The New Hyde Park-Garden City Park school district will soon be on the hunt for a new technology expert.
Judith LaRocca, the director of curriculum, instruction & technology, is leaving the district after nine years to become Valley Stream Union Free School District 13’s assistant superintendent for curriculum, she said.
“You’re going to be a hard one to replace, let alone doing the job of basically three people,” New Hyde Park-Garden City Park school board President Ernest Gentile said Monday after the board voted to accept LaRocca’s resignation.
LaRocca has overseen the district’s curricular, instructional and technology initiatives since starting in her position in 2007, she said. She previously worked with the Eastern Suffolk Board of Cooperative Educational Services after seven years as a math teacher, she said.
She started by building the district’s website and setting up its email system, she said, and has since helped the district bring interactive whiteboards and other technology into classrooms and start an initiative that will give every student a tablet, she said.
She has also helped train teachers to incorporate technology into their classrooms and worked with district curriculum committees to create new programs “to make sure we’re keeping high standards for all our students,” said LaRocca, of Rockville Centre.
In her position, LaRocca said she has always aimed to make sure teachers have what they need to give students the best instruction possible.
“My role has really been to support teaching and learning in the district by making sure everybody had what they need,” she said.
Moving forward, LaRocca said, she expects technology will help teachers continue “differentiate” learning by gathering information that lets them tailor lessons to meet different students’ needs.
New Hyde Park-Garden City Park Teachers Association President Ralph Ratto said LaRocca helped guide the district through the state’s turbulent implementation of Common Core curriculum standards.
She also helped develop a new annual professional performance review, or APPR, amid shifting standards from the state, he said, calling LaRocca’s departure a “huge loss” for the district.
“Many have called APPR akin to building a plane in the sky, and Judy has been able to wade through the constantly changing regulations and successfully implement and APPR plan that we can kind of move forward with at this point,” Ratto said.
LaRocca’s resignation is effective June 30. She joins three New Hyde Park-Garden City Park principals who are leaving the district at the end of the school year, district officials said
Responding to a question from school board candidate Shamini Sivalingam, Gentile said the district will publish a job posting after the board finishes reviewing how to fill LaRocca’s position.
