Comsewogue 2020 Valedictorian Daniela Galvez-Cepeda and Salutatorian Gianna Alcala. Photos from CSD
Two young women lead the top of the class at Comsewogue High School. Valedictorian Daniela Galvez-Cepeda and salutatorian Gianna Alcala have near-identical grade point averages, but both have far different plans for their futures.
Galvez-Cepeda finished the year with a weighted GPA of 102.42. During school, she spent much of her time as student government co-president and French Honor Society president, a member of varsity track and field and Athlete Helping Athletes. In addition, she is a National Hispanic Recognition Scholar, Women in Science and Engineering team member at Stony Brook University and a National Merit Scholar Commended Student.
In her free time, she said she was a junior volunteer at Mather Hospital, where since 2017 she answered visitors’ questions at the front desk in both English and Spanish and provided them with comfort when needed. She also shadowed nurses on their rounds with patients.
She said her best memory of high school was her work setting up a donation drive the school organized in 2017 to help the people in Puerto Rico hurt by Hurricane Maria.
“I walked back and forth from the parking lot, unloading cars and trucks and bringing donations into our school’s auditorium,” she said. “My district neighbors were so generous that we filled up our whole auditorium with donations in only one day.”
In the fall, Galvez-Cepeda will be attending Williams College in Massachusetts where she will double major in math and physics on the pre-med track. She said her goal is to be a trauma surgeon, but she added she is excited to explore other options down the road.
Alcala is moving on to college with a 102.26 weighted GPA. She is a National Merit Scholarship Commended Scholar, Women in Science and Engineering at Stony Brook University, Art Honor Society president, Science Honor Society treasurer, as well as a member of the cross-country, Country Farms equestrian team and band.
She said her experiences with WISE and Art Honor Society were especially important to her high school career, though her favorite memory was traveling abroad with classmates to Spain, France and Italy.
Though she thanked her friends, family and teachers for inspiring her, she added that Galvez-Cepeda, her friend and competitor for the top academic spot, was also a huge inspiration.
“For the past seven years, Dani has been my most brilliant competitor and one of the most kind and generous people I’ve ever known,” Alcala said. “Without her impact on my life, I wouldn’t be half the person I am today.”
The salutatorian will be attending the University of Southern California, Viterbi School of Engineering to study environmental engineering. She said she wants to work toward a more sustainable world, especially in the textile industry.
Though the coronavirus cut off in-person learning prematurely for the 2020 senior class, the high school’s academic leaders said though they lacked physical contact with teachers and peers, the important thing is to persevere.
“High school is the foundation that is setting you up for the success that is to come in your life,” Galvez-Cepeda said. “So, enjoy your time with your friends while learning new things in a safe space together.”
East Setuket’s William Sun ended the school year on a high note.
Sun is Ward Melville High School’s valedictorian with a 105.01 weighted average. The valedictorian is planning on attending Brown University in Rhode Island to major in computer science.
Sun attended Nassakeag Elementary School and then W.S. Mount Elementary for the district’s intellectually gifted classes. Before Ward Mellville, he studied at P.J. Gelinas Middle School. While he has lived in the Three Village area all his life, his father, Yan Sun, a doctor, and his mother, Hong Tan, a nurse, are originally from China and moved here in the 1990s and now run a doctor’s office.
Sun said attending Three Village through the years he has been surrounded by brilliant peers.
“There are so many smart people in this community,” he said.
During his high school career, he has been a member of the Ward Melville High School Varsity Science Olympiad Team and was also the president of the school’s math team and computer science club. He qualified for the International Science and Engineering Fair and won a silver medal at the Long Island math research competition. The valedictorian played piano and violin in the school’s ensembles and was named an All-State pianist, qualified as an All-State alternative for violin and toured in Spain and eastern Europe in eighth- and 10th-grade, respectively, through the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra. In 2020, he was named a National Merit Scholarship winner.
Among his activities and achievements, being the director, creator and manager of Piano for Patients has been one of his favorites. He and other student-musicians would play piano in the Stony Brook University Hospital lobby and over time other musicians became involved performing with other instruments. He’s hoping before he attends college and hands over his responsibilities to a younger student that the group can do one more performance in the summer, since they haven’t been able to perform during the pandemic. Recently, he and his piano teacher Daniel Fogel have organized an online concert as an alternative way to do community service through playing piano.
