EAST ROCKAWAY UNION FREE
East Rockaway,
Regular Meeting of the
Board of Education
7:30 P.M., October 19,
2010 – East Rockaway Jr./
Preceded by a Salute to the Board of Education and a Public Forum
Present: Members of the Board of Education: Linda
Schmidt; Neil Schloth; Michaelene Abbott-Cooper; Patti Nicoletti; Kristin
Ochtera; Superintendent, Dr.
1. The meeting was called
to order at 8:05 pm by Linda Schmidt and the Pledge of Allegiance was led by
Michaelene Abbott-Cooper.
Upon
motion by Kristin Ochtera, seconded by Michaelene Abbott-Cooper, the following
items
numbered
2 – 4 were unanimously approved:
2. Approval of Minutes – September
21, 2010 (monthly meeting)
3. Approval of Minutes – October 6, 2010 (appoint impartial hearing officer)
4. Approval of Minutes – October
12, 2010 (tax certiorari
settlements)
5. Receipt of the Financial
Reports for July 2010 and August 2010 were acknowledged.
6. Correspondence – None
7. Action Agenda
A. Personnel
Upon motion by Neil Schloth,
seconded by Michaelene Abbott-Cooper, the following items numbered 1 – 12 were unanimously approved:
1. Upon the recommendation
of the Superintendent, accept the resignation of Yujin Ham from the position of
permanent substitute teacher, effective October 12, 2010, and further approve
the three-year probationary appointment of
2. Upon the recommendation
of the Superintendent, approve the three-year probationary appointment of Caroline
Gallo to the position of teaching
assistant (tenure area: teaching assistant), effective October 18, 2010,
through October 17, 2013, at the Step 1 annual salary set forth in the East
Rockaway Teachers Association contract for teaching assistants for the 2010-2011
school year.
3. Upon the recommendation
of the Superintendent, approve the winter sports 2010-2011 coaching assignments
as more fully set forth on the attached schedule.
4. Upon the recommendation
of the Superintendent, approve a change in the effective dates of the child
rearing leave of absence of Kimberly Rosenkrantz from October 18, 2010 through
the end of the fall semester 2011 to October 4, 2010 through January 28, 2011.
5. Upon the recommendation
of the Superintendent, approve the appointment of Julee Sarno to the position
of Short Term Substitute Teacher (speech language), effective October 12, 2010,
through January 28, 2011, at the per diem salary established by the East
Rockaway Board of Education on the non-contractual salary schedule for the
2010-2011 school year.
6.
Upon
the recommendation of the Superintendent, approve the appointment of Lynn Kinneary
to the half-time position of Central Operations Food Service Worker, effective October
20, 2010, at the Step 1 hourly salary set forth in the East Rockaway Food
Service & Monitor Union contract for the 2010-2011 school year.
7.
Upon the recommendation of the Superintendent,
accept the resignation of Carrie Consiglio from the position of substitute food
service worker, effective October 19, 2010, and approve the appointment of
Carrie Consiglio to the position of food service worker, effective October 20,
2010 at the Step 1 hourly salary set forth in the East Rockaway Food Service
& Monitor Union for the 2010-2011 school year.
8. Upon the recommendation
of the Superintendent, accept, with regret, for the purpose of retirement, the resignation of Roque C. Rodriguez
from the position of cleaner, effective October 29, 2010.
9. Upon the recommendation
of the Superintendent, approve the appointment of Kathryn Klock to the position
of teacher aide, effective September 19, 2010, at the Step A hourly salary set
forth in the East Rockaway Teacher Aides Association Contract for the 2010-2011
school year.
10. Upon the recommendation
of the Superintendent, approve the following appointments to the position of
part-time teacher aide for the ALPSS program, effective October, 20, 2010,
through June 30, 2011, at the hourly salary set forth by the East Rockaway
Board of Education for the 2010 – 2011 school year:
a. Melissa Jordan
b.
