Brian Swatland made his first public comments as Dunkirk City School District superintendent last week as the Dunkirk Board of Education held its annual reorganizational meeting.

Swatland began by praising the high school graduation ceremonies in June. “It was just absolutely amazing, it was a community coming together. I’m so thankful and happy to be part of the community.”

He said 31 students were in danger of not graduating, but “through the hard work of the counseling department, a number of them, a lot of them, got through and were able to graduate. We had one student that earned all of their graduation requirements the day before graduation.”

Moving on to current affairs, “hiring is going at a fast clip, I would say,” Swatland said. “We’re attracting a lot of high quality candidates. Our Bilingual Academy at School 5 — the word is out in the community and we have a lot of people applying for those positions.”

Swatland went on to mention an upcoming review of consultant teaching for English as a New Language and special education students. Plans are also getting finalized for so-called “behavioral intervention classrooms” and a daily Universal Pre-Kindergarten program at School 4.

“In the secondary school, we’ve departmentalized all of our departments outside of seventh grade… eighth through 12th grade, all of our math teachers will be in one area, social studies in one area, science in one area,” Swatland added. “We want to make sure that teachers have the ability to work together, to collaborate — it’s the best form of professional development. That way, they can learn something and embed it into their lessons.”

The superintendent concluded his presentation by thanking custodians, maintenance workers and seasonal summer staff for their hard work in association with classroom movement.

Swatland was sworn in as superintendent early in the meeting, and Stephen Helwig and Karen Willis took oaths as board members after winning an unopposed election in May.

Kenneth Kozlowski was also named president of the board again. Claudia Szcerbacki retained her title of vice president, as well.

The Board of Education additionally approved a meeting schedule, a sizable list of officers and representatives for various district positions, and rates for tuition and substitute teachers.