Please welcome Nicole Chaluisan as Catskill High School’s new assistant principal. An educator for over ten years, Ms. Chaluisan comes to Catskill from the Enlarged City School District of Middletown, where she taught inclusion, regular, and honors-level social studies to a diverse student population, as well as taught Business Law at Middletown’s Academy of Finance program. The many other hats she wore there include School Improvement Committee facilitator, Safe School Ambassador facilitator, teacher leader and team grade leader, community coordinator for the football team, and staff advisor for the My Brother’s Keeper program, where she identified and paired at-risk students with adult mentors from the community. As an administrative intern, Chaluisan served as assistant principal for the Ulster BOCES summer school program in 2018.
Chaluisan has dual certification as a school building leader and school district leader, and holds a Certificate of Advanced Study in School Leadership from SUNY New Paltz. She earned her master’s degree in teaching from the Sage Graduate Schools and a bachelor’s degree in history from Russell Sage College.
Chaluisan says she became an educator because “education literally is the one thing that can change our world. I believe it’s the great equalizer, in our country especially.”
In her free time, she loves to travel and has made it her mission to eventually visit each of the 50 states. She also has a passion for all things football, does a lot of reading, and describes herself as a “huge history nerd.”
The Board of Education appointed Chaluisan on July 29 and she is very excited to now be part of the Catskill team. “Catskill is a small town with big ideas, and I’ve found the culture here to be accepting, diverse, and encompassing of all the characteristics that make people great,” she said. “I look forward to building our social-emotional opportunities for students and engaging the community with our school. Our biggest mission is to prepare students to be leaders in the technologically advanced 21st century.”