Goodbye and hello at Hewlett-Woodmere

Posted

They’ll be fresh faces at the next Hewlett-Woodmere Board of Education meeting, as Trustees Stephen Witt and Dr. Jonathan Altus, are stepping down, and Barbara McNiff, the executive director of human resources, is retiring. Their final meeting was June 13.

Witt has been on the Hewlett-Woodmere board for 27 collective years and will continue to serve on the Nassau BOCES board, where his service began in 1996. Evoking Lou Gehrig, Witt said there was something special about serving on the board of trustees, adding that he was, “the luckiest man alive.”

Zach Bromfeld, a 2017 Hewlett High School graduate who played on the school’s basketball team, spoke about the work Witt did with the athletics programs. “His impact was felt all over, but particularly around the sports teams,” he said.


Adam Altus, the Altus’s son, spoke about his father and how he was governed by his values, his family, his moral compass and the New York Giants. Altus was also awarded a lifetime achievement award from Robert “B.A.” Schoen, the director of Nassau County at the New York State School Board Association.

Superintendent Dr. Ralph Marino Jr. said how thankful the district is that McNiff spent her whole career with Hewlett-Woodmere, where she began as a business education teacher in 1978.

Edward Fale, the holder of a Ph.D., has been appointed as the interim executive director of human resources. He has retired as superintendent of Valley Stream District 24, a position he had held since 1998. He’s also been the assistant superintendent for Instruction, Learning and Personnel at the Longwood School District; the assistant to the superintendent for Personnel at Sewanhaka Central High School District; principal at H. Frank Carey Junior-Senior High School; assistant principal at Amityville Memorial High School and Freshman Dean at Christ the King High School in Middle Village, Queens. He also taught math at Christ the King High School and St. John’s University, and educational administration at Stony Brook and Fordham universities and Dowling College.