At a January 11 Board of Education meeting held on Wednesday, January 11, KCSD Superintendent Paul Padalino updated the School Board on the search for a new principal at Kingston High School.
Last November, Vince DeCicco resigned from his job as KHS principal 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.
“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 his favored Chicago Bears, and denied intending to offend anyone in the LGBTQ community.
Also in September, Padalino said district employees are trained on how to avoid making such offenses, inadvertent or not.
“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.”
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 remained on paid leave until his retirement went into effect. At the November meeting, trustees also unanimously approved the creation of a new contracted position for DeCicco in the Teaching and Learning Department. The new position, which 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 in November, 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 restructuring plan to be complete by the end of DeCicco’s contracted term.
“Having worked with Mr. DeCicco for ten 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 over 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 is currently serving as acting principal at Kingston High while the search continues for a permanent replacement.
Last week, Padalino said school officials were “paper screening” 20 applications for the principal position.
“Obviously there’s a certain level of experience that we’re looking for, for someone who’s going to manage a high school of that size and that complexity,” he said.“We’re working through that process, and I’m hoping to come back and report more at our next meeting.”
The application window for the KHS principal job closed on Sunday, January 15.
The next meeting of the KCSD Board of Education is scheduled for Wednesday, January 25.
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