Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.

Region One board struggles with the Pingpank report

FALLS VILLAGE — The Region One Board of Education voted Monday, Jan. 3, to direct regional Superintendent Patricia Chamberlain to provide the board with a plan of action to address the concerns raised in last month’s report from attorney Jeffrey C. Pingpank on the circumstances surrounding the August resignations of the principal and vice principal of Housatonic Valley Regional High School.

Comments from board members and from the public on the Pingpank report reinforced the attorney’s observation in the report’s introduction:

“For every person who advocated one position, there was another person who took the opposite view.�

The report, which mentioned Assistant Superintendent Diane Goncalves by name several times and recommended she be asked to “moderate her behavior,� inspired a letter from Claudia Parsons of Salisbury, who read her letter into the record during the first of two opportunities for public comment during the two-and-a-half hour meeting.

Parsons said she believes Pingpank’s “portrayal of Ms. Goncalves does not do her justice and presents her in a negative light.�

She went on to relate her experience with Goncalves in the context of her stepson, who has Down syndrome. Parsons credited Goncalves’ work at the Gengras Center in West Hartford with helping her stepson grow into “a confident adult.�

“If you believe only what you have heard of her in the press or through the rumor mill, you do not know her at all,� Parsons said.

But Lawrence Van Valkenburgh of West Cornwall also submitted a letter, decrying what he called Goncalves’ “ferocious lack of professionalism.�

“Ask yourselves if you would hire Pat Chamberlain and Diane Goncalves today. Ask yourselves if they are the best individuals to bring this school system to meeting its goals.�

The fissures were apparent among board members. Phil Hart, representing Cornwall, said he believed the board should identify “certain themes and the people they belong to, and get those people to respond.�

Gale Toensing, the board member from Falls Village, criticized critics of the report; accused Goncalves of attempting to “delegitimize the report by smearing the investigator’s ethics;� and said that the board has “abdicated some of our responsibility and shares some of the blame.�

She urged that the board implement the six recommendations from the Pingpank report and hold Chamberlain to a schedule for making the changes.

Jill Gibbons, the board member from Salisbury, said, “that there are some who try to dismiss it [the report] only speaks to its accuracy.

“Let us act accordingly, from our best selves.�

Toensing suggested forming a committee that would include members of the public, board members, administrators and teachers to review the report and come up with a plan.

Hart demurred, saying, “I’m not sure we need one more group of people to interpret the report.�

He advocated asking the relevant groups — faculty, high school administrators and the Central Office — to report back to the board on those sections of the report that concern them.

“Not to defend themselves, but to get suggestions for improvement,� Hart added. “Not to argue about the report.�

In the public comment section that followed, Amy Wynn of Falls Village wondered why anyone who was reluctant to speak to Pingpank for fear of retaliation would do so now. “I’m not sure the format you’re proposing is going to encourage dissenting opinions.�

Jacqueline Rice of Salisbury, who is a math teacher at the high school, blamed the previous administration (of former Principal Gretchen Foster) for the divisions at the school.

“Now a few faculty members, board members and community members want to keep it going.

“Leave us alone,� continued Rice, clearly stirred. “Stop the witch hunt and let us do our job.�

And Roberta Scott of Falls Village added, “You can’t ignore the problem. The taxpayers are angry and ashamed of the Board of Ed. You have to look at yourselves.�

Note: Toensing announced she was holding a meeting at the Falls Village Town Hall Thursday, Jan. 6, at 7 p.m. to meet with townspeople and receive their input.

Lakeville Journal

Latest News

Cornwall Historical Society celebrates Connecticut’s Black patriots

Cornwall Historical Society celebrates Connecticut’s Black patriots

On Saturday, Oct. 24, at the Cornwall Historical Society, author and genealogist John Mills will breathe new life into the stories of some of Connecticut’s more underappreciated patriots. The reason these heroes were forgotten? They were Black.

At a time when white colonists were fighting for their own liberty and political independence, many Black men who fought alongside them remained enslaved. Some risked their lives only to return to bondage. Though enslaved people were promised freedom from both sides of the Revolutionary War in exchange for their service, Great Britain, too, was still deeply dependent on slavery. For Black people in America, the war presented both extraordinary risks and uncertain paths to the freedom that white colonists were demanding for themselves.

