Amanda Muckerman has been serving as the new principal at Holy Rosary Catholic School since April. The fourth-grade teacher is currently balancing those duties with her classroom but plans to step into the role completely at the start of the 2025-26 school year. 

Father Eddie Godefroid was excited to see Muckerman stepping into the role and felt she was the right choice for the position. 

“Her outgoing personality, her commitment to our school, even our community, she brings something to our community,” said Godefroid. “I just think of her experience and that continuity that she brings. She’s also familiar with the community, she knows people here which just helps bridge that gap.”

Muckerman started teaching in the Wellsville-Middletown R-I School District in 2018, and after a year there she transitioned to Holy Rosary where she has taught ever since. 

“I’m very busy, I’m doing a lot on the weekends too, so it’s very busy,” said Muckerman. “But I’m enjoying both of them. My class is being very flexible with me, as well as parents being understanding that I’m doing two roles but it’s going good.”

Although it may have happened quicker than she planned, stepping into an administrative role has always been a goal for Muckerman. She was excited to lean into the work once it became her full time role. 

“I’m very excited about the opportunity to see what I can do and make changes to make Holy Rosary a better place than what it has been,” said Muckerman. 

She is already sinking her teeth into those goals and is working to implement a new reading curriculum for students next year. 

“I’ve got a team I put together just a couple weeks ago, we’re working on a new curriculum to bring into K through 5, which is called Amplify, and it’s for reading and writing,” said Muckerman. 

She said the new curriculum was one of two that was piloted in individual classrooms this year and it had been successful in its early stages. 

The Amplify curriculum uses a block schedule where students are taught the skills necessary for reading in the mornings and then those skills are applied with reading and writing assignments in the afternoons. 

She said many of the readings will be focused on science and social studies topics to incorporate the other subjects into the curriculum as well. 

“We just felt like this fit our school better,” said Muckerman. “Just to get the kids at a higher level of thinking and just enhancing their learning experience here.”

Muckerman also plans to emphasize building more of a community around the school and wants to establish more social and community events for the students. She said they held their first middle school social on May 9 and she also hopes to bring back the Halloween dance next year. 

She also hoped to increase their outreach in the community along with the “word of mouth” to help increase enrollment at the school. 

While she will not be in classrooms as often next year, she still wants to maintain a presence in the learning environment and remain active in her students’ lives. 

“I feel like a presence in the classrooms, one, tells the teachers that I care about what they’re teaching, … but two, for the students, it helps with their behaviors, if they know that at any time you could be walking in and out of their classroom.”

She said she planned to lead “with virtues” and hoped to be an example for her students, even as her “classroom” has expanded. 

“We teach a lot of virtues in this school and leading with virtues that students can see that I am doing that as well, and that’s what we expect out of them. I think that’s important for them to see,” said Muckerman.