ADDISONINDEPENDENT
Addison County
AUGUST 14, 2014
Back to School
Here she comes!
THE SCHOOL YEAR will be opening at Addison County schools in just a few weeks, and the kids at Mary Hogan Elementary School will have a new play structure waiting for them. Here, Cassidy Rheaume tries out a slide on the new structure that went up this summer. Independent photo/Trent Campbell
Contents New leaders take reigns at local schools .....................1 Vermont students take intensive summer classes ..... 2 Kidspace replacement getting rave reviews ................ 5 Mt. Abe reviewing building upgrades ............................ 5 Try shopping local for back-to-school supplies ......... 6 Projects put some fun into back-to-school prep ....... 8 Students get hands-on museum experience ............ 11
New leaders take reins in region By ADDISON INDEPENDENT and BRANDON REPORTER STAFF ADDISON COUNTY AND BRANDON — Every school in the area will have some new children in the classrooms and a few new teachers as well. Many area schools and school districts will also have new administrators leading those schools — including new superintendents at two of the four area school districts. Those two new superintendents are JoAn Canning at the Addison Northwest Supervisory Union and Jeanne Collins at Rutland Northeast. Canning, who assumes the job from Tom O’Brien, who is retiring after 13 years at ANwSU, comes from the Orleans Southwest Supervisory Union in Hardwick, where she had been head of the schools since 2010. That supervisory union includes nine schools and about 1,100 students, according to her
résumé. Before that, Canning, who has both an undergraduate degree and a doctorate from the University of Vermont, was an assistant superintendent in South Burlington, her hometown, for six years. Canning also has extensive experience in special education, including a three-year stint in ANwSU between 1991 and 1994. Canning hit the ground running. As she arrived on the job last month, she got the news that the Vermont Agency of Education has sanctioned the ANwSU by withholding state and federal grant funds. The agency called the ANwSU’s financial record “very weak” in a July 3 letter and cited many accounting problems in a July 1 report summarizing a June 10 fiscal monitoring visit. In an email to staff, Canning said no jobs or programs at the four ANwSU
schools are in immediate danger and that the AOE made no accusations of impropriety. She did put the business manager on paid administrative leave. COLLINS LEADS RNESU All 18 members of the Rutland Northeast Supervisory Union Board voted unanimously to hire Collins. She replaces RNeSU Superintendent John Castle, who left to take a job in his hometown in the Northeast Kingdom after five years in Brandon. Collins, who was the lone candidate after a six-week search that initially brought in 22 candidates, was a bit of a controversial pick. She ended her last job as superintendent of the Burlington School District under a cloud. Her separation agreement with the Burlington School Board came about because of budget deficits and a difference in philosophy over the direction (See New faces, Page 3)