Interviews

High School Principal Dr. Jennifer Chirles

(Joined the district for the 2020-21 school year.) By Lilly Kleinhandler

What brought you to the Blind Brook School District? I was looking for a principal position and I live in Connecticut, so I was looking in Westchester and I happened to see Blind Brook and it reminded me of where I went to highschool. I went to a small high school that had about 600 students and was currently working at a school with 2,200 students, and I really wanted to be in a place that was smaller and where you have a good sense of community and you could really get to know a lot of the kids. And so that’s what brought me here.

What is Blind Brook’s greatest strength? Its greatest strength is the passion of our students to really get involved in the world around them. I see kids that are involved in sports, that are involved in clubs and activities, but they’re also out in the community doing things. Every time I talk to a student, they all have a story to tell about what they’re doing, which I think is one of our strengths. Everybody here has their own story, in their own path of what they’re doing, which I find really interesting.

When you were considering coming to Blind Brook, were you at all concerned about the turnover in administration? I wasn’t concerned about it because I know who I am as a person that is an educator. I felt that I could be that stability that maybe the school district needed. So I didn’t see it as a concern. I saw it as an opportunity for me to provide that person or that position some stability that maybe you didn’t have before.

What are your ideas for making Blind Brook better? I have a lot of ideas and so it’s a matter of how I can kind of make those into fruition. I have ideas on how we can make the school a more welcoming, kinder place. I have ideas about how we can support students against mean-spiritedness, or, bullying, harassment, etc… I’m going to need support from students, parents and staff. So as we move forward I will be reaching out to the community to ask for volunteers to help me with some of these things. So I think the best way we can make Blind Brook better is to make Blind Brook more welcoming and to make it less fearful of sometimes that cliqueness and make it more of a friendship circle, like a horseshoe. So that way everybody’s kind of welcome to it. If you make it like a circle, that kind of boxes things off, but if you make things like a horseshoe there’s always room for more people to add-on to the horse shoe.

What do you want to remain the same at Blind Brook? Things that I’d like to remain the same are the quality of education that we provide students. It may look different, like I want teachers and students to try new, innovative teaching strategies and new ways of learning, but I think the output of how; how, by the time students graduate from us, they’re ready for college, the workforce or whatever, they are prepared for it. That’s what I want to stay the same always and I never want that part to change.

If you could pinpoint one weakness in Blind Brook School District, what would it be? It’s hard, I mean, I don’t see things as weaknesses. I see things as opportunities. So I’ve never really thought about a weakness that the students at this school have, but I see things as I said before, the opportunity for the school to be more welcoming. I guess you could say that as a weakness where I feel that some students might feel that they can’t be fully themselves in school or they can’t advocate for those around them. And so that is, I guess, a weakness, because you want students to be able to feel that they can be who they are. They can stand-up for others. If they need to, they can be an ally, they can be an upstander and an advocate, and if we don’t have an environment where students feel like they can do that in a safe way, then that is a weakness.

How would you address the previous challenge? So I have a couple of ideas that go along with working with our parent groups, like though the parent principal coffees, working with our shared decision-making committee, working with Ms. Tricarico and student assistance services, and trying to get some local organizations to bring in some outside programming into the school, but really make it something that’s embedded within the school. So one of the things that we’re doing that I helped bring into we’re doing that I helped bring into the district is the RULER program, and it’s a social emotional learning program that gives students strategies on how to best adjust their emotions, how to recognize your emotions, and how to regulate them. But it also has things like when you’re feeling heated, how to take a break or if there’s a conflict between two people, how you resolve it. So it’s not just about learning about your emotions, but also learning how we can interact together and how we can make ourselves as a community much better. So I think as we roll that out, we’re going to be looking for teacher volunteers to do that. We’re going to be doing some activities with students, and so the more we can kind of involve people in the process, I think the better it will be.

Anything else to add? I just would like to say I like that we’re back in person this year. I like that we get to have a more typical experience this year than we did last year. Last year was so unusual and so disruptive that I really appreciate that we’re able to be here together and that I look forward to being able to do some fun things as time goes on.

High School Assistant Principal Mark Greenwald

(Promoted to High School Assistant Principal for the 2018-19 school year.)

