NEARLY A CENTURY OF SERVICE Ana Abbagnaro Registrar, 27 years When you’ve worked at one place for longer than a quarter of a century, you’re bound to have some special memories. For Ana Abbagnaro P’06,’08, some of those snapshots are hanging on the walls of her office, including photographs of her children Amanda Abbagnaro Gratton ’06 and Steven Abbagnaro ’08 during their time as students at Cheshire Academy, and some of their artwork completed both at school and after they graduated. Those memories will be taken with Abbagnaro, who is retiring at the end of the academic year. She joked that it’s her first summer off, having worked year-round preparing the schedules of all students enrolled at CA. She’s ready to create new memories alongside
The women highlighted on the following pages have cumulatively
dedicated 90 years to Cheshire Academy and, for their efforts, the
school truly is in a better place. Their commitment and support of CA is immeasurable and for that, the school community is eternally grateful. Join us in saying “Thank you!” and “Happy retirement!” to Ana
Abbagnaro P’06,’08, Claudette Hovasse P’06, Karleen Kubat P’08,’10, and Gail Mauthe P’17.
If you would like to share memories of these four great women, email communications@cheshireacademy.org.
her husband, Peter, who is retiring at the same time. They’re ready to travel and enjoy time with their family, especially with their four grandchildren. “I’m going to be relaxing, doing some traveling, and enjoying the grandkids,” Abbagnaro said. “Trying to help out my kids if they need help with their kids, and just relaxing, honestly.” Abbagnaro started at Cheshire Academy as a part-time assistant in the headmaster’s office for former headmaster John Hyslop. It wasn’t long before she moved to the summer school office as a full-time employee and, from there, into the role of registrar. When she started as registrar, she joined Stephen Poirot, who was new in his position of upper school director. They implemented procedures and built a baseline together that, while modified and improved over the years, have been followed throughout Abbagnaro’s tenure. As registrar, Abbagnaro handles class schedules for students, inputting grades, putting together report cards and transcripts, organizing the valedictorian, salutatorian, and honors awards, and other responsibilities. Establishing everyone’s schedules was always challenging, but when CA became an International Baccalaureate (IB) World School in 2011, an additional challenge was introduced: two-year-long courses. It was always a task to ensure small class sizes with year-long and semester-long courses, so adding two-year commitments to the mix brought in an additional obstacle to overcome. Another area of Abbagnaro’s office that stands out is the large dry-erase board with all faculty members’ class schedules. Abbagnaro and others attended a scheduling seminar when Jerry Larson was headmaster; here she learned that having a large board with all schedules would
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the magazine of cheshire academy
