School board taps interim superintendent
The Onteora Board of Education has hired former Assistant Superintendent MaryStephanie Corsones to serve as interim school district superintendent after Victoria McLaren leaves.
Corsones’ appointment, at a rate of $1,000 per day, including business and travel expenses, was approved during a videoconference meeting of the board on Tuesday.
Corsones will work as an assistant superintendent from April 15-23 and then as acting superintendent through May 10, when her designation will become interim superintendent.
McLaren submitted her resignation in February, effective May 10, to become business administrator for the Highland school district.
“We are pleased ... to welcome Ms. Corsones back to the district,” school board President Laurie Osmond said Tuesday.
Corsones was with the Onteora district from October 2015 to June 2018 and also was the Kingston school district’s assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction and assessment from April 2001 to June 2014.
She was a principal and teacher in the Kingston school district from 1972 to 1980. Before that, she was employed by the Jericho school district in Vermont.
Corsones has been an independent consultant during the past two years and works with Orange-Ulster BOCES and the state Department of Education as a project administrator, coordinator and trainer.
She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Vermont in 1971 and a master’s degree from SUNY New Paltz in 1976. She received a certificate of advanced study in 1978 and earned a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1984.
McLaren has been with Onteora for 16 years; she was the district’s assistant superintendent for business when she was hired as superintendent in 2017 to succeed Bruce Watson.
McLaren is at the end of the first year of a fiveyear contract that started with an annual salary of $173,400. The position she’s taking in Highland has an annual salary of $138,000.