In addition to Piano for Patients, he volunteered at the hospital helping out with whatever needed to be done to lighten the load for workers, whether it was moving things around, making beds or cleaning floors.
He said choosing computer science came about since he’s been involved in programming since sixth- and seventh-grade, and he also took courses at Stony Brook University where he was involved in programming as well as researching different ways to find data.
“In the future, computer science is going to have a large impact and so I want to be a part of that,” he said, adding he thinks about working at places such as Google in the future.
He said among the teachers in the Three Village school district who had an influence on him was former Gelinas teacher Gary Vorwald, who was both his earth science teacher and the head of Science Olympiad in the school. The valedictorian remembers how the teacher would stay late at school to help students.
“It was the first time that I saw passion for science, he really made me want to join the Science Olympiad,” he said.
As the school was shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, Sun said he kept himself busy with computer science projects and learning Mandarin.
As he leaves Ward Melville behind, he said he’s impressed with the younger students.
“This is really a tumultuous time but we’ve seen some amazing things, especially from the grades that are coming up,” he said. “People are really pushing for what they believe in. What I would say is fight for what you believe in, because with what’s going on now, people are really fighting for justice and such amazing things.”
This is an open letter to the members of the Port Jefferson board of education, Port Jefferson Teachers Association and Port Jefferson Administrators Association.
We hope this letter finds you well and healthy. On behalf of Port Jefferson PTA, PTSA and SEPTA we are reaching out to share our thoughts as the district prepares to re-open in the fall. First and foremost, we would like to thank each of you for your time and dedication to maintaining the excellence we enjoy at Port Jefferson School District. We also want to take this opportunity to express our support for the teachers and administrators as they have navigated distance learning during this unprecedented global pandemic. We feel it is important as the representative parent/teacher organizations in the district that we share with the board of education our, as well as many of our members, thoughts and concerns that have arisen regarding the education of our children under the constraints of this pandemic. We hope that by doing this we can come together to create solutions that will allow our district and children to shine as we face the monumental challenges of reopening and keeping everyone safe and healthy.
As you know, without a vaccine or a cure for COVID-19 there is a high likelihood that the next school year will be impacted by the pandemic as well. We are aware district administrators are currently planning for this new “normal” and are discussing the possibility of returning in the fall to a “hybrid” model that includes some component of distance learning. In the event this is the case and the district is forced to continue to employ some component of distance learning, we are urging the board of education to ensure that any model employed during the 2020-21 school year provides our students with consistent daily virtual interaction and live instruction. Our children need their teachers to teach them. We understand that some school districts on Long Island delivered “live” teaching district-wide and believe that going forward this would be the best way to maintain the excellence in education that Port Jefferson School District has always provided.
We understand that our teachers and administrators were faced with an enormous challenge to develop and provide a distance learning program on very little notice. We understand that it wouldn’t be as comparable to a regular school day. We have all done the best we could, given the circumstances. However, despite everyone’s efforts, the model employed by the district during the spring translated to an inconsistent educational standard/experience across the
district. Teachers were given the discretion to “host synchronous and/or asynchronous
instructional activities.” This primarily led to little live instruction and an uneven learning experience across the district. While some teachers offered live and/or pre-recorded instruction, many did not and instead only posted assignments to Google Classroom (or various other platforms) which then placed the burden of teaching those assignments on the parents. As parents, we of course want to educate our children, but we are not trained educators and many of us still have our own jobs to perform. Being forced to become a teacher and work at the same time becomes an impossible task.
This scenario creates an inadequate educational experience for our children putting our kids further behind on the competitive world stage. In addition to the decreased educational standard that has occurred as a result of this crisis it is also concerning that some teachers had weekly “check in’s” and worse still some had no virtual live interaction with their students during the entire length of the school closure. For the few teachers who provided live instruction we applaud their dedication, creativity and adaptability in continuing to deliver excellence in education during these unprecedented times. We are now calling for all of our teachers to provide education at this level of excellence during the next school year in the event the district is forced to employ some sort of hybrid model that includes distance learning.
