Jun 3, 2008
Region 9
Pin is new assistant principal
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by Joan Lownds
Hersam Acorn Newspapers
When Sue Haig, assistant principal at Joel Barlow High School, retires this year, Gina Pin will be ready to step on board to take her place. She was appointed to the post by the Region 9 school board last week.
Ms. Pin is the student life coordinator at Ridgefield High School. She hopes to serve as “an accessible community resource” at Barlow, she said. “I want people to feel they can pick up the phone if they need to talk to me.”
The 44-year-old Ridgefield resident has worked as an educator in the Ridgefield schools since 1986, as an administrator and as a psychology and special education teacher. At Ridgefield High School, her alma mater, she initiated such programs as Peer Educator Group, which developed into a Big Brother/Big Sister program, and a new ninth grade orientation program that emphasized parent involvement.
Coincidentally, Ms. Pin attended Ridgefield High School with Thomas McMorran, Barlow’s principal. She graduated one year behind him, in 1981, but they didn’t know each other. However, the two administrators later worked together when Mr. McMorran was vice principal of Ridgefield High School.
“She will work hard to join the Barlow community,” said Mr. McMorran. “I know that she will bring her love of teaching and teenagers, her dynamic personality, and her drive to accomplish excellence to the position.”
Ms. Pin said she was “very impressed” by the process through which she was selected. She was interviewed by 12 members of the Barlow community, including three students, two parents, a secretary, a custodian, a social worker, a paraprofessional and Anne Kipp, Barlow’s director of guidance.
Mr. McMorran said Ms. Pin emerged as a finalist from a field of 30 applicants.
Ms. Pin’s educational background includes bachelor’s degrees in elementary education and special education from the University of Maine in Farmington, Maine; master’s degrees in counseling and school social studies from Western Connecticut State University; and a certification from the School Leadership Program of the University of Bridgeport.
Along with her work as an educator, and her family life as the wife of Marc Pin and mother to two teenagers, Dan and Catherine, Ms. Pin is an active community volunteer. She works as youth minister for St. Elizabeth Seton Church, visiting nursing homes monthly, sings in the church choir, serves as a member of the Ridgefield Coalition Against Substance Abuse, and is a docent guide at the Keeler Tavern.
“I can be found there in colonial garb, giving tours,” she said.
Ms. Pin hopes to become actively involved in a similar way with the Barlow community, she said. “At Barlow, there are unique challenges because of the mix of Redding and Easton students at the school. I want to make all the students feel a sense of belonging and ownership at the school, that they all have a voice,” she said.
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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