EAST ROCKAWAY UNION FREE
East Rockaway,
Regular Meeting of the
Board of Education
7:30 P.M., January 19,
2010 – East Rockaway Jr./
Preceded by a Presentation
on ALPSS and a Public Forum
Present: Members of the Board of Education: Marie
Girace, Linda Schmidt, Neil Schloth, Michaelene Abbott-Cooper; Superintendent,
Dr.
Absent:
Vicki Alspector
1. The meeting was called
to order by Marie Girace and the Pledge of Allegiance was led by Linda Schmidt.
2. Upon motion by Linda
Schmidt, seconded by Michaelene Abbott-Cooper the minutes of the December 15,
2009 meeting were unanimously approved.
3. Acknowledge Receipt of
Financial Reports – None
4. Correspondence – Three
5. Action Agenda
A. Personnel
Upon motion by Neil Schloth, seconded by Michaelene Abbott-Cooper, the
following items
#1-6
were unanimously approved:
1. Upon the recommendation
of the Superintendent, terminate the services of Shannon Quinn, from the
position of substitute teacher, effective December 18, 2009.
2. Upon the recommendation
of the Superintendent, accept the resignation of Patricia McGuinness from the
position of substitute food service worker, effective January 19, 2010, and
approve the appointment of Patricia McGuinness to the position of food service
worker, effective January 20, 2010 at the Year 1 hourly salary set forth in the
East Rockaway Food Service and Monitors Unit contract for food service workers for
the 2009-2010 school year.
3. Upon the recommendation
of the Superintendent, accept the resignation of Linda Budion from the position
of assistant cook, effective January 4, 2010.
4. Upon the recommendation
of the Superintendent, accept the resignation of Jacqueline Partos from the
position of food service worker, effective January 19, 2010, and approve the
appointment of Jacqueline Partos to the position of assistant cook, effective
January 20, 2010 at the Year 1 hourly salary set forth in the East Rockaway
Food Service and Monitors Unit contract for food service workers for the
2009-2010 school year.
5.
Upon the recommendation of the Superintendent, approve
the following temporary assignments at the hourly salary approved by the East Rockaway
Board of Education:
a.
Kathryn
Klock, substitute teacher, effective January 7, 2010
b. Linda Budion, substitute
food service worker, effective January 20, 2010
6.
Upon the recommendation of the Superintendent, approve
the continuation of the “emergency, conditional” personnel appointments for the
following individuals pending receipt of notification of their fingerprint
clearance from the State of
B. Other Items
1. Upon motion by Linda Schmidt, seconded by Neil Schloth the 2010-2011 school calendar was unanimously approved.
2.
Upon motion by Linda Schmidt, seconded by Michaelene
Abbott-Cooper, the 2010 Biennial Review and Amendment of the Shared-Decision
Making Plan and authorize the President of the Board of Education to sign the
Statement of Assurances on behalf of the Board of Education was approved.
3.
Upon motion by Michaelene Abbott-Cooper,
seconded by Neil Schloth, the revised the Non-Contractual Salary Schedule
effective July 1, 2009 through June 30, 2010 was unanimously approved.
4.
Upon motion by Linda Schmidt, seconded by Neil Schloth,
the following resolution was unanimously approved:
BE IT HEREBY RESOLVED that the Board of Education of the East Rockaway Union
Free School District approve the terms and conditions of employment for the
District’s Food Service & Monitor Union for the period July 1, 2009 through
June 30, 2012, as set forth in the Memorandum of Agreement dated December 7,
2009; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Superintendent of Schools is authorized to
execute the resulting collective bargaining agreement on behalf of the Board of
Education.
5.
Upon motion by Neil Schloth, seconded by Michaelene Abbott-Cooper, the
following contracts for the services and date ranges indicated were
unanimously approved and the President of the Board of Education is hereby
authorized to execute the individual contracts.
|
Name of Provider |
Type of Service |
Duration of Purposed Contract |
|
SCOPE |
Educational Services |
November 21, 2009 to
June 30, 2010 |
|
|
Presentation |
January 1, 2010 to
June 30, 2010 |
|
|
Presentation |
January 1, 2010 to
June 30, 2010 |
|
The Mental Health
Association of |
Presentation |
January 1, 2010 to
June 30, 2010 |
6.
Upon motion by Linda Schmidt, seconded by Neil
Schloth, a donation in the sum of Five Thousand Two Hundred Twenty-Six ($5,226.00)
Dollars from the East Rockaway Education Foundation for the purchase of Smart
Response Systems for use in the elementary schools was unanimously accepted.
C.
Budget Transfers [for budget transfers $5,000 +]
1. Upon the recommendation
of the Superintendent, the Board of Education approves the following budget
transfers: NONE
Upon motion by Linda Schmidt,
seconded by Michaelene Abbott-Cooper, the following
items D&E were unanimously
approved:
D. Approval of CSE
Recommendations
E. Approval of CPSE
Recommendations
6. Policy Matters for
Review:
1. Policy No. 4.912,
Purchasing Authority
7. Superintendent’s Report.
You may have seen an article in the New York Times
highlighting
for their partnership with
Rockaway also offers college credit
courses through SUNY Albany. This
enables students
who may not score high enough to receive
AP credit but can still receive SUNY credit.