For many parents, the current mindset is that 2019-20 was a lost school year. Were it a limited event affecting the end of a single school year we understand the crisis of the situation and can accept a lower standard that emergencies demand. However, the reality of the situation is that this pandemic will sadly go on for longer than any of us hoped and we cannot completely let go of the standards our children deserve. This pandemic has forced many changes upon us. All industries have had to adapt. As we weathered the initial crisis, we must now begin to prepare so that the 2020-21 school year is not a lost educational year as well. Given the great educators the district employs coupled with the advances in technology we believe that Port Jefferson School District can excel at this challenge. Let us be the district that leads and that other districts strive to emulate.
We urge the board of education, the Teachers’ Association and the Administrator’s Association to approach the 2020-21 school year as an opportunity for Port Jefferson to become recognized as the gold standard in distance learning to the extent the school is not able to return to a traditional school day. As parents, we believe that any distance learning plan should include, at a minimum:
• Live virtual and/or pre-recorded teaching that matches the amount of active, teaching time provided during a regular school day.
• Daily/weekly “office hours” for any teacher not utilizing “live teaching” so that students can ask questions regarding content.
• Daily check ins for all classes — “attendance” including lists of what is due, when it is due and a way for students to check off that they read and understand.
• Support services such as speech, OT, PT and counseling offered in the amounts specified in IEPs through online platforms and teletherapy.
• A clear schedule for students to follow with time built in for outdoor time for exercise and play.
• Weekly emotional/educational phone call check ins with each student (use teachers, TAs, support staff).
Rethinking the way education is delivered is obviously a monumental task. We are confident, however, that our administrators and educators, working together and in consultation with our parents can come up with a plan that continues to deliver an excellent level of education to our students. We here at PTA, PTSA and SEPTA are eager to support the district in any way we can and would love to be involved in the process going forward, sitting on any committees that are convened of stakeholders. To quote high school Principal Dr. Robert Neidig, “[w]e will get through this and we will persevere, after all we are Royals.”
Sincerely,
Port Jefferson PTA, Port Jefferson PTSA, Port Jefferson SEPTA
Elementary school Principal Tom Meehan is set to retire at the end of the year. Photo from PJSD
Tom Meehan, current Edna Louise Spear Elementary School principal whose education career spans over 40 years, has announced he will retire in December.
Meehan, who originally retired in 2006 from the Middle Country School District, came back to work at the Port Jeff elementary school during the 2011-2012 school year initially on an interim basis. Later that year it was changed to a permanent position.
“I thought I was going to be filling in for a couple of weeks, almost 10 years later I’m still here,” he said, jokingly. “I couldn’t have been happier with how these past few years have gone; it’s been great.”
The educator said deciding to retire again was a tough decision for him. He hopes students will be able to come back to the building during his last few months on the job.
“It broke my heart not being able to see the students these past months,” he said. “I like being in the hallways talking to them and just seeing their excitement.”
Meehan has a long history in Port Jefferson. He has raised his family in the village, he graduated from Port Jefferson High School and is an elected commissioner of the Port Jefferson Fire District.
“It’s a great community, I’m proud to be from Port Jeff,” he said. “I’ve gotten to know a lot of families in the district. I’ve coached some of their kids in baseball. It is nice seeing them grow up here,” he said.
The elementary school principal was often seen walking to school every morning, and said he enjoyed being spotted by students who saw him making the trek to work in his suit and hiking boots.
For his dedication to Port Jefferson’s students and the greater community, Meehan was chosen as a TBR News Media Person of the Year in 2015.
The district hasn’t officially announced a successor, though Meehan said he believes Assistant Principal Amy Laverty would be a great choice for the job.
“She would make an excellent principal,” he said.
Meehan said he will miss the students and his staff he has gotten to know over the years. In retirement, he is looking forward to going on more hikes and spending more time with his grandchildren and family.
“I want to thank the district and community for the opportunity to do this job. It is hard to walk away,” he said.
2020 Valedictorian Christine Iasso and Salutatorian Kyle Onghai. Photos from PJSD
Earl L. Vandermeulen High School is proud to announce that seniors Christine Iasso and Kyle Onghai have been named valedictorian and salutatorian, respectively, of the Class of 2020.
