Two months after he was placed on paid administrative leave after it was revealed that he’d used the term “fudge-packers” in a post on social media site Facebook, Vince DeCicco has officially resigned as principal of Kingston High School.
The Kingston City School District’s Board of Education accepted DeCicco’s resignation during a meeting on Wednesday, November 17, effective December 23, 2022. He will remain on paid leave until that time. The School Board also unanimously approved the creation of a new contracted position for DeCicco in the Teaching and Learning Department. The new position, the district said relates to testing, assessments and data.
DeCicco’s new role will pay him $115,000 a year, down from his salary of $160,000 as principal. The contracted position runs through July 28, 2023. In a district press release, Superintendent Paul Padalino said DeCicco’s position is the first step in a central office restructuring plan which got underway with the retirement of two deputy superintendents. Padalino added that he expected the restructing plan to be complete by the end of DeCicco’s contracted term.
“Having worked with Mr. DeCicco for 10 years, I anticipate his skills and experience with student assessments and data to be very helpful for the remainder of this school year,” Padalino said. “It is an important area for us as we continue to recover from the pandemic.”
DeCicco, who was promoted to high school principal in 2019 at a salary of $140,000 per year, has been with the district for 16 years. Prior to serving as principal at Kingston High, he was high school vice principal for three years and was an interim principal at Ernest C. Myer Elementary School in Hurley for one year.
Tina Montano will continue serving as acting principal at Kingston High School while a search is conducted to hire a permanent replacement. School officials said they expect to begin that search immediately.
“Fudge-packers” is often colloquially used as a homophobic slur, but in mid-September, DeCicco said he used the term as a slight on the Green Bay Packers football team, longtime rival of the Chicago Bears, and denied intending to offend anyone in the LGBTQ community.
Also in September, he said teachers and administrators should strive to be inclusive with the district’s diverse student population, and should consider whether something they say or post online could be misconstrued.
“We’ve been doing culturally responsive training and diversity, equity and inclusion training for the last seven years,” Padalino said. “These are the standard tenets of the training, to make sure that we are — especially as educators and especially as leaders — conscious of what we say and how we say it, regardless of intention. A hallmark of the training is avoiding micro-aggressions and making sure that we are sensitive to our faculty, our staff, our students and our community.”
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