Betty Osga is getting to know her way around Lyme and Old Lyme. While it seems like town residents have been getting almost daily mailings and inserts about the pending referendum on the proposed Lyme-Old Lyme (L-OL) High School renovation project, District 18’s new superintendent has been using the past month to get to know the staff, teachers, parents and students in both towns.
Dr. Elizabeth Osga arrived on the job on August 6, the day after bidding farewell to her previous school district, Griswold Public Schools, where she had been superintendent for the past nine and one-half years. Her appointment was announced last May after she was selected to fill the position vacated by David Klein, who accepted the superintendent’s position with Madison Public Schools earlier in the year.
Osga describes her approach as one of observing and learning and her goal is to bring out the best of the district’s education professionals, staff and citizens who are involved with the towns’ schools.
“I don’t think a superintendent should come in and impose a personal set of objectives on a community,” she said. “This is a community that is in positive motion in terms of its educational programs. So it’s not a matter of ‘my will be done;’ it’s a matter of what is the will, what is the need. I would hope to bring some insight and experience so I can enhance the direction of the school district.”
Osga said she plans to probe where the district is in achieving its existing five-year strategic plan, now in its third year, noting that conditions and opportunities always arise as soon as the ink dries on the initial planning document.
Osga wasn’t looking to change school districts when the Lyme-Old Lyme opportunity was presented to her. She grew up in Griswold, where she and her husband, Martin, still live, and raised two daughters there. The opportunity to work with a consolidated school district appealed to her.
“I find it interesting how a regional district functions,” she said, contrasting how the Griswold school system, which contracts with a number of smaller towns to provide the area high school, with the dynamic of the regional school board representation from Lyme and Old Lyme, separate from town hall governance in either town.
Osga comes from a district with more students but fewer schools. Griswold had about 2200 students last year, compared to about 1500 students in District 18, and had four schools, including a satellite alternative high school, compared to the consolidated district’s five schools. The high school had almost twice as many students as L-OL.
“My sense of satisfaction comes from working with people, the relationships and connections,” she said. “Size and scale don’t do it for me.”
In announcing Osga’s appointment earlier this year, Susan Fogliano, chairwoman of the Lyme Old-Lyme Board of Education, cited her record of establishing and renewing highly effective leadership teams as one of the reasons she was selected as superintendent.
“She is recognized as having led the [Griswold] district in the development and implementation of systems and products in curriculum, assessment, personnel evaluation, and in walk-through supervision,” Fogliano said. “Measurable gains in student achievement [were] posted during her tenure.”
“Communication and connection have been my strengths,” said Osga, who has had experience with school building referendums.
In 2007, she said, Griswold residents approved building a new elementary school and renovating and expanding their middle school at about the time the first L-OL high school building project was defeated.
“I think most building projects wind up having some contentious moments, unless someone can hand to you all the resources necessary to complete the project,” she said. “Even so, coming to grips with what is the right project, at the right time, has its challenges.”
That experience moved the superintendent’s office off of the main school campus, giving Osga a feel for administering from a remote location, away from direct interaction with students. The proposed L-OL High School renovation project does not include relocating the district offices from their current location at Davis Road West, across from the Marketplace shops.
In terms of the district’s operating budget, Osga noted that every school district is nervous about the impact of energy prices that have climbed since budgets were put together last year.
Prior to her position in Griswold, Osga served for six years as assistant superintendent and one year as interim superintendent for Stonington Public Schools. She started her administrative career as principal of West Vine Street School in Pawcatuck.
Osga has taught at both the elementary and middle school levels in academic subjects and as a specialist in gifted and talented education. Her professional career as a classroom teacher was in Stonington. She was named Stonington’s Teacher of the Year twice and was awarded Celebration of Excellence Awards from the State Department of Education two times.
She also has gotten involved in advocating for state education policies through Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents (CAPSS), which represents all 159 of the public school superintendents in the state.
She earned a BS from Southern Connecticut State College, an MS from Eastern Connecticut and a sixth year certificate and her Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut.
Osga appreciates that the biggest challenge parents face often is in letting their children take responsibility.
“Our desire is to defend and protect,” she said. “Kids take their cues from us. Their pain can be from feeling they’re not meeting our expectations, from failing at times. Sometimes the best thing to do is let them go and learn for themselves. You can’t protect them from all hard things. I guess those are lessons you learn as a mother.”
In addition to raising two daughters, Osga is a proud new grandmother. Her daughter Hilary and husband Simon Khacherian, who live in Middletown, recently had their first child, a boy. Her daughter Ainslie is studying nursing after completing a degree in economics.
For the latest information on District 18, including the upcoming L-OL High School renovation project and referendum, go to www.region18.org