Iasso’s well-rounded education and extracurricular activities include being a member of the Academic team, Environmental Club, Interact Club, Mathletes team, captain of the junior varsity basketball team and a junior counselor at vacation Bible school. She also took advantage of the impressive MIT LaunchX, a program that teaches entrepreneurial skills and mindset through starting real companies, with interactive lectures, business simulations, entrepreneur panels and the actual design and launch of a company.
The valedictorian will major in sustainable agriculture and food systems at the University of California, Davis.
Onghai’s interests in math, investing, entrepreneurship, research and scientific journals have paved the way to being a National Advanced Placement Scholar, a National Honor Society member, a recipient of a Regents scholarship, captain of the Mathletes team and president of the Latin Club, where he has received five gold medals in the National Latin Exam. He has been honored in advanced calculus on the county level and has been an award winner in the school’s Physics Bowl, Quiz Bowl, Robotics and Science Olympiad. Onghai received the President’s Volunteer Service Award for his church altar service and for working in the patient education department at Stony Brook University Hospital. He took part in the Simons Summer Research Program at Stony Brook University as a researcher in biomedical engineering using MATLAB and quantitative ultrasound. He has been on the varsity tennis team for all four years of high school along with other local athletic pursuits. His musical accomplishments as a cellist and pianist have led him to the Young Artist Program at Stony Brook University and as a participant in Levels 1-6 of the New York State School Music Association Festival. Onghai will attend UCLA and major in mathematics.
Ward Melville’s salutatorian capped off the school year with a 104.85 weighted grade point average.
With the school year behind him, Matthew Fiorella is ready to head to the University of California, Los Angeles and major in engineering. He said when it came to choosing colleges it was down to the California school and the University of Michigan. He decided he would have better intern and job opportunities through UCLA. Plus, he said he liked California after visiting there a couple of times.
Originally living in Arizona and Ohio when he was younger, Fiorella moved to the Three Village Central School District for second grade. He started at Setauket Elementary School and then entered the Intellectually Gifted Program at Mount Elementary School in fourth grade. He continued his studies at P.J. Gelinas Junior High School.
During his high school career, Fiorella has kept busy both in and outside of school. He was the president of the Junior Model UN, a member of the National and Spanish honor societies and was named a National Merit Finalist. The salutatorian was also a member of the school’s band. He played first alto saxophone and was president of the wind ensemble. He also completed an internship at the biotechnology startup Vascular Simulations Inc.
As far as sports, he worked as a coach for the Three Village Youth Basketball organization and took part in the Sports Arena Basketball team.
He said balancing extracurriculars with schoolwork can be challenging.
“It’s trying not to waste time and not to procrastinate, which is difficult because it’s something that I think is natural to a lot of people,” he said. “I think being involved in a lot of things and moving around a lot helps me stay disciplined.”
Fiorella has been inspired by his father, Dr. David Fiorella, who works at Stony Brook University Hospital, and his mother, Andrea Fiorella, a former physical therapist. Besides his parents, Fiorella said his cousin David Lawrence has been an influence in his life.
Lawrence is an electrical engineer, which Fiorella found interesting because there are creative elements to that field, and he had the opportunity to tour his cousin’s workplace when he was younger.
“It was always very interesting to me, and it was really cool to see the more imaginative side of engineering, and it’s kind of what got me interested in it,” he said.
However, with a recent curiosity in history and politics during high school, he said he may even consider studying law in graduate school one day.
“I like engineering, but I don’t feel like I have had the chance to really validate that interest because most of the courses you take in school don’t reflect engineering until you get into college,” he said.
With senior year behind him, and a possible in-person graduation in July, the salutatorian said he and others never imagined the possibility that they might not have a prom or graduation.
“It’s hard because you really don’t know what you’re missing because you haven’t experienced it or something else like it,” he said. “I feel like it’s a very singular experience.”
For those students he leaves behind at Ward Melville High School, he said his advice would be not to stress so much about the day-to-day things and focus more on enjoying everything.
“This year has really shown there’s so much you really can’t plan for,” he said. “Even just in the way college decisions come out, you really realize that things aren’t the way you expected them to be. You just kind of have to accept it.”
