New Staff Faces in Westbrook

This fall, five new faces will walk the Westbrook schools halls and one will return to those familiar halls after spending last year on military deployment.

Natalia Sidorova: Certified to teach French, Spanish, and Russian, Sidorova steps in to teach world languages for the now-retired Roberta Fulton.

Allison Sumecki: Sumecki is the new health teacher hired to deliver the state-mandated health curriculum at Westbrook High School (WHS). Now that health is a formal class, an extra period has been added-an eighth-to the WHS rotation schedule to provide space in each student's schedule for the class.

Amy Callahan: Callahan will teach language arts at Westbrook Middle School.

Rebecca McDonald: McDonald, who previously taught science at Westbrook High School before moving away, has returned to the district this year to teach science in a 0.6 (a bit more than half-time) position at WHS.

Bill Gombos: Gombos, a physical education and health teacher at Westbrook Middle School, returns to teach this year after spending the last year on deployment in Iraq as a medic with the National Guard.

Ben Russell: Russell arrives to fill the long-sought and finally authorized district position of information technology specialist; previously the schools relied instead on outside contract services to support its information technology needs.

Lesley Wysocki: Wysocki, the school district's new business manager, started in her post on July 1. She will work out of the school district's central offices and will be responsible this year for a major conversion of the district's existing accounting software package to a new one that will automate more of the budgeting and expenditure processes.