News from the elementary schools includes the
National Geographic Geography Bee was
held on January 13th at
from Mrs. Rafferty's class. Also the Centre Student Council had a career
day where students
dressed in a career attire of their
choice. At
dangers of smoking entitled, Kick Butts,
for grades 4,5 and 6. Kindergarten
Interim reports
were sent to parents. Parents are
invited to attend an afternoon meeting on January 28th to
learn about the curriculum, how the
children are progressing and what they can do at home to
help their children. Various Martin Luther King activities that
are grade appropriate are
happening in all three schools. Discussions include an awareness of social
issues in the
country
with tie-in to Martin Luther King.
At
I Have a Dream Speech and they are writing
their own dreams for the future. All
grades are
discussing the importance of Dr. King's
dream of peace, love and brotherhood.
This month’s novels include: The Family
Under the Bridge, Snow Treasure, Number the
Stars and The
Devil's Arithmetic. On the high
school level students are reading The
Great
Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, and The Things They Carried.
The high school reports that Mr.
Russell Pajer is preparing his Senior Seminar students
for their internship projects for the 2nd
semester. The keyboarding classes are
averaging 62.3
words per class on tested timed
exercises. The “Did You Know” card for
business is
completed and will be posted to the
website. The Tech 8 classes completed their Virtual
Bedroom Projects which incorporate math
and engineering problem solving skills into the
assignment. The students designed
to scale their own bedroom designs on the computer and
then built the models that are displayed
in the middle school wing. On
January 14th, the
science department held its annual middle
school science fair. There was an unprecedented
turnout to the event. Also, science
teachers saw a lot of creativity and originality in the
projects. Ten students will present
their projects at the Long Island Science Congress in the
spring. Thank you to Mr. Cangemi and the
science department for such a wonderful event.
Here are the results:
Life Science: 1st Place-Elizabeth Borjia
Life Science Accelerated:
Physical Science 8: 1st Place- Andrew
Torlincasi
Earth Science Accelerated
James Spelman Memorial Award:
Also in science, as part of their final exam,
our Forensic classes will visit the
Center for Science Learning to partake in
a field final. They will use evidence to ascertain a
simulated crime scene.
Physical
Education at
This unit will culminate in our Hoops for Heart
week for grades 3-6 during the week of
February 8th.
Also, students in grades K-2 will begin to prepare for their Jump Rope
for
Heart activities during the same week. Both of
these programs will teach students the
importance of community service and the benefits
of living healthy and active lives.
Thank
you to the Centre Avenue PTA for providing a dance assembly for grades K and
1.
At the high school, our All-County students
performed at the
weekends. They, and our LISFA (Long Island
String Festival) students, were honored at the
January East Rockaway Village Board meeting
where they received citations from the Mayor
and the Town of
Friday & Saturday, February 5th
& 6th. Tickets are still available. Students are starting
preparations for our upcoming NYSSMA festival
this spring. Elementary band students will
be using the computer program, Smart
Music, as a practice tool for the first time this year.
The East Rockaway Elementary Chorus has been
invited to perform
at the NY Islanders Hockey Game on March 14,
2010 at 5 pm. Chorus rehearsals will
include preparation for the exciting
performance.
Our
SEL words this month are: Centre
Avenue-Empathy and Optimism;
Empathy and Loyal. Grade 7 -Stress, Frustration and Grade 8-
Arrogant, Rational, Remorse.
Under the heading of SEDL I want to acknowledge
our Boys’ basketball team and Mr.
Lores for a successful outing to the east
end of
received a letter from the General
Manager of the hotel that the students were in.
In the letter
our students were complimented for their
behavior and how respectful they were.
Similarly,
many of you may have heard that there was
an altercation at one of the Girls’ varsity
basketball games. Mr. Vulpis reported that our students, and
the East Rockaway fans,
remained respectful in a potentially bad
situation. Good character is important
and I thank
our students for representing East
Rockaway with good character and good manners.
Along with good character our students exhibit
compassion for others and I’m please to
report that SADD, under the supervision
of Ms. Mednik, came in 3rd on
collecting food for Island Harvest. Congratulations to Ms. Mednik and our
students for their
community service.
We are in the process of extending the functions
of our student information system,
Infinite Campus, to provide access to a
parent portal. This will allow parents
to view their
child’s demographic information for
accuracy as well as interim and report card grades.
Information will be sent home shortly.
Some of you may know that our breakfast and
lunch program must be self-sustaining.
It
is not funded through local taxes and the
general fund. Therefore, due to
increased costs, and
in order to continue to provide a
program, the cost of lunch will be increasing to $2.00 in all
three schools. Parents will receive a flyer and information
will be posted on the website.
This will begin on February 1, 2010.