Northport Middle School has been deemed safe to reopen. Photo from Northport-East Northport Union Free School District
Following the release of Bohemia-based P.W Grosser Consulting’s environmental report on Northport Middle School that deemed the building safe to reopen, district officials addressed questions from parents and community members at a virtual forum June 25.
District officials hope that the over-three-hour meeting, which had a lengthy question-and-answer portion, is the first step in reassuring the community as remediation work continues to take place at the middle school.
PWGC senior project manager, Jennifer Lewis, said that the district should prepare a management plan to deal with the arsenic found in soils within the track field. The firm recommended that the district should do routine maintenance of the HVAC system, conduct sanitization of roof drains and have a roofing contractor inspect the roof drains to determine if they are properly sealed.
In addition, the firm asked for the district to seal the sanitary system and remove gas tanks from the school. The district has already begun some of the remediation work including moving school buses off campus to another location on Brightside Avenue.
“‘Safe to occupy’ is our collective opinion based on our investigation of the site,” Lewis said. “We did not identify a concern with a path of exposure that would render the building unsafe for students or staff to occupy. As long as the ongoing maintenance and remediations mentioned continue, we do consider this matter to be resolved.”
Trustee members praised PWGC for its work.
“There were a lot of dots that needed to be connected in terms of previous studies, to have a clear narrative of examples of the environmental conditions at the school,” said trustee Larry Licopoli.
“This study addressed the whole picture in a way that wasn’t done before,” he said.
Parents and community members asked PWGC if the problems found at the school could have caused previous ailments children and staff faced over the years.
The environmental firm couldn’t give a definitive answer.
“We can’t say in the past this wasn’t making them sick — we can’t recreate the past,” said PWGC project manager Heather Moran-Botta.
Moran-Botta reiterated that the firm is confident that the school is safe.
“We can only say, based on what we are seeing now, the building is safe for occupancy,” she said.
Trustee members will vote to approve all recommendations at a July 9 board meeting.
This spring, voting on the school budget and school board faced the notable challenge of taking place during a pandemic, but other than record levels of voter participation, the final results were anything but unprecedented.
Inger Germano. Photo from Germano
With the absentee ballots counted, Three Village residents voted overwhelmingly in favor — 6,096 for and 3,135 against — to approve the $218.84 million budget for the 2020-21 school year.
Residents also chose to return incumbents Inger Germano (4,727 votes), Irene Gische (4,506) and Dr. Jeffrey Kerman (4,479) to the school board, over challengers Shaorui Li (3,722), David McKinnon (3,799) and Vinny Menten (2,810).
During a phone interview this week, Superintendent Cheryl Pedisich expressed gratitude to the community for its support and confidence in the budget. But not everyone was satisfied with the election process.
Three Village parent David Tracy expressed his dissatisfaction in a letter that was read during the board’s June 24 meeting. He was “extremely disappointed,” Tracy said, with the teachers union’s ability to “enforce their will on a board of education election.”
The Three Village Teachers Association and New York State Union of Teachers endorsed Germano, Gische and Kerman and paid for the candidates’ campaign signs.
“Having independent candidates is absolutely paramount in ensuring the best interest of all parties involved, mainly the students and the taxpayers,” he said.
Tracy compared the unions’ public and financial support of candidates to “Congress or other political bodies voting for their own raises.” In his letter, he also spoke of what he said is a trend of budget increases despite declining enrollment and voiced his concerns about nepotism, favoritism and conflicts of interest.
While Barbara Rosati, president of the Three Village Parents Alliance, congratulated the newly reelected board members, she too questioned the election process, asking how independent, community-backed candidates could compete against the efforts of the TVTA and NYSUT.
Rosati is married to McKinnon, one of this year’s independent candidates. She said that with the union president having “regular access” toadministrators and board members “in private settings,” that such access can sometimes mean that the board as a whole is bypassed in some decisions — something she believed happened with the launch of this spring’s remote learning.
Irene Gische. Photo from candidate
“I love and support our teachers, and they deserve to have a strong union, but I am concerned about our district’s governance in the current situation,” Rosati added.
Board members and administrators did not respond to Rosati’s request for “comments, insight and solutions” during the meeting.
