Middle And High School Principal Appointments

The Clarkstown Board of Education will vote on appointees to replace two retiring principals at Tuesday’s 8 p.m. meeting. Dianne Basso is retiring as campus principal of the Felix Festa Middle School after 29 years. Clarkstown North High School Principal James Vitale is retiring after eight years with the district. 

Superintendent Dr. J. Thomas Morton is recommending Kevin Horan, currently the Festa A-School principal, as Basso’s replacement and Debra Tarantino, an assistant principal at South, as Vitale’s replacement. 

Basso and Vitale’s retirements are effective at the end of the school year. Once approved by the board, Horan and Tarantino’s appointments will be effective July 1.

Following the regular meeting, the board will hold a workshop on the proposed 2013-2014 budget and vote on its adoption.

Trustees will vote on the proposed 2013-2014 BOCES administrative budget of $4,988,436 and candidates for the BOCES board, including Board President Joe Malgieri as the district representative to the BOCES board.  Another agenda item is a discussion of use of the planetarium at South.

Board members have been asked to waive the building use fee for the “Balling for Gjon” fundraising event on Sunday, April 28 at Clarkstown North. The “3-on-3 basketball tournament will raise scholarship funds in memory of Gjon Kolnrekaj who was killed in a car accident on February 3.  The family of Kolnrekaj, a 2005 graduate of the high school, is organizing the event to celebrate his life and raise money to assist a student athlete.

Board members will vote on accepting donations for the Lakewood Elementary School and Clarkstown North High School. Lakewood is receiving a Reading Comprehension Interactive CD-ROM Games Library for grades four through six from two community members and HSBC valued at $273. The CHSN PTSA is donating 14 plants and shrubbery and will plant them by the Mansion entrance.

Additionally, trustees will vote on authorizing tax cert refunds amounting to $12,337 to property owners on Balmoral Drive, Westerly Drive, Woodhaven Drive, Brookline Drive, Alcott Court, Lady Godiva Way, Strawtown Road and Squirrelwood Court in New City and Old Farm Court in West Nyack.