Coming soon will be a new computer lab in room
204 at the high school. This will be
installed
in February. Also, three new smart boards were installed at the high school and one
at each
elementary school. Technology news also
included cabling at
every room
can now receive the video broadcast from the school’s newsroom. In addition,
wiring for
the surveillance system is almost completed at all three schools. This is being paid
for from a
grant from Senator Skelos.
Just a reminder that a special
meeting will take place tomorrow night at
High
School. At this meeting we will share the results of the
at-risk survey that was
administered
to our secondary students. We are hoping
for a full house. The information
you
learn about how the students perceive their environment will be useful to you
as parents
and
as community members. Secondary students
are encouraged to attend with their parents.
Recently,
locked doors, turned off lights, hid students
in the corner of the room and waited for the all
clear signal from the principal.
The exercise was successful.
I want to acknowledge Ms. Fran Kohn for her
participation in the
Association of Math Teachers’ annual
conference, How to Make Math Count. It was held at
We continue to be mindful of the various viruses
that are going around. Flyers are on the
back table for H1N1 vaccination
locations. There is also a link to this
information off of the
homepage of our website.
I’m pleased to report that some of our teachers
received grants from Nassau TRACT.
They are Eileen Hiller, Sol Yousha, and
Geri Strugatz. These grants are for
classroom
projects. Mr. Yousha received the largest grant which
will fund Family Science Night.
Budget season is underway. The Governor sent out a first draft for state
aid. It is
proposed that East Rockaway will be cut
8.36% from the aid we received last year.
This
amounts to $553,532. That’s a big hit for us. And we are hoping that the legislators will
do
something about this. This will probably be in Newsday within the
next few days. We will
continue to do what we can to keep
expenses down.
I have a few items to follow-up from last
month’s meeting. Last month Mr. Galligan
asked about the new winter driver
education program. There are 28 students
in the program.
There are no non-residents are enrolled at
this time. As per the suggestion, we
will offer a
different rate for non-residents. That rate will be $50 more than the resident
rate.
With respect to grade 2 and class size we will
be hiring a teaching assistant to provide
interventions to grade 2 in both
schools. The person hired will be a
certified teacher and will
work with Ms. Arapas during the three
periods that Ms. Dubiel is not assigned to that class.
At
Last month Mrs. Ochtera asked a question about
releasing the funds from the technology
and facilities reserves and if we had to
release them all at once. We have
learned that the
proposition should state the project,
the funding and the timeline. With the
projects that Mr.
Piccarella and Mr. Quercia have outlined
it looks like the proposition will reflect all of the
money that is currently available.
There is a rumor that we are trying to eliminate
the
What we are trying to do is create clear
entry criteria, clear contracts and expectations for the
students who attend the program, and a
curriculum. This takes time. Dr. Lo Verde will be
working
with Ms. Healy to address the questions about the
This concludes my report.
8. Privilege of the Floor
A group of community members commented on the 2nd
grade class size at
Another community member asked about Rock
Rivalry and if procedures would be changed to avoid the problems of last year.
Another community member asked if the rubric
will change for the Enterprise Program.
9. Board Member Comments
Michaelene
Abbott-Cooper
– Welcome Marcy! Thank you for the great presentation on the ALPSS program. I
am excited to see the second grade parents here. The board is working hard to
act on your concerns. Thank you for
coming.
Linda
Schmidt
– Thank you for coming out. Welcome Marcy. I am very impressed with the ALPSS
program. I am happy that we have found an alternative learning program that
works for us.
It wasn’t long ago when I was on the other side
of this table in the same situation you are all in. In fact, it didn’t happen
once but it happened for both of my children who are now in the 8th
and 5th grade. My daughter’s class for first grade was divided into
three sections and that is because the numbers in Kindergarten were 55
children. In second through sixth there were only two sections.
My son’s grade, the current 5th grade
at
The reason I am sharing this with you is because
when this affected my children I came to the Board of Education meeting and
spoke on behalf of the parents and children. I spoke respectfully and the Board
took what I said very seriously and responded in a very timely manner.
One of the main reasons I sit on this BOE is for
that very reason. We are a group of community members who spend a lot of time
discussing ways of bettering our schools. We take what the parents and
community say very seriously and although we would like to say yes to every
request, unfortunately that is not possible. I thank you for coming and I hope
to see more of you next month.
Neil
Schloth
– Thank you to the ALPSS program, I love the energy and devotion of the staff,
students and parents. Thank you to the second grade parents, your case was well
thought out. You now know about the cut in state aid for next year. We all need
to write our local government and try to get more money for the district. Thank
you for coming.
Marie
Girace
– I would like to echo everything that was said. Thank you for sharing your concerns.
Thank you Dr. LoVerde for the presentation on the ALPSS program. The program has a wonderful success rate.
Welcome Marcy, our new employee. Thank you all for coming and please come back.
10. Upon motion by Neil Schloth, seconded by
was
adjourned at 9:30 pm.
Respectfully
submitted,
Denise
Lobascio
District
Clerk