Miner Retires from NR-W
Louise Hoffman Broach / Wayuga Editor
Wednesday, February 3 2010
Lucinda Miner, on her second-to-last day as superintendent of the
North Rose-Wolcott Central School District.
NORTH ROSE - Raising test scores and passing a $21 million capital improvement project without direct impact on property taxes are the legacies that Lucinda Miner is leaving North Rose-Wolcott as she ends a 42-year career in education. Miner retired Jan. 29 after spending the past three years as the district’s superintendent. She had previously served for a year as an interim superintendent in the district, and was also an interim at NR-W in 2002-03. ‘I’m going to miss it here,” Miner said. “I think the district and myself have come a long way.” She credits the school board for supporting staff development programs for teachers, which she said helped them rise to the challenge of helping students achieve higher scores on state tests. Miner said the district’s implementation of a Positive Behavior Intervention and Support character education program has also improved the behavior of students, particularly in the lower grades. “I think you will see that begin to trickle up,” she said. The capital project, which was passed in 2007 but didn’t get under way until last year, at the high school added 10 classrooms, a computer lab, art gallery, new entryways and new floors, gym bleachers, a state-of-the-art fitness center that will be open to the public. The roof was replaced, the gym floor repainted, new lights and a scoreboard added to the pool and new lights put up on the soccer field. A new district and board of education office suite is being constructed at the high school in space that was former classrooms. It is expected to be ready by April, when the move will take place from a former farmhouse on Salter Colvin Road. Improvements were also made at Leavenworth Middle School and at North Rose Elementary; most of the improvements there were to the infrastructure. No work was done at Florentine Hendrick because the school board had not made a decision about the future of the building. There was a resolution on the agenda Jan. 26 to close the school, but the board tabled it. The school will stay open at least through the 2010-2011 school year, Miner said, but she thinks it will eventually be closed for declining enrollment and budgetary concerns. There are 1,380 students at NR-W schools; Miner said the district has lost about 50 students a year for the past 10 years. There have been about 100 to 120 students in recent graduating classes, but she anticipates only 80-100 in classes in the next few years. Closing Florentine would save the district $575,000 a year in maintenance and staff costs, which would help in tough budget years to come, she said. “It’s going to be a challenge close a $2.5 million budget gap,” she said. It’s not clear what will happen to federal stimulus money, which prevented the district from having to spend too much of its reserve in the previous budget. She called the district’s reserves “healthy.” Miner started her career in education as a Spanish teacher, which she did for 18 years. She was a high school principal for five years and a superintendent for 19 years. She retired for the first time in 2002 and soon missed the work and sought interim positions. But now at 63, with 15 grandchildren and one great-grandchild to visit, she’s retiring for good. She will live in her home in Florida in the winter with her partner Ron Chase, but they will be spending summers in a fifth-wheel that they will park at Cherry Grove Campground in Wolcott, and she’s leaving her 30-foot Chaparral boat docked at Oak Orchard. The boat used to be in Sodus Point, but after she returned to the superintendent’s job at NR-W, she moved it to a marina in the district because she said she wanted revenue to go to someone who was paying taxes to support the schools. “I’ll be looking forward to coming back to the area, but in the good weather,” she said.
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