By Colin Funtleyder

What brought you to the Blind Brook School District? Back in the 90s after graduate school, I was originally certified and looking for an administrative position. I had been teaching for 10 years already before I came to Blind Brook. I looked at several Principal, Assistant Principal, and Dean positions, and I really did not find anyone that suited me. I came across Blind Brook as a fallback position, I took a social studies position in the middle school. And I’ve been here ever since. My children graduated from Blind Brook Schools and Blind Brook has been an integral place for my entire family

What is Blind Brook’s greatest strength? I think Blind Brook’s greatest strength is the closeness and size of the community. I also think that this can be a challenge. You can go through this school district K to 12 and in most cases, you’ll know every person’s name and grade. I think that’s a wonderful aspect of our community, and our town proudly recognizes that. Students wonder why there has been so much turnover in administration over the past 10 years, why do you think that is? That’s a good question. I don’t blame the district. Change is inevitable. There are changes from year to year. Changes in priorities, whether they originate from the Board of Education, administrators, classroom teachers, students, and families. Sometimes administrators are brought in, and they don’t always have a great understanding of the climate of Rye Brook. What people are thinking about, what they expect, what their sensibilities are. Sometimes administrators are brought in, and they don’t always have a great understanding of the climate of Rye Brook. What people are thinking about, what they expect, what their sensibilities are. We have something for our new teachers called the New Teacher University, where we help teachers with everything from how to compose an email, to how to communicate, to how to enter grades and how to work with the school.

High School Assistant Principal Mark Greenwald

Continued from page 6

What brought you to the Blind Brook School District? Back in the 90s after graduate school, I was originally certified and looking for an administrative position. I had been teaching for 10 years already before I came to Blind Brook. I looked at several Principal, Assistant Principal, and Dean positions, and I really did not find anyone that suited me. I came across Blind Brook as a fallback position, I took a social studies position in the middle school. And I’ve been here ever since. My children graduated from Blind Brook Schools and Blind Brook has been an integral place for my entire family.

What is Blind Brook’s greatest strength? I think Blind Brook’s greatest strength is the closeness and size of the community. I also think that this can be a challenge. You can go through this school district k to 12 and in most cases, you’ll know every person’s name and grade. I think that’s a wonderful aspect of our community, and our town proudly recognizes that.

Students wonder why there has been so much turnover in administration over the past 10 years, why do you think that is? That’s a good question. I don’t blame the district. Change is inevitable. There are changes from year to year. Changes in priorities, whether they originate from the Board of Education, administrators, classroom teachers, students, and families. Sometimes administrators are brought in, and they don’t always have a great understanding of the climate of Rye Brook. What people are thinking about, what they expect, what their sensibilities are. We have something for our new teachers called the New Teacher University, where we help teachers with everything from how to compose an email, to how to communicate, to how to enter grades and how to work with the school. But we don’t have one of those for administrators and I think we would be better off and better served with our administrators if we had a better training program when they come in. better served with our administrators if we had a better train ing program when they come in.

What are your ideas for making Blind Brook better? The Blind Brook of the late 90s and early 2000s is demographically different than today. We have always been comprised of middle and upper middle class families. Our family populations have become more diverse in recent years. In particular, we have seen noticeable growth of Asian, Indian, and Hispanic populations. I think one of the challenges, whether it’s curriculum-based or driven by social needs, is fostering a culture of inclusivity. I think we have to be very sensitive and aware that the homogeneityof Blind Brook has been evolving. If we don’t keep up meeting the demands of this changing di verse population, we’re going to fall short. So I think that’s probably the number one goal that I would say to make Blind Brook a better place to be more inclusive.

What do you want to remain the same at Blind Brook? When I first started teaching here a long time ago before they built the whole new middle school wing, many high school classrooms didn’t even have doors or walls. They were literally connected by a little pass-through hallway. To get to the bathroom you would have to go through all the connecting rooms, a student would have to go through my room. I would always make the student answer a history question to allow them to pass through. That’s what I’m talking about when I refer to the closeness of the school. Some of the informality of those days is gone. It is important to note that we are still a small district. The elementary 5th grade teachers should take advantage of our closeness and collaborate with middle school teachers to arrive at shared learning goals. The same holds true for 8th grade teachers engaging in healthy pedagogical discussions with high school teachers. If we can maintain a robust K-12 dialogue, we will continue to thrive as an educational institution. The closeness and camaraderie of a small school is something I value. I want to see those connections continue.

