Another issue Gretzinger was faced with was a report by a Kingston High School restructuring task force issued in the summer of 2010 which claimed lesson plans were not being followed by teachers, who, the report alleged, had a disconnect with the student population. Gretzinger said that some of the findings in the report should be taken with a grain of salt, especially as the task force was in the classroom for less than a week.
“It hurt and I think that not only did it hurt me, but it hurt the staff to hear that they were being criticized for some of the things they actually take great pride in,” Gretzinger said. “For example, some of the teachers it was said that kids don’t feel that they have somebody they can go to. I would have to tell you that I think we have outstanding teachers at the high school, I think we do have teachers that care, and I think that’s very obvious. They maybe weren’t coming across as strongly as they should have been. I think the effort now is much more obvious when you walk into that school. I think if you talk to high school kids and you ask them what do they like about school, they’re not going to say, ‘I love studying biology.’ What you’re going to hear is that they like their teachers. And they’ll say that they feel safe. I think we’ve made great progress and we need to continue to make progress.”
Other changes in the high school, Gretzinger said, will help address the low four-year graduation rates among black and Hispanic students.
“We have to show that our scores are improving and our graduation rates are improving, and I think that Mr. (Adrian) Manuel as the new principal is taking a few different approaches,” Gretzinger said. “Progress is being made with a few committees he’s organized and an inquiry team that he’s formulated with Dr. (Elizabeth) TenDyke (director of student information, testing and assessment) where we look at those particular subgroups that aren’t doing well, go into the classrooms to see how we can improve the performance of those students in the classrooms.”
Asked if there was one initiative he’d hoped to have in place before leaving the district, Gretzinger stuck with the topic and said he regretted not being able to get an alternative high school off the ground.
“It’s something that I have proposed several times, and if I was staying I would continue to propose that,” he said. I think we need an alternative school within our own district for our high school students, and I hope that the board will consider looking at that again and making it a priority. There are a certain number of kids that we could be doing a better job with within our district without having to send them out. We have the staff that’s needed to do that, we have people who are experienced with alternative education, both administrators and teachers who are ready to jump in and do it. I think we could find a location to do that and I hope that can be done in the near future.”
He’ll miss it
Gretzinger looked to the future of education as it might impact the region as well. With school districts still struggling with the current economy, he said the concept of consolidating some offerings beyond what BOCES already does has frequently come up during countywide superintendent meetings. If it ever happens, Gretzinger said, Kingston might not be a good candidate for full participation.
