In her nearly 20 years as an employee of the Village of Rockville Centre’s Recreation Department, Karen Polito has worn her share of hats, including tennis instructor, preschool teacher, preschool director and program director.
Recently promoted to deputy superintendent, Polito is also the acting superintendent following this summer’s retirement of Ginger Creegan, who spent a remarkable 44 years on the job including the past four as superintendent.
“Ginger was a great mentor and I learned a lot from her,” Polito said. “I’m learning something new every day and growing more and more confident about moving into the position full-time. We’ve got a tremendous staff here.”
As acting superintendent, Polito oversees a staff of 10 full-time employees, anywhere from 50 to 150 part-time employees, all programs, as well as building maintenance. She said since reopening under Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Covid-19 safety guidelines in July, the Rec Center has been operating with fewer numbers — the summer playground program had 144 kids instead of the usual 400 — and has its cleaning routine “down to a T.”
“We began our preschool programs in late September and staggered our fall program openings,” Polito said. “Everything has gone extremely well. We’ve been open from 8 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. on weekdays and have started to increase our weekend hours.”