Middle School Principal Seth Horowitz

(Promoted to Middle School Principal for the 2021-22 school year.)

By Abby Zahl

What brought you to the Blind Brook School District? About 22 years ago I was a young science teacher, [teaching] 6th grade at that time. I lived in Rockland County, my fiance lived on Long Island and we were looking to move to Westchester as it was half-way between our parents. There was an opening here, and I came in for a meeting...[I] had a great first impression and one thing led to another, and I’ve been here since.

Students wonder why there has been so much turnover in administration over the past 10 years, why do you think that is? Well If you could pinpoint one weakness in Blind Brook School District, what would it be? One of the concerns that I have as we get into winter is the efficient use of space. Right now we have the luxury of people eating outside for lunch. During lunch for example, we can count on some seniors to go out for lunch and we can spread out between the commons, the cafeteria or other areas. One weakness is the limited amount of large spaces we can utilize to spread out. Some schools have huge auditoriums where they can even section off areas or make use of multiple gyms. Another way to look at the spacing concern is evident during end of year testing. I’m already working on planning the AP exams in May. For example, AP Spanish and AP Italian, everyone’s going to need a computer if I have thirty-five kids in AP Spanish. I can’t put them into one room, so I need to use more rooms, which requires more proctors, and more coverage. We want to provide our students with every advantage available to them. We should continue to explore ways to use our resources as efficiently as possible.

How would you address the previous challenge? I think that the district and the board of Education has already taken a huge step to address some of the district’s space issues. The Ridge Street construction project is a significant step to address this issue. The district has also had initial talks with architects to flesh out a “wish list”, from building level administrators, of updates and renovations for the middle/high school campus. While this is a long-term plan, the district has shown good judgement to examine this issue longitudinally.

some due to retirement. Some due to where people were living and no longer wanting to commute. And then there have been a number of others who’ve left for various reasons. It’s something that I know that as a teacher at the time, we were always sort of very concerned about it because with turnover you lose consistency, and you need consistency to achieve long term goals. And it is really challenging when people are coming and going. So yeah, the last 15-20 years there has been a lot of turnover, I think we are in a good place right now, knock on wood. We have a good team at the moment and there are some positions currently as you [the Blind Brook community]

Middle School Principal Seth Horowitz

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know that are not filled so we will be bringing on some more people, but I can’t speak to why individuals might have chosen to leave.

What are your ideas for making Blind Brook better? So my ideas of course are focused on middle school. So we have a lot of goals for this year and some of them are long term. I’m looking to create, really, a culture in this school where everybody feels valued and respected. That everyone together makes our school community. We are looking at having our own mascot, we’re looking at perhaps creating our own identity. This is the first year the PTA is selling middle school clothing; we’ve never had middle school clothing before, it’s always just been Blind Brook. So we are working a lot on sort of our middle school community. What do we want that to look like? What experience do we want to give to students? To parents? We’re looking to provide opportunities for kids to come in in the evenings to have a safe space to engage in social activities. We had a matt ball tournament last week. We’re trying So really just enhancing the middle school and making it a true middle school. Following all of the philosophies and all of the best practices as to what students in this age group really need to thrive. sort of our middle school community. What do we want that to look like? What experience do we want to give to students? To parents? We’re looking to provide opportunities for kids to come in in the evenings to have a safe space to engage in social activities. We had a matt ball tournament last week. We’re trying to plan something for each month. So really just enhancing the middle school and making it a true middle school. Following all of the philosophies and all of the best practices as to what students in this age group really need to thrive.

If you could pinpoint one weakness in Blind Brook School District, what would it be? So the weaknesses that I tend to think about are things that often are associated with being a small school. Because when you are a smaller school, there are limited opportunities to engage students in certain things. For example, in the High School we offer just a few AP classes, whereas larger districts can offer many other different kinds. At the middle school, what happens is students have pretty much been together since kindergarten and as you mature and change sometimes you realize that your early friendships are maybe not working out anymore and I think it is challenging for students when it’s such a small community. How do I branch out? How do I make new friends? How do I find people that are more interested in the things that I’m interested in? So I would say that that’s definitely a weakness.

