Meccariello’s ‘Loyalty’

May Ensure Stability

At High School Helm

COOPERSTOWN – CCS Superintendent of Schools Bill Crankshaw said he’s recommending Elementary Principal Anne Meccariello for a promotion to return stability to the high school.

“Anne’s been with the district 23 years,” said Crankshaw.  “And she’s been in education for 28.  Anne has a real sense of loyalty to the district.  We are in need of consistency at the high school.”

The superintendent made the recommendation to the school board’s Personnel Committee after receiving High School Principal Kristin Butler’s resignation in February, effective July 1, after less than a year on the job.

He said the school board agreed with the idea at its March 4 meeting, and on March 18 he expects the board will formally accept Butler’s resignation and approve Meccariello’s promotion.

Mike Cring, elevated from athletic director to high school principal in 1995, served until July 2016, when he accepted an A-D position at the larger Arlington Central School District in LaGrangeville, outside Poughkeepsie.

He was succeeded that August by Donna Lucy, who had won national recognition in promoting STEM subjects in inner-city schools in New York City and Providence, R.I.

She served until July 2018, when she left to get married, and was succeeded on an interim basis by Jim Brophy, a retired Edmeston Central School principal.

Kristin Butler, a 15-year teacher at CCS, was then hired the following spring to succeed him.

During the same period, the school has gone through some turmoil in the superintendent’s job as well, after C.J. Hebert died in an ATV accident near his Richmondville home in March 2016.

Mike Virgil, a retired Morris Central superintendent, succeeded him, until Crankshaw’s hiring in January 2017.