Elizabeth Freeman
11. Upon
the recommendation of the Superintendent, approve the following temporary assignments
at the salary approved by the East Rockaway Board of Education on the
Non-Contractual Salary Schedule for the 2010-2011 school year:
a. Patricia Mendoza, substitute food service worker, effective October 20, 2010
b. Kayla Toscano, substitute teacher, effective October 20, 2010
c. Karen Regenstein, substitute teacher, effective October 7, 2010
d. Kathleen Brophy, substitute teacher, effective October 7, 2010
e. Lawrence Faas, substitute cleaner, effective October 20, 2010
f. Patricia Tarzia, substitute teacher aide, effective October 20, 2010
g. Melissa Jordan, substitute teacher, ALPSS, October 20, 2010
h. Christopher Diaz, substitute food service worker, effective October 20, 2010
i. Kristen Matthews, substitute monitor, effective October 20, 2010
j. Dana Casas, substitute teacher, effective October 20, 2010
k. Jodi Morello, substitute teacher, effective October 20, 2010
l. Andrew Fogel, substitute teacher, effective October 20, 2010
m. Geoffrey Carr, athletic supervisor, effective August 16, 2010
12. 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
a.
Elizabeth Freeman
B. Other Items
Upon motion by Patricia Nicoletti, seconded
by Kristin Ochtera, the following items numbered
1 – 13 were unanimously approved:
1. Approve the club advisor
assignments for the 2010-2011 school year as more fully set forth on the
attached schedule of Club/Advisor assignments and authorize the President of
the Board of Education to execute the charters.
2. Approve the following
resolution:
RESOLVED, that whereas the Board of Education believes it to be in the best
interest of the District and the school community to participate in the MSG
Varsity Network Outreach program and to enter into an agreement with MSG
Varsity for the production and broadcasting of high school activities and
achievements on the MSG Varsity Network, it hereby approves and authorizes the
annexed School Registration and Participation Agreement Form between the
District and MSG Varsity Network LLC, dated as of July 1, 2010, in connection
therewith; and be it further
RESOLVED that the Board hereby authorizes the President of the Board of
Education to execute said Agreement on behalf of the District.
3. Approve the contract with Shari Berman for choreography and consultation services for the period November 1, 2010, through February 7, 2011, and authorize the President of the Board of Education to execute the contract.
4.
Approve the contract with Christina Lalama for pianist
accompaniment services for the period December 1, 2010 through April 7, 2011,
and authorize the President of the Board of Education to execute the contract.
5.
Declare broken and/or obsolete for the purpose of disposal and/or recycling the equipment more
full set forth on Attachment “A”.
6.
Adopt the Special Education District Plan for the
period September 1, 2010, through August 31, 2012, and authorize the President
of the Board of Education to sign the Statement of Assurances on behalf of the
Board of Education.
7.
Approve the Special Education Services Contracts for Parentally-Placed Non-Public School
Students with the following public
school districts for special education services for the 2010-2011 school year
and authorize the President of the Board of Education to execute the contracts
on behalf of the Board of Education:
a. Lynbrook UFSD, one (1) student
b. Island Park UFSD, one (1) student
c. Malverne UFSD, one (1) student
8.
Approve the tuition agreement with Rockville Centre
UFSD for special education services for one (1) student for the 2010-2011
school year and authorize the President of the Board of Education to execute
the agreement on behalf of the Board of Education.
9.
Accept a donation from Covanta of a Five Hundred
($500.00) Dollar Borders gift card to the
10. Approve the employment agreement with
11. Approve
the employment agreement with
12. Approve
the employment agreement with
13. Approve
the application to State Environment Quality Review for the 2010-2011 Capital
Improvement Program, #28-02-19-03-0-001-030, East Rockaway UFSD, East Rockaway
High School, (a) hot water heater replacement, (b) exterior door replacement at
middle school; and
#28-02-19-03-0-002-007, East Rockaway UFSD Rhame Avenue Elementary
School, (a) exterior door replacement; and authorize the President of the Board
of Education to execute the applications and further authorize the District
Clerk to execute and submit the declaration that the projects fall under
Categories “A” or “B” for “No Additional Required Action” under 6NYCRR§617.5(a)
- Type II Actions Only as required by SEQRA regulations.