Middle School Assistant Principal Karen Chalif

(Joined the district for the 2021-22 school year.)

By Melina Kohilakis

What brought you to the Blind Brook School District? Before Blind Brook I was in a school in Brooklyn, I was in a 6th through 12th grade school. And I grew up in a suburb like Rye Brook, but on Long Island. So I really wanted to move out of the city and I wanted to be in the middle school and so I was just really looking all over and I really honestly didn’t know anything about Blind Brook before I came here I was just applying to open position’s and I saw Blind Brook had an open position so then I applied for it but then through my research and my interviews I was really drawn to the sense of community here. It’s a small district and it’s close knit and everyone kind of just looks out for each other. I reached out to a “teacher” connection I had and I was talking to her about this process and she’s like where are you going and I go Blind Brook. And she ended up growing up there! That just made it feel like the right fit when that happened so I would be like that would be the moment where I was just like wow this seems like the right fit.

When you were considering coming to Blind Brook, were you at all concerned about the turnover in administration? When I was looking at a bunch of different schools and I was applying and it seemed like a lot of schools had the situation where they had turnover. Yes I mean the short answer is yes it was something I thought about, but what made me feel okay about that was the sense that there wasn’t that turnover in the faculty. So I looked at the faculty and I saw teachers who were here for 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. They’re staying for some reason. And that showed me more than that this is the place where people enjoy being because if there was that same turnover in the teachers and then that would have been more shocking, this is the place that people want to get away from. But that’s not what I saw. My boss Mr. Horowitz was a teacher here for so many years and then he was the assistant principal and now he’s the principal and so yes he’s new to that position, but this is because he grew up in this school. So did Mr. Greenwald in high school, so although they are newer in those roles, they were part of Blind Brook all along, so this helped quell my concerns.

What are your ideas for making Blind Brook better? Well I’ve only been here for four months and I have liked it so far. My focus is on getting to know the community I think one of the things that I focus on in my role is making sure that every student feels welcome in this building. And that is not to say that Blind Brook hasn’t been doing this already, it is just something that I am focused on. And part of the way I want to do that is creating more district-wide things. But I think that we can do a lot of cross school things. Such as high schoolers to talk to middle schoolers about a topic. Because Blind Brook being one of the smaller districts, how we can build those cross school, cross grade connections as well as creating our own connections in the high school and middle school is important.

What do you want to remain the same at Blind Brook? I think the sense of loyalty is what I wouldn’t want to change at all. When I mentioned before about the teachers giving their careers to Blind Brook and families that have child after child come to school here, shows that this is a place that people want to be and that is something I do not want to change. I would like this loyalty and devotion to the community to remain.

If you could pinpoint one weakness in Blind Brook School District, what would it be? One of the things I think about a lot because I came from the school that I was working in before and even myhigh school, was a bigger school. I grew up in a school that had 250 students in a grade, So not super big, but bigger than Blind Brook. Part of what I think about is the balance of closeknit community, love the close-knit communities, but also give another perspective. Out of Rye Brook, out of New York perspective on life. That is something that I would encourage Blind Brook and my position in that conversation to help grow not just the conversations within the school but how come we build different perspectives in for our students so that when you go to away to college in a year or a year and a half from now are more prepared for the world outside of Rye Brook. Again, I’ve been here for a month so it’s not something that I’m sure Blind Brook does this right but I think that is something that we can continue to reflect on and build on overtime.

How would you address the previous challenge? The biggest thing that I would say would be just to make connections and have conversation so a lot of what I do is look at what other schools do. A lot of what I do is reach out to other schools the same size and ask if they have programs where they are connected to other schools. Can we partner with a sister school or brother school and do something whether it’s letter-writing or chat or a discussion. But coming up with those ideas that’s where I would start, I wouldn’t jump right into saying like we need to do this now it’s more seems what other schools are doing by collecting data, what would work for us, serving the students, is this something they would be involved with, surveying the parents to see if they would be interested. Then, making a plan to implement some of those ideas would be the next step.