not an option, but a requirement. Successful students, who know we care about them, are also happy and well grounded students and it shows, including in annual satisfaction surveys which have climbed each year and in the number of involved students. 80% of 7th - 12th grade students are involved in at least one sport or extracurricular activity.

    Some of the showcase academic interventions which were new to Galway included an early literacy based elementary summer school, revision of master schedules to avoid related service or AIS “pull outs” during core instructional times, ELA/reading and math “blocks” of instruction so that students could have time to develop critical skills and doubling of ELA and math instruction at the middle level. We also implemented a daily second bus run so that all students who need it can avail themselves of additional direct instruction from certified teachers during “RtI Lab” (aka “9th period”) and then have district provided transportation home. While shoring up our fundamentals, early literacy and mathematics, we simultaneously expanded pathways for students through to graduation including in Computer Science, Agriculture and Project Lead the Way.

    Buildings and Grounds, as noticed by virtually everyone, have taken a sharp upswing and now truly reflect “pride and attention to detail” throughout. As a capstone to the facilities, we developed a $26.7M capital project designed to eliminate a longstanding safety concern with the bus loop and student drop off and focused on taking care of what we have through a robust focus on infrastructure (roofs, plumbing, electrical, HVAC) while also removing last vestiges of hazardous materials, asbestos, throughout the facilities. 

    A multi-year financial plan was established using conservative budgeting principles and consistency was introduced into budgeting and spending. The budget itself was comprehensively analyzed and cost saving measures were undertaken, such as restructuring delivery of related services (speech, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy), bringing select special education programs “in house”, leasing key end user technology items to avoid out of date equipment or spikes to the budget, development of a bus/vehicle replacement schedule, and review of energy production and usage options with an eye towards efficiency and savings. 

     The transformation of Galway did not happen spontaneously or by accident, but rather by design and by hard work, your hard work. In addition to the individual efforts and accomplishments of many there were some structural changes which allowed stakeholder groups to come together in order to bring about positive and sustained changes. For examples, a teacher leader infrastructure (Department Heads and Grade Level Leaders) was reestablished and defunct or non-existent committees such as the Technology Committee, the Professional Development Committee, Shared Decision Making Committees (at both levels) and the Academic Stakeholders’ Council began functioning in earnest, tackling one topic or area of focus at a time, relentlessly. The compilation of our efforts is spelled out in the Then Vs. Now document, but the results are plain to see wherever you look. Our theme for this year has been, “We’ve got this!” and as Superintendent of Schools I couldn’t be more proud of the work we have done together. Thank you and please continue your superlative efforts such that each and every Galway student has the educational experience and education they deserve. 

    Thank you once more. I go to Mohonasen with a profound sense of gratitude and appreciation for what we have accomplished together. Finally, I leave you with a quote many of you are already familiar with as it is included at the bottom of my emails:

“Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.”

--John Wesley