Keep ReadingShow less
education

A sanctuary for second chances

A sanctuary for second chances

Stephanie Saetta runs Charlie Chicken Bones, a sanctuary in Salisbury.

Madi Long
You only get one or two of these soul connection dogs, so I do this in his honor.
— Stephanie Saetta

Stephanie Saetta has spent much of her life caring for others. A physician at White Plains Hospital, she has another calling at home in Salisbury — one that has four legs and a wagging tail. She runs Charlie Chicken Bone Sanctuary, a nonprofit dog rescue that brings dogs from overcrowded pounds and the streets of Texas to foster homes in northwestern Connecticut, where they can begin again.

The sanctuary is named for Charlie, the dog who taught her how special a bond between a person and rescue animal can be.

Keep ReadingShow less
our community

Big ideas come to Lenox for inaugural field festival

Big ideas come to Lenox for inaugural field festival

Hunter Runnette, founder and board chair of field, has spent years fostering arts and cultural programming in the Berkshires.

Provided

What do joy, gardening, artificial intelligence, the American experiment and the creative process have in common? Quite a lot, as it turns out, at least when some of the world’s most compelling thinkers get together to talk about them.

From Friday, Oct. 23, through Sunday, Oct. 25, Lenox, Massachusetts, will host the inaugural field festival, a three-day gathering of writers, artists, scholars and cultural figures at Shakespeare & Company. Billed as a festival of ideas, entertainment, learning and discovery, field brings together an impressive roster of voices to explore everything from the deeply personal to the profoundly political.

Keep ReadingShow less
community
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

The Pink House AM is serving up community

The Pink House AM is serving up community

Mare Rubin and Maggie Levine of the Pink House AM.

Madi Long

It all started with a yoga class. Mare Rubin was working on her second act after leaving the Upper West Side, where she’d raised a family and worked in corporate marketing. Newly empty nesters, she and her husband decided to move to the wilds of northwestern Connecticut, where they had spent 15 years as weekenders, to see what life in the woods had in store for them.

Rubin started teaching yoga classes at the Union in West Cornwall, a space designated by the town of Cornwall as a community hub with couches, Wi-Fi, occasional events and a growing yoga class schedule. She was adjusting well but missed one important thing about city life: a casual coffee shop.

Keep ReadingShow less
business

Sons of Astro are musicians, friends and bandmates — in that order

Sons of Astro are musicians, friends and bandmates — in that order

The Sons of Astro will be at the Common Pub in Housatonic on Oct. 24 and the 2nd Home Lounge in Winsted on Nov. 14.

Provided

No matter where they are in the world, musicians seem to find other musicians. There’s a shared language, a shared experience of being on stage and performing, and a shared enthusiasm for making those melodies by themselves or together. Such is the case with Norfolk and Brooklyn-based cosmic Americana band Sons of Astro.

That magnetic musicians’ bond drew Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mike Cobb into the orbit of singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Matt Statler. The two neighbors took to each other right away and were soon playing open mics together. As an ethics professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, Statler made the case that if he sat in for Cobb’s set and Cobb sat in for Statler’s, they could play together and double their stage time. Clearly, these men wanted to make as much music as possible. That became a little harder when Cobb and his family moved up to Norfolk, Connecticut.

Keep ReadingShow less
concerts

One more weekend to get inside the art at ArtEast

One more weekend to get inside the art at ArtEast

The participating artists in this year’s ArtEast open studios.

Provided

ArtEast’s annual October Open Studio Tour is already underway, but there’s still one more weekend to step inside the creative worlds of artists working throughout eastern Dutchess County. On Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 24 and 25, artists will once again open their studio doors, inviting visitors to see where the work happens, meet the people who make it and perhaps discover something worth taking home.

Now in its 21st year, the ArtEast October Open Studio Tour offers a self-guided journey with participating studios in Holmes, LaGrangeville, Hopewell Junction, Pawling, Patterson, Poughquag and Wingdale. Visitors can explore painting, photography, sculpture, mixed media and other artistic practices, and get some leaf-peeping in at the same time.

Keep ReadingShow less
open-studio
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.