Special Ed Director Resigns in Lebanon By Nora Doyle-Burr, Valley News Staff Writer Friday, September 26, 2014 Lebanon — The Lebanon School District’s director of special education has resigned. The School Board accepted Helene Anzalone’s resignation — effective immediately — in a unanimous vote at its meeting on Wednesday evening. At the same meeting, several district employees expressed concerns about the special education services the district is providing. “Special education is a really large part of what we do in the school district,” said board member Dick Milius in a phone interview Thursday. “I think the board wants to make sure that we continue to provide the very best services that we can.” Anzalone’s unusually timed resignation — just weeks into the school year — comes less than two months after Joanne Roberts took over the district’s leadership as interim superintendent. Before coming to Lebanon, Roberts previously held positions including director of special education for SAU 70, which serves Hanover and Norwich. Attempts to contact Anzalone through her district email address and at a home phone number in Thornton, N.H., were unsuccessful. On Wednesday night, Susan Desrosiers, a third grade teacher at Hanover Street School, told the School Board the budget for the current year does not fund special education at levels sufficient to provide for students’ needs. The special education budget for this year is $7.1 million, down $500,275 from last year, according to the budget summary provided to taxpayers in the annual report. In an interview Thursday, Board Vice Chairman Bob McCarthy, said he had questioned the special education director’s decision to make cuts to spending during budget discussions, but he was told “it’s not hurting anybody.” Desrosiers spoke of the intention to intervene in students’ early years in order to prevent a greater need for services later in their educational careers. She said elementary school is the “time where additional supports and intervention could make a huge difference in whether a student is identified as needing special education services or not.” Mandy Roberts, a kindergarten teacher at Hanover Street, suggested dividing a “combined position” providing both behavior and academic support to elementary students into two. Under the current structure, Roberts told the board, students requiring special education services are “not getting the time they need.” Like Desrosiers, Roberts pointed to the need for early intervention to avoid increased demands for services later on. Theresa Hunnewell, an intensive needs teacher who splits her time between Hanover Street and Mount Lebanon schools, said that until this school year, her position was based solely in the Hanover Street school. “I’m doing the best I can,” she told the board. “But (I’m) not doing the job that I am committed to doing.” Following an executive session, the eight members of the board who were present voted unanimously to accept Anzalone’s resignation, effective immediately. “It was our decision as to what date to use,” said board member Beth White on Thursday. White said Anzalone gave the board 90 days’ notice as required in her contract. She did not detail why the board chose to make the resignation effective immediately. Anzalone had held the special education position since 2011 and had about 30 years of experience in the field. Anzalone’s departure comes on the heels of the departures earlier this year of multiple Lebanon administrators, including the superintendent, director of finance and high school principal. Board member Kathleen Berger, chairwoman of the board’s personnel and negotiations committee, chose not to attend the meeting because of Anzalone’s resignation. “I just didn’t want to see another departure of our central staff,” she said. “I think Helene has done an excellent job and served us well. I’m sad to see her leave.” Upon hearing that the board had decided to accept Anzalone’s resignation effective immediately instead of on Dec. 31, as Anzalone had offered, Berger worried about the timing of the change in leadership. “I just think it’s a mess,” she said. “I want to hear a plan.” School Board Chairman Jeff Peavey said Thursday that he didn’t anticipate filling the position “right off.” He indicated that the board would likely wait until January to do so in hope that more candidates would apply at that time of year. Milius said the district’s special education and behavior support services were in good hands under the interim superintendent’s leadership. He said he was confident that Roberts would ensure that the needs of the district’s students are being met. “We felt that the action we took was the right thing to do for everyone concerned,” Milius said. Attempts to reach Roberts on Thursday were unsuccessful. McCarthy said he was hopeful that the teachers’ requests for more special education resources would be met with a response from administrators, perhaps by diverting money budgeted for an unneeded kindergarten teacher to hiring an additional special educator. “I’m for doing whatever it’s going to take to correct whatever isn’t working,” McCarthy said. If “we don’t have enough help, we’ve got to get it.”
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 18:28:49 +0000