C. Budget Transfers
1. Upon motion by
Michaelene Abbott-Cooper, seconded by Patricia Nicoletti the following items a &
b were unanimously approved:
a. Transaction No. 11-0005
b. Transaction No. 11-0006
Upon motion by Neil Schloth, seconded by
Michaelene Abbott-Cooper, the following items D & E were unanimously
approved:
D. Approval of CSE
Recommendations
E. Approval of CPSE
Recommendations
8. Policy Matters for
Review
1. Policy No. 4.221
(NYSSBA 8505), Meal Charge Policy
9. Superintendent’s Report.
I would like to say
thank you to our Board of Education for all their time and efforts on behalf of
the children, the staff and the community.
As a Superintendent I am fortunate to work with a group of reasonable,
rational and intelligent people. Thank
you Linda, Neil, Michaelene, Patti and Kristin.
Here’s what’s happening
in our schools:
October is Fire Safety
month and there have been many activities throughout the district. At Rhame, classes used Smartboard technology
to discover where hazards are in a house and ways to help to make the house
safer. There were walking trips to the
Main Street Fire House for fire safety lessons for grades K-2, and each class
included fire safety precaution lessons relating to ELA and science.
At
Out of the classroom
learning includes: Children in grade 6 at
This week at the
At the end of the
2009-2010 school year,
Some novels being read
at Rhame this month include: Grade 5: Wednesday
Wars; Grade 4: Beaded Moccasins ; Grade 3: Matilda and
During the week of
November 22nd, all middle school math and science courses preparing
to take a state assessment this May will take a benchmark exam. These revised benchmarks reflect the new
NYSED changes in curriculum. They will
be used to identify student strengths and weaknesses.
This year’s pep rally will be on Friday night, 10/29, and
will include:
the first induction to the Hall of Retired
Numbers; a flower ceremony for senior parents of soccer, cross country, tennis
and volleyball; a dance for students immediately following the pep rally.
This year’s Homecoming will be on Saturday,
10/30, and will include a pre-game ceremony for senior parents
of band, cheerleaders, and football. Our opponent will be
Here’s some news from
our Fine Arts Department. Our 4th, 5th,
and 6th graders are creating logo designs to submit for the Village Foundation
of East Rockaway's logo design contest.
Tryouts for this year’s musical, “The Sound of Music”, will be held next
week. Good luck to all those who are
auditioning. The senior chorus will be
performing “
We have expanded our SEL
program to grades K-5. On September 30th
teachers were trained on the elementary program, which also uses a word bank
and has a parent connection. Emotional
Literacy leads to better relationships and increases attention to
learning. Also on September 30th,
Dr. Marc Brackett worked with the teachers in grades 6-8 to refresh their
skills on the program that has been in practice for the last three years.
At
As you may have heard,
NYS won the Federal Race to the Top contest.
Recent allocations to individual schools show that ER will receive
$16,000 from this grant. This was based
on Title 1 allocations. For this money
schools are required to either create or participate in a network team
consisting of three positions—curriculum, instruction and data. Here, our Director of Curriculum &
Technology has all three responsibilities and the rule is that there needs to
be three different people. We will need to partner with BOCES or another school
to have a team. We are concerned that it
will cost us more money than our allocation.
Some schools in
You may have heard that
the county wants to eliminate the county guarantee of paying back incorrectly
assessed property and shift that responsibility to the schools. We are concerned about that. We called the assessors’ office to find out
how much this would have cost ER in the past to get an idea of how much money
we are talking about. They told us they
do not have that data.