However, board president Bill Connors did address the issue in a phone interview.
“We represent the community on the board of education, and we work with the teachers union because we have an awful lot in common,” he said. “We are working in the interest of the children, and I see them as a real partner.”
Though Connors sees the goals of the board and the union as aligned, he said there have been times when the two have not agreed. In 1997, for instance, the district narrowly avoided a strike over a provision in the teachers’ contract requiring them to contribute to their health insurance. The issue was resolved in time for the new school year.
Connors, who announced at the June 24 meeting that he is stepping down as board president, also clarified a statement Rosati made about the union president being on the district payroll. Her salary, Connors said, is reimbursed by the TVTA.
Pedisich declined to comment on the parent letters, but said she appreciates the community feedback.
Remote Learning and School Reopening Task Force
During the board’s June 29 meeting, the discussion centered on remote instruction and the reopening of schools in September.
Rosati was critical of the district’s handling of remote learning during the pandemic, calling it “chaotic.” She made comparisons to what she saw as more successful implementations of synchronous instruction in the nearby Half Hollow Hills District and the free summer bridge program offered by Smithtown to students in grades kindergarten through eighth.She also posed questions about how the district will move forward with instruction and reopening in the fall.
“We recognize that there were aspects of our program that did not go as smoothly as we had wanted, or may not have been as effective,” Pedisich said of the implementation of distance learning in March, during the meeting.
She added that the district has more insight now.
“We are looking at what worked well and what did not work well,” she said.
Jeff Kerman. Photo from candidate
The district is preparing a survey that will go out to parents and staff in the coming days, Pedisich said. Though officials have received many comments from parents, she said they are difficult to quantify. A survey “can grab information we need and synthesize it quickly,” she added.
The superintendent also said that the district is waiting for guidance from the state, but that its school reopening task force is considering three models — one in which everyone returns, a hybrid model of some in-person classes and some remote, or an entirely remote model.
The district is also preparing for the possibility that the year could begin in-person but revert to entirely remote instruction as it did in March. For this reason, she said, the district will provide kindergarten through sixth grade students with Chromebooks that they will be able to use at home.
The reopening task force is made up of subcommittees for transportation, instruction, scheduling, childcare, athletics, mental health, health needs, facility needs and professional development and technology. Task force members include staff, administrators, parents and board members. Pedisich said parents were selected by the PTA council, while staff and administrators were chosen by their union leadership.
The instructional subcommittee, which has been further divided into elementary and secondary subgroups, is looking at guidelines for minimum standards of instruction and synchronous learning across the district. Pedisich said that the elementary level and secondary levels will probably look different. She foresees more structure for the more independent secondary students and more flexibility for younger children who might need assistance from parents.
She said that teachers are continuing to train over the summer to use Google Meets and Hangouts — conferencing software similar to Zoom — that are part of the Google platform the district already uses.
“We as educators feel that it’s so critical for us to be back in September,” Pedisich said, adding that teachers who will be working with new groups of students need to be able to assess their students’ learning styles and needs.
“That’s why we’re looking at following all of the recommendations from the CDC and the DOH, so that we can come back at least for a period of time so that we can get to know our students,” she said.
In other news, the board approved the contracts for the superintendent and the assistant superintendents.
From left, National Grid’s Belinda Pagdanganan who is also a Suffolk County Community College Trustee and a member of the Board of Directors of the Suffolk Community College Foundation; Sylvia Diaz, Sylvia A. Diaz, PhD, LMSW, the Foundation’s executive director and Keith Rooney, National Grid’s Director of Customer and Community Management for Downstate, New York. Photo from SCCC
National Grid has made a generous $10,000 gift to Suffolk County Community College’s COVID-19 Emergency Fund. The fund provides critical financial assistance to students at Suffolk County Community College whose lives have been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and has supported more than 550 students to date.
“National Grid came to the aid of our students when it was most needed” said Suffolk County Community College Interim President Louis Petrizzo. “On behalf of our students, and all of us at Suffolk, we extend our sincere and heartfelt thanks.”
Elwood Superintendent Ken Bossert. File photo by Elana Glowatz
Earlier on in the still-ongoing pandemic, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) spoke of his intentions to remake the lagging parts of society. In early May, the governor announced a new committee to “reimagine” education in New York state. He tapped the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to serve as just one of several “experts and stakeholders” for the initiative and named numerous people throughout the state to serve on the committee.
