AIA principal takes interim district-wide position

Starting Tuesday, Albany International Academy Principal Rachel Stead will serve as the district-wide director of English as a New Language and Refugee Services for the rest of the school year.

Stead will take over on an interim basis for Tom Giglio, who is recovering from injuries sustained in a traffic accident last fall. 

Veteran administrator David Amodeo will serve as the acting principal at Albany International Academy for the rest of the year, leading both the Newcomer Program and the Dual Language Program. 

Stead joined the City School District of Albany in 2017 as the first principal of the international program, which was based at the former North Albany Academy when it opened. She became principal of Delaware Community School, including the Dual Language Program, in 2020, when the district paused the Newcomer Program due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The following year, the district reinstated the Newcomer Program at its current location and moved the Dual Language Program to co-locate with it in the building now known as Albany International Academy. The district appointed Stead as the building leader, a position she has held since.

Before coming to Albany, Stead was the academic administrator for world languages, English as a New Language and grants in the Shenendehowa Central School District. She also was executive director of the Capital District Bilingual Education Resource Network for four years. 

She began her teaching career as an English as a New Language and Spanish teacher in Ichabod Crane Central Schools in 1996. 

Amodeo served as a teacher and administrator in Albany for more than 30 years before retiring in 2020 as principal of New Scotland Elementary School. Before that, he was an assistant principal at William S. Hackett Middle School and the former North Albany Academy. 

An Albany High School graduate, Amodeo most recently served as acting principal at Pine Hills Elementary School during a leadership transition last fall.