STUDENTS HONORED AT WILLIE ROSS SCHOOL GRADUATION
JUNE 11, 2009
Pictured
are the two Springfield
students who were honored at the Willie Ross
School
graduation on June 11, 2009. Left
to
right, Raffory Pena-Duran, who attended the Longmeadow Campus of the
school,
and Kaitlin Jones who attended the East Longmeadow Partnership Campus
of the
school. Mr. Pena-Duran will begin
full-time work, and Ms. Kaitlin Jones will attend Holyoke Community
College
in the fall. Also, pictured, Dr. Louis Abbate, Executive Director
of Willie Ross School for the Deaf.
WILLIE
ROSS
SCHOOL TRUSTEE RECEIVES AWARD
At
the annual meeting of the Willie
Ross School for the Deaf Board of Trustees in Longmeadow on
Wednesday, June 10, 2009, the school’s Trustee Award was presented by
Dr. Louis Abbate, Executive
Director of the school, on behalf of the Board of Trustees, to Jay M.
Primack, CPA, who has retired from his position as Vice Chairperson of
the Board. Mr. Primack will continue
to serve as a member of the Board, which he joined twenty years ago. His service to the school through his role as
Board member and Vice Chairperson has been impressive, and he has seen
the school through substantial building projects; the addition known as
The Cooley Administration Building, the Foster & Constance Gleason Furcolo
Student Center, and numerous other
upgrades to the buildings on the Longmeadow Campus.
His contributions to the financial operations of the
school have been considerable and extremely helpful, and his presence
on the Executive Committee will be missed. Mr.
Primack is well-known as a founding principal of Moriarty &
Primack, and he is active in a number of non-profit organizations in
the Greater Springfield area. The School
is grateful to him for his many years of service.
The annual
meeting of the Board followed the initial presentation included summary
presentations by chairpersons of the Board committees of the work that
has been accomplished by the Board and by the school during the
2008-2009 school year. Presentation of the
slate of officers for the following year was made by Nominating
Committee Chairperson Judge Daniel Swords as follows:
Chairperson: Attorney
Susan Phillips; Vice Chairperson: Barbara Garvey; Treasurer: James H.
Ross, Jr., and Secretary: Steven Mitus. Two
resignations were accepted with regret: Meyer Schoenberg and Donald
Dupré, whose contributions during their terms of office are much
appreciated.
The chairperson of the Nominating Committee,
Judge Swords, presented the name of Dr. Edward O. Reiter for election
to the Board of Trustees. Dr.
Reiter, whose specialty is pediatric endocrinology and is affiliated
with the Baystate Pediatric Endocrinology practice in Springfield, was
unanimously elected to the Willie Ross Board of Trustees, on which he
will serve an initial term of three years as a member of the Outreach
Committee of the Board. Dr. Reiter
brings to the Board and to the school outstanding service to young
children, and he was instrumental in facilitating the development of
the early intervention program which the school has with Baystate
Health Systems.
The annual meeting
concluded with the presentation by Dr. Abbate of his annual report on
the progress of the school in many areas and in particular on the
expansion of the school’s Longmeadow property and the major campaign
effort for the enhancement of the Longmeadow Campus of the school.
WRSD
a School of Excellence
(May 27, 2009) Dr. Louis
Abbate, Executive Director of the Willie Ross School for the Deaf, announces that the Willie Ross School in
Longmeadow, Massachusetts, has been awarded the title of a School of
Excellence by the National Association of Special Education
Teachers. The description of the school can be located on the
association's web site: www.naset.org under the alphabetical listing of
Schools of Excellence.
TEACHER
OF THE YEAR
(April 28, 2009)
The Willie Ross School
for the
Deaf in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, is pleased
to announce that Anne
Mazzu Cleary, Lead Teacher at the East Longmeadow Partnership Campus of
Willie
Ross at the Birchland
Park Middle School site, has been
chosen as its outstanding
teacher of the year. Ms. Cleary will be honored at the Pioneer Valley
Excellence in Teaching Awards Dinner at the Log Cabin in Holyoke on
Thursday, May 7, 2009.
Anne Mazzu Cleary, a
native of North Adams, taught for a
number of years at Berkshire County schools prior to beginning at Willie Ross School
for the Deaf. Ms. Cleary is being honored as Willie Ross School's
Teacher of the Year for her contributions as classroom teacher, her
significant contributions as Lead Teacher in the middle school, and her
dedication to the mission of the school. Always interested in
individual student progress, Ms. Cleary focuses on the positive
achievements of the many students who have worked with her over the
years. In her teaching, Ms. Cleary finds the time interacting
with her middle school students very enjoyable and most
rewarding. She uses the latest technology in her classroom
and the latest teaching methodology. Her students use the school
library to a great extent, so that they feel confident and comfortable
there, as do their peers. She likes to compare what she
teaches with what is taught in the Birchland Park
classes,
because it is vital that deaf and hard-of-hearing students
receive similar information and are made aware of what their same
age peers are learning. The Willie
Ross students and staff have always been made welcome at Birchland Park
School, and the cooperation of the Birchland Park staff with the Willie
Ross staff contribute to the success of this unique
program provided by Willie Ross for deaf and hard-of-hearing
students in Western Massachusetts.
Ms.
Cleary, a Springfield resident, has
served for twenty-one years at Willie
Ross School and has taught for a total of
thirty-two years in Massachusetts.
Her Lead Teacher position has given her the opportunity to contribute
school-wide to the process of curriculum development and other
all-school academic matters. Beginning her undergraduate
work at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (North Adams State
College) from 1971-1973, she received her Bachelor of Science degree
(B.S.) from the University of
Massachusetts, Amherst, in
1976. She completed her Masters of Education of the Deaf degree
(M.E.D.) from Smith
College
in 1977. She received her special
needs certificate from American International College, Springfield, in
1988, and she has continued post-graduate work at Boston College,
Worcester State College, and Western New England College. In
addition to her M.E.D. degree, Ms. Cleary holds a C.A.G.S.(Certificate
of Advanced Graduate Study). Ms. Cleary has made lasting
contributions to the education of deaf and hard-of-hearing students,
and Willie
Ross School is proud to acknowledge
her work through this award.
Sponsors in Hampden County include: The Irene
E. & George A. Davis Foundation, the Harold Grinspoon Charitable
Foundation, MassMutual Financial Group, Myers Bros & Kalicka, P.C.,
The Reminder, Southworth Paper Company, The Springfield Republican,
STCU Credit Union, Westfield State College Foundation, WGBY Channel 57,
Channels 40 & 22, Big Y, The Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House, and the local YMCAs.
