range of professional settings. While Kira holds her family closest to her heart, she also enjoys gardening, skiing, reading, writing, travel, and new adventures. Kira is a participant in the 2026 Leadership Institute of HVWP. Paul Lander, a sixth-grade ELA teacher at Oak Grove Elementary School in the Wappingers Central School District, has been a teaching consultant with the HVWP since 2010. Prior to teaching, he worked for 15 years as a reporter, columnist, and editor for The Times-Herald Record, New York Post, Newburgh Evening News, and the Poughkeepsie Journal. Tom Meyer enjoyed HVWP’s 2002 Summer Institute and many others after that one. He likes to garden, bodysurf in the ocean, and go on daily walks with his two dogs and his amazing wife, Julie. He also likes reading and writing poetry and riding his bicycle.
Joan Ottulich graduated in 2019 with a Master's in Education as a K-6 teacher. This is a second career and a very lovely one.
Mayra Rivera is a Teacher Consultant who participated in the Year Round Institute 2020-2021 and co-taught in the Young Writers Program for several summers. She currently is a preschool teacher at Head Start of Eastern County, where she encourages her students to use drawing to tell their stories.
Meg Davis Roberts is an assistant professor of English education at SUNY New Paltz. She joined HVWP in 2024 and serves as co-director.
Kait Rosenfeld teaches English at Monroe-Woodbury High School, and joined HVWP as a fellow in the Year Round Institute in 2025. She loves living life with her husband, David, and cat, Portia, and enjoys spooky books, arts and crafts, baking delicious treats, and writing within community. Mary Sawyer is a founding co-director of HVWP (in 2001) and a SUNY New Paltz professor emeritus. She lives part-time in the Pacific Northwest. Kasey Stecher is a HS English teacher in the Pawling Central School District who has been a part of HVWP since 2021. She is a reader, gardener, traveler, runner, and most recently, a newly certified school administrator.
HVWP COMMONPLACE 37
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