Three Harborfields High School students Jackson Ferrara (trombone, HS Instrumental Jazz), Peter Hoss (tenor saxophone, HS Instrumental Jazz) and Hartley Semmes (trumpet, HS Instrumental Jazz) are selected for SCMEA All-County Jazz ensembles. Photo courtesy HCSD
Three Harborfields High School students have been selected for SCMEA All-County Jazz ensembles: Jackson Ferrara (trombone, HS Instrumental Jazz), Peter Hoss (tenor saxophone, HS Instrumental Jazz) and Hartley Semmes (trumpet, HS Instrumental Jazz).
An extremely select band, the SCMEA All-County HS Instrumental Jazz group requires an audition for acceptance. Fewer than 20 students in grades 10-12 from across Suffolk are chosen to participate.
“These young musicians are extremely dedicated to their pursuit of excellence in this area,” Harborfields High School Jazz Band director Dan Bilawsky said. “Their selection is a well-deserved reward for their high-level commitment and hard work.”
Miller Avenue School second graders in Alice Steinbrecher’s class with local veterans Photo courtesy SWRCSD
Miller Avenue School hosted an inaugural Miller Avenue Veterans Day Parade on