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Principal's Message

Hello RU Community!  

We are very excited about the year to come.  Last year students showed a lot of growth and engagement in the programs our school offers.  We are incredibly grateful to our community and district level leadership around support for innovative programs and travel opportunities for students.  This summer students traveled from Randolph to Shizukuishi, Japan and took part in SCUBA training.  We will host students from Japan this fall, which we are also looking forward to.  Students in our Archaeology program will travel to Crow Canyon in Colorado to apply what they have learned.  They will be led by dedicated, knowledgeable staff. 

We are also pleased to report that our AP students performed well on their AP exams.  That means that several of them will receive college credit for classes taken at RU.  Although our students regularly take part in challenging and exciting learning experiences, the students themselves are what keep these opportunities fresh for staff, and keep our staff coming back to this school. 

This year we are looking forward to fewer changes than we have experienced in past years.  However, there are some notable changes.  

Our administrative structure is changing; we are welcoming Colin Andrzejczyk as our Dean of Student Experiences.  Colin has been a trusted presence in the RUMHS community for decades, and he is looking forward to moving into a role where he can use his counseling experience to help students make positive behavior changes.  

  • We are welcoming Herbert Perez as our Associate Principal.  Herb brings decades of administrative experience to this role, which will heavily focus on case managing 504 plans, test administration, and working with staff to continue to improve instruction and student engagement. 

  • Laurina Fullam, LCMHC, will join us to fill the Student Assistance Program Counselor role that Colin is vacating.  Laurina brings more than a decade of counseling experience and she is excited to begin work in a school setting.  

  • Jenny Engel is moving from teaching math in RTCC last year, to teaching grade 9 math at RU.  

  • George Rusu will be joining us to teach grade 8 English.  Georgie has been working at the Barre Town School as a substitute teacher, and is happy to begin work in an 8th grade classroom at RU!

  • Chelsea Gorman has joined us in the Main Office.  Chelsea’s primary focus will be on attendance and tracking discipline referrals.  

  • Alex Easton will be joining us as our Registrar this fall.  He will be in to help you if you need to register a student or need a copy of a report card or transcript! 

We hope that you will join us in welcoming these new employees to our school community.  

There are a couple other changes that we are excited to share with all of you.  One, is that we are moving discipline referrals to the digital world.  Last year, due to a backup of paperwork, struggles with staffing at the post office etc, it could take some time for referrals to make it home.  This year we will be emailing communication about discipline referrals to families instead.  The goal is real time communication.  We heard your frustrations about receiving referrals weeks after incidents occurred and this is the step we have chosen to take to address that situation.  

We also noticed that attendance became incredibly sparse at our monthly forums.  We still had decent attendance at our Family & Community Advisory Board meetings, but the forums were not well attended at all.  Therefore, we will continue to hold the Advisory Board meetings on the second Tuesday of each month from 5:00 - 6:00 PM (all are welcome), and we will add Coffee Chats to our schedule from 8:30 - 9:30 AM on the third Thursday of each month.  We are hopeful that by making time available in the mornings people who are unable to attend in the evening will be able to come in and discuss topics that matter to them at those times.  

We also want to offer gratitude to the staff in our district level departments who kept our schools running all summer; our technology, facilities, food service, and transportation crews have worked through the heat and humidity to make sure that our buildings are beautifully clean, our technology is up and running, students are well fed, and transported to where they need to be.  This is tireless work and we appreciate each member of these teams!  We should also mention that our facilities crew, at last, has finished installation of air conditioners upstairs at RU.  This will make learning in the late parts of spring and summer much more comfortable for our students and staff.  Those rooms could get incredibly hot, and students would struggle to focus in the heat. This change should improve teaching and learning this fall. 

We are thrilled to be launching another year.  Staff have been working together and taking part in professional development to be well prepared for this group of learners.  

It will feel good to see students soon!  

Sincerely, 

Lisa Manning Floyd

 

7th Grade Students watch the Laser Cutter in action