Retired principal gets school board seat
KINGSTON, N.Y. >> A retired school principal who twice ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the Kingston Board of Education has been chosen to fill a vacancy on the board.
Steven Spicer succeeds Danielle Guido, who resigned in January. Spicer will serve only until the school board election in May. The fourth-place finisher in that election will serve the remaining two years of Guido’s term.
The board voted 7-1 last Wednesday, Feb. 6, to appoint Spicer. Trustee James Shaughnessy cast the lone “no” vote.
Spicer, 56, retired last year as principal of John L. Edwards Primary School in Hudson after seven years in that position. He was principal of Hudson High School from 2004 to 2011 and was the high school’s assistant principal from 2000 to 2004. He previously was a public school teacher in Poughkeepsie and Brooklyn.
Spicer lives in Ulster Park and has been a resident of Ulster County for 29 years.
He lost elections for a Kingston school board seat in 2012 and 2017. In a prepared statement on Monday, Spicer said the Kingston school board should provide a “safe, productive learning environment [and] maintain plans to recruit and support the finest teaching and administrative talent for our children.”
Last March, Spicer organized the local “March for Our Lives” on the Walkway Over the Hudson, part of a nationwide protest against gun violence in the wake of the Parkland, Fla,. school massacre.
The top three votegetters in the Kingston school board election in May will serve three-year terms. The three-year seats that will be on the ballot are currently held by James Michael, Kathleen Collins and Suzanne Jordan.