Associate Principal Michael Paolino to become Guilderland High School Principal

Former Voorheesville Elementary School principal to be interim associate principal

It was 11 years ago and Michael Paolino’s career was right on track.

He had earned a master’s degree in business administration from Union College and landed a job with a national accounting firm in Boston, so the sky was the limit in the corporate world of high finance.

The job was great, Boston was exciting, but Paolino quickly realized that his true calling was in a different field.

“My whole family is in education, and after college I was drawn to it more than I thought I would be,” he said.

So, Paolino gave up his job, moved back to the Capital Region, and in 1998 landed his first job in the education field, as a business teacher at Clayton A. Bouton High School. Since then, he hasn’t looked back. He was appointed associate principal at Clayton A. Bouton High School in 2002, and his successes in that position will now take him to Guilderland High School, which has about 1,800 students. He will assume his new duties in late October.

As excited as he is to begin in Guilderland, Paolino admits it will be difficult to leave the district where he has spent nine of his 10 years in the education field. He says he feels privileged to have had the opportunity to work with a dedicated faculty and staff, a community that supports its students, and an administrative staff and Board of Education that work collaboratively to ensure personal and academic success of all students.

“The Voorheesville Central School District has presented me with the opportunity to grow and develop both as a teacher and an administrator, and for that I am very grateful,” he said. “In reflecting on my time spent within the district, I hope that I have made as great a difference in the lives of the students and faculty as they have made in mine and my family’s.”

Voorheesville Superintendent Linda Langevin said she has no doubt that Paolino’s intelligence and organizational skills will enable him to excel at Guilderland, just as he has here.

“He has been a valuable asset to the district. He’s personable, he’s a family man, and he is involved in the community. On behalf of the Voorheesville community, I’d like to wish him the best of luck in all his future endeavors,” Langevin said.

Paolino said he has become good friends with many of his colleagues and has high praise for the school district as a community.

“There’s a collegiality here that creates a tremendous learning environment. People work hard and do their jobs here,” he said.

Paolino believes he has learned much in his time at Voorheesville, but said the urge to challenge himself has grown in the past year or so, spurring him to apply for the principal’s job at Guilderland. He says he was convinced that the job was right for him when he toured the school and saw and felt many of the same qualities that made his job so enjoyable at Voorheesville.

Now that Paolino is moving on, the Voorheesville Board of Education has taken steps to find his replacement.

The board recently appointed Edward Diegel as interim associate principal. Diegel was the principal of Voorheesville Elementary School for 15 years, retiring after the 2003-04 school year. He was appointed to his current post on Sept. 17 and will serve in the position while the school district conducts a search for a new associate principal.

Langevin said the school board will form a committee to search for a replacement.