RUHS Welcomes 2 New Teachers
By Sandy Cooch

RUHS welcomed two new faculty members this fall, Carolynn Parker, guidance director, and Tim Kaleita, middle school physical education teacher.

Parker, whose title is "director of student services," and who also is the guidance counselor for grades 11 and 12, replaces longtime Guidance Director Bill Robinson, who retired from RUHS last year.

A New Hampshire native, Parker moved to Vermont in 1990, when she accepted a position as guidance counselor at Rochester schools, serving grades K-12. After three years in Rochester, Parker moved to Whitcomb High School in Bethel, where she was guidance counselor for grades 7-12.

Last year, while still at WHS, Parker and her first-grader son moved to Randolph—just down the street from RUHS, and Parker said she is happy to be working here too.

She has found RUHS to be "a great school," offering many academic and extra-curricular options for students, especially considering that it is a "relatively small school," she said.

Academic options include "an impressive number of AP (advanced placement), courses, as well as off-campus options at the adjoining technical center, at VTC, and at Dartmouth College.

Parker focused on theater and education in her undergraduate studies at Marietta College in Ohio, and Boston College, where she graduated.

She went on for a master’s degree in education at UNH, with an emphasis on guidance services.

Parker said working in guidance gives her an opportunity "to help kids find their potential."

Academic planning is only one part of that task, she said. Parker said she especially enjoys helping students envision what they want their lives to be outside of high school, and to "bridge" any obstacles to those goals.

Her personal interests include theater, and active outdoor activities, such as running, hiking, and skiing.

Phys Ed Teacher

Tim Kaleita, RUHS’s new middle school physical education teacher, comes to Randolph with a varied background in teaching and coaching.

After growing up on Long Island, New York, Kaleita came to Vermont in 1986 to attend UVM, where he was a soccer standout and also enjoyed Vermont skiing.

He "fell in love with Vermont," but after graduating in 1990, spent five years elsewhere, doing a mixed bag of jobs. Kaleita taught English in Japan, taught skiing in Utah, and "tried to play professional soccer."

Then came a period of college-level soccer coaching, first at Southern New Hampshire University, and then at UVM, where he also taught a little.

Kaleita then took an administrative position at St. Michael’s College, where he worked in admissions and also coached for nine years.

Kaleita, "the son of a teacher," said he found himself thinking more and more about teaching, and wanting a job with opportunities "to get to know kids on a more personal level."

"That’s why I coach," he added.

He has always liked "the middle-school aged group," he said, and decided that the opening at RUHS was "the best fit" for him.

Kaleita, who lives in Richmond with his wife and three-year-old son, does have a long commute, however.

This fall he coached the junior-high girls’ soccer team. With soccer season and after-school practices over, Kaleita said he was looking forward to car-pooling with teacher Scott Sorrell, who also lives in the Burlington area.

In his free time, Kaleita still plays soccer, but now it’s "old man soccer." He also enjoys golf, racquet sports, skiing, and reading.

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