NEW SCOTLAND — Dr. Alan R. McCartney raised the academic bar and pushed the limits for students, technology, and for the school district here — sometimes in controversial ways — during his 16 years as Voorheesville’s superintendent before he retired in 2005. McCartney died at his Voorheesville home on Friday, May 8.

“He was a man who put students first in decision making,” said Interim School Business Official Sarita Winchell. “He would say, ‘What is best for the kids?’ He started in Voorheesville when there was quite a bit of turmoil. He took Voorheesville to a much higher level, academically, and technologically, into the 21^st century.”

McCartney’s reputation was tarnished soon after his retirement fete by an announcement from the state comptroller claiming corruption in the school district, and that McCartney paid himself inappropriately. The Enterprise found that the school board’s contracts with administrators were poorly written — leading to the ousting, at the next election, of a school board president who announced the district suit of McCartney based on the comptroller’s findings; he said McCartney wrote his own contract and broke it. The county district attorney found no basis to prosecute McCartney.

The board and The Enterprise researched and reported the auditor’s findings, and, soon after, the school district settled with McCartney.

“It was a question of interpretation,” said Mark Diefendorf this week. Diefendorf was a friend of McCartney who was hired as a teacher in Voorheesville at the same time McCartney joined the staff, and who later became the high school principal under McCartney.

The two met unknowingly on the college football field, when McCartney, playing for Thiel College, rolled over Diefendorf, playing for Case Western Reserve, and broke his nose. Diefendorf did not find out until his first interview at Voorheesville with the board and McCartney that McCartney was the player who had tackled him; the two became close friends. Diefendorf visited McCartney at St. Peter’s Hospital last week, where he said he was treated for a heart condition and a virus before being sent home with antibiotics. He died of a heart attack at home on Friday, May 8.

McCartney’s emphasis was on kids and programs, Diefendorf said. Recently, trends have grown in which “it is more and more important for programs to get permission from the school board,” he said. The old way of doing things, he said, was for students to ask for programs and for superintendents to say, “We’ll get it through.” Superintendents used to promise funding for programs they backed, before the programs went before the school board, Diefendorf said.

“It’s old school versus new school. Every T is crossed before any money is promised,” he said of the more modern way of handling program funding.

McCartney, who was born in Yonkers, earned degrees at Columbia University Teachers’ College, State University of New York College at Oswego, and Thiel College. He started his career as a teacher at Sackets Harbor Central School District, and was superintendent at Crown Point Central School District before coming to Voorheesville. (See the obituary.)

“Honest guy,” Diefendorf said of McCartney. “Whatever it was he was alleged to have done, certainly, I have no knowledge of it.”

“A lot in life is hard”

McCartney and his wife, Marcia, moved to Voorheesville when their daughter, Megan, was in middle school, and their son, Ryan, was even younger.

At his daughter’s graduation, McCartney said in his address, “Did we teach you to be courteous — not to display empty manners with no meaning, but to live the courtesy born of caring? And to express this caring through the small formalities and customs born of the years?

“Did we teach you to be bold, not to be afraid of the unknown, but to live life to the fullest and meet such new experience with joy and anticipation?” he continued. “Did we teach you to laugh, to dance, to sing? There is a lot in life that is hard, but take it as it comes, and find the good, and make time to dance.”

McCartney’s life did become hard, as he faced legal bills during the school controversies. He worked nights at Dick’s Sporting Goods to cover his legal fees, and he spoke with The Enterprise then about doing what he could to get back into education.

Months earlier, at his retirement party, he had said, “I’m not sure I’m ready…I can’t imagine not going 24-seven. I don’t think about it as retirement.”

With the district settlement behind him, McCartney worked as an education consultant and as a computer software consultant. In 2012, McCartney became the interim superintendent for the Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk Central School District.

In February, the RCS board unanimously approved a three-year extension to his contract.

A mentor

In McCartney’s 16 years at Voorheesville, Winchell said, “He provided stability to grow program.

“Personally, he was a great mentor,” she said. “I was very fond of him. I feel he wasn’t always appreciated by the public. He was always in it for our kids. He did a great service being here for our kids.”

“He really upgraded the, what we call now, the wifi — wired the entire building,” Diefendorf said of McCartney.

“We went from four to 19 Advanced Placement courses on his watch,” Diefendorf said. “We really added a lot of higher quality programs.”

McCartney started the Model United Nations and the mock trial programs at Voorheesville, Diefendorf said.

“We went to Yale. We went to Brown, and Cornell,” Diefendorf said about the student competitions. “Kids for the Model U.N. were from all over the country and some from other countries.”

Those programs, Diefendorf recalled, began in the late 1990s.

“It’s still going on, today,” he said. “Al was responsible for it — ‘Doc,’ as we called him.”

School board member C. James Coffin joined the board around the same time McCartney was hired. The two men had children the same ages, who were Voorheesville students.

“There was a lot of change going on then,” Coffin said. “He was the right guy for the time for the district,” he said of McCartney. “He was a different kind of leader. He was open to ideas and suggestions — he had his own. He took us to a higher level.

Coffin said that, if the board felt a program or change was needed, members would describe the change to McCartney.

“He would respond to marching orders from the board,” Coffin said. “The board worked with him well over many years.”

Coffin said that McCartney created a similar environment at RCS recently. Coffin saw McCartney recently, he said.

“We had a good conversation. There was a period of difficulty, but stuff happens. We all move on,” Coffin said.

“I have been very, very saddened by this,” Winchell said of McCartney’s death. She said she was glad when she learned that McCartney was working in Ravena.

“Frankly, Ravena needed a person like him,” Winchell said.

“He’s going to be very much missed by a lot of people,” she said. “People need to look at all of the good that he did.”

In later years, Diefendorf and McCartney golfed together and shared stories of their grandchildren. They and their wives vacationed together, Diefendorf said.

“He was a nice guy. A friend. A mentor,” Diefendorf said. “I miss him as a friend.”