Off and running

By JUDY RATTNER

With South Side High School’s football season already under way and a variety of varsity and junior varsity teams from the middle and high schools taking to fields throughout the village this week, the district’s new director of physical education, health and athletics, Carol Roseto, has spent many hours this summer getting ready.

“My first year’s goal is to get to know the community, [and to] get to know parents, students, teachers and staff,” said Roseto, who succeeds Michael Heller, who retired in June after 24 years in the district. “ [I’m planning] to look, learn and observe.”

Roseto, a competitive body builder, personal trainer and aerobics instructor, comes to Rockville Centre from the Lawrence public schools, where she had taught health and phys. ed. since 1998. She was well known for her school spirit, her devotion to students and her involvement in volunteer activities both in and out of the schools. The Nassau Herald named her its 2008 Person of the Year.

A graduate of Jericho High School, Roseto earned undergraduate and master’s degrees in business from Hofstra University, and a master’s in phys. ed. from Adelphi University. Now studying for a doctorate in educational administration at Hofstra, she served part of her administrative internship in Rockville Centre last year, working from April to September 2008 with Heller and Janine Sampino, the district’s K-through-12 curriculum coordinator.

Before starting the internship, Roseto said, she asked colleagues throughout Nassau County who was the best athletic director to learn from, and Heller’s name kept coming up. He had a very organized way of thinking, she said.

Roseto said she has literally hit the ground running, wearing a pair of flip-flops that can be a bit treacherous on the shiny hallway floors at South Side High School. From her second-floor office, she and her assistant, Patti Dwyer, were at work on a hot day last week, organizing all the equipment that has been ordered for middle and high school athletics and phys. ed. and health classes this year.

She said she has also been meeting with key vendors, coaches (including the new football staff, a new JV cheerleading coach and a new swim coach) and South Side administrative staff to “get a feel of my role and what goes on.”

And Roseto has also been prepping for the bus and field-use schedule, no mean feat considering that the district fields 15 teams in the fall alone: varsity and JV football, boys’ and girls’ varsity and JV soccer, boys’ and girls’ cross-country, boys’ golf, girls’ tennis, girls’ swimming, varsity and JV girls’ volleyball and varsity and JV cheerleading.

Roseto and Dwyer are in the process of computerizing all existing documents, and Roseto plans to make the high school and middle school Web sites more useful. She says she will post any weather-related cancellations or changes in game locations by 2 p.m. on the day of a game, and add links to the Nassau BOCES Web site for up-to-the-minute schedules.

“That’s my biggest goal: to get parents and athletes to use this as a resource,” she said.

Roseto is clearly excited about her new position, and is pouring what seems to be a prodigious amount of energy into her work. Of her new job, she said, “I feel it’s a really good match. From the day I walked into this building last April, I had a really good feeling about it.”

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