Preston, Borg leave positions at Parkside

The Kendallville News Sun: December 24, 2000

By DAVID BAINBRIDGE

LAGRANGE - Only three days after announcing that Parkside Elementary

School's top administrators won't be returning after winter break, officials

have named an interim principal for the school's next semester.

While most of the corporation's administrators received a four percent

raise, on average, during Monday's Lakeland School Board meeting,

administrative assistant Cherie Borg announced her resignation, and the

board announced that principal Gloria Preston will be entering into a

two-year consulting position with the corp. as of the new year.

Borg reportedly wanted to go back to college to complete a degree
before the

new school year starts.

School staff received a memo Thursday that B.J. Miller, a retired educator

who has been principal at Westview and Goshen schools, will be
replacing

Preston when school starts again Jan. 3. Superintendent Dr. Russell
Hodges said Friday that Miller, who has been retired for seven years,
began his career as a teacher at Honeyville Elementary School and was
an elementary principal in the Westview School

Corp. for more than 20 years and spent 17 years in a similar capacity in
Goshen.

Hodges said Preston's job change and Borg's resignation are unrelated
to a

decision only a week earlier in the Benjamin Sutton case. The decision
was weighted heavily against the school in its handling of the education
and placement of Sutton, a first-grader with Down syndrome.

Allegations against the school and the corporation included changing
Sutton's grades, having illegal meetings concerning him, having
unqualified personnel work with Sutton, doctoring and backdating a list of
educational goals without his parents' notification, and otherwise refusing
to speak with his parents about his progress at the school.

The school board met twice in executive session between the decision
and Monday's meeting - once during the week, and for two hours directly
prior to the meeting - both times to discuss personnel.

Hodges said that he and Preston have been discussing the change in her
job status for some time.

During a phone interview from his home, the superintendent said he
couldn't be specific at the time, but that Preston's new pay scale will be on
a per diem basis, and that her contract specifies she work a specific
number of days. Hodges also said that Preston, who has been principal at
the school for 8 1/2 years, will not be returning after her two-year contract
is up.

Many specifics of Preston's new job have not been worked out, though
they will likely involve grant writing and language arts with an emphasis on
writing, which are her areas of educational expertise, Hodges said.
Preston will be working on areas that will benefit the entire school
corporation, he said.