In other news, Tessa
Stefanello, a 2010 graduate, contacted her former English teacher, Ms. Sievers,
to let her know that in her ethics class at SUNY Old Westbury the students had
to read the memoir, A Long Way Gone
by Ishmael Beah and write a five page paper in response. The assignment was also used as a contest and
five freshmen, from 400, were selected with the best essays, Tessa being one of
them. The prize is to have dinner with
the author! She is very excited, as we
are for her! Ishmael Beah wrote a memoir
of his experiences as a child soldier in
The high school denim
for dollars monthly fundraiser collected $540 for Polycystic Kidney
Disease. Our It’s Academic team is
preparing for their 1st meet early in November. Key Club and the elementary school Student
Councils, in conjunction with Kiwanis, will once again be participating in the
Thanksgiving food drive. All food
collected will be donated to the Ronald McDonald House. Donations can be brought to any of the
district’s three schools or to the November BOE or H.S. PTA meeting.
Save the date for the
East Rockaway Coalition for Youth dinner dance.
It will be on Friday, November 5th from 7-11PM at Rocco’s
Catering on
Here are some responses
to questions raised at last month’s meeting:
The additional cost to the district, since the
MTA eliminated the direct bus routes for the parochial school students, is
$41,701.
The number of students
currently in ALPSS is 14. Seven are
full-time and 7 are part-time. This number will grow through the year and
especially for the second half. Last
year we started the program with a very small group and ended up with 29
students. All the seniors in the program
were able to graduate with their classmates.
There were some
questions last month about how our Regents results compare to the county. Not all school districts are in the data
warehouse for Regents results as they are for 3-8 testing. The range of participating high schools
varies from 21 to 31 schools. Schools
participate by Regents exam and if they do not want or need that level of data
about the exam they don’t participate.
Our data include students in our day school as well as ALPSS. Here is how we compare: We are above the average for the participants
in Earth Science, Algebra and Italian.
We are within two students passing to be at the average for Living
Environment, Physics and Spanish. We are
below the average for Global History and
Another question that
was raised last month was regarding college acceptances. During the year different colleges are
invited to speak to our students. I have
a list showing the colleges that were invited for the past two years. Also, our students participate in HOLLER,
where there are representatives from a variety of colleges. There is also the annual College Expo that
takes place at Hofstra and our students are encouraged to attend.
That concludes my report.
10. Privilege of the Floor
The
following topics were brought up for discussion by the community residents in
attendance:
·
Special
Education District Plan
·
MSG
Varsity Network and the benefit to the district
·
Bullying
·
Kindergarten
class size
·
Honors
Program
·
11. Board Member Comments
Patricia Nicoletti – Thanks to Josh Warner, Mr. Bishop and the HS staff for the
great presentation. It is very much appreciated. Thank you to all
the parents who took the time out of their busy schedules to come to the
meeting tonight. Your insight is essential in helping us make the right
decisions.
Michaelene Abbott-Cooper –
Thanks Josh for the Board Appreciation video. We do consider
everything that’s said and we act on it. Please come back next month.
Neil
Schloth –
Good Evening everyone and thanks for attending tonight. I wish to thank Mr.
Fortgang and the High School PTA for the
Board Appreciation night. Special thanks to Josh
Warner for the outstanding video
presentation. I would like to respond to those that brought
problems or complaints to the Board
tonight. Please know that research and discussions are
held based on your comments. The
proper person normally responds to an individual request
or complaint by the next Board meeting.
Kristin
Ochtera
– I can’t stress the importance of your comments and we do take them to heart.
We do as much as we can do. There are two things that drive me as a board
member: the importance of educating the whole child and the importance of safe
environments that produce confident learners. Understand that our hands are not
tied, solutions takes time, and we are working on what works best for all
children. Thank you for your comments and thank you for coming.
Linda
Schmidt
– Thank you for coming. Thank you for being involved and using your right to
voice your comments and concerns. We take them all seriously. Sometimes it is
difficult and challenging but it is all about the kids.
12. Upon motion by Michaelene Abbott-Cooper,
seconded by Neil Schloth, and unanimously approved, the meeting was adjourned
at 9:55 pm.
Respectfully
submitted,
Denise
Lobascio
District
Clerk