But since that was announced May 8, little has been heard from the committee. Among its 19 members, two are from Long Island, including Martin Palermo, a chemistry teacher at William Floyd High School who was designated a Master Teacher by New York State in 2016, and Jackie Duodu-Burbridge, of Copiague, who was described as a parent in a state release, but also ran unsuccessfully on the Working Families Party ticket for the Suffolk County 15th District seat vacated by former Presiding Officer DuWayne Gregory (D-Amityville).
Palermo, who is currently working on a doctorate of chemical education at Stony Brook University, was unable to respond to requests for comment by press time about what kinds of discussions were going on in the committee. Duodu-Burbridge could not be reached for comment.
How involved is the Gates foundation? It’s hard to tell, but the organization did tell the Washington Post in a statement it is recommending experts and contributing its own insights into how technology can enhance learning.
For some school district officials, these calls instead brought forth shivers of memories from a little less than a decade ago, with the advent of standardized testing and Common Core where teachers’ evaluations depended on how well their students scored. The Gates foundation played a major part in crafting that initiative.
Some district officials worried it would be an attempt to make distance learning more standard going forward, even when the pandemic has died down. Cuomo since clarified the position that distance or online learning could “never replace in-person learning with a teacher,” yet school officials have remained skeptical for a number of reasons, with many still feeling the governor is emphasizing replacing in-person learning.
Ken Bossert, the superintendent of the Elwood school district, a former head of the Port Jefferson School District and past president of the Suffolk County School Superintendents Association, said he did not believe there is any need to reimagine education.
“A lot of educators heard that and winced a little bit because there is this false perception that what we were doing pre-pandemic wasn’t in the best interest of students,” he said. “I don’t think school districts need to be reimagined, I think they need to be revised — I think there is always room for improvement.”
Comsewogue school district has a long history of actively decrying Common Core and New York State’s attempts at standardized testing. Former Superintendent Joe Rella, who passed earlier this year, was a major opponent of the 2012 implementation of Common Core, writing a letter to New York State against its implementation in 2013. He was at the forefront of a rally hosted later that year which gathered support from thousands of residents.
The district later implemented problem-based learning initiatives as a response to those earlier state standardizations, and has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Elementary and Secondary Schools.
Comsewogue Superintendent Jennifer Quinn said the district is still waiting to see what comes out of the committee, especially since there has been little news since it was created.
“Each district has different populations, I don’t know if it will be one size fits all,” Quinn said. “I would like to see support for helping us with lower class sizes. All these social-distancing technologies, it’s very expensive. If we were going to come back to school, it’s very difficult to keep young kids apart.”
She added that the focus the committee has on online, technology-based learning and shared classrooms over the internet presents itself a huge, new problem. The pandemic has only exacerbated inequalities among some communities and districts on Long Island. Some districts have access to computers or Chromebook laptops they simply hand out to students. Others don’t have anything like that. Not to mention there is a wide disparity between households that have multiple devices that can access the internet and those that have few or none.
School districts are already internally trying to find ways to promote more technology in and out of the classroom, especially since the question of how schools will come back in the fall is still to be decided. Mount Sinai school board president, Robert Sweeney, has been on the board for the past nine years. He said the district has in the past dealt with issues over Common Core with creating its own agencies, books and instructions in-house when the state wasn’t offering much in the way of aid for teachers on the new material.
The district will be using a successful allocation under the Smart Schools Bond Act to bolster their internal networks, potentially increasing the school’s online options.
“How much technology can we get into the hands of our students, what can we do with classroom-based technology, what can we do with technology to our students at home?” Sweeney said. “Let’s take it out of these difficult times and put it into the new normal.”
Bossert was recently named to the New York State Education Department’s Regional Reopening Schools Task Force. He said a subcommittee of that group is specifically looking at tackling that lack of access to technology.
But in the end, he said such a reimagining committee should not be handled by the governor’s office.
“The governor should empower the state Education Department to work with the 700 school districts of the state,” Bossert said. “I’m not sure it should be a function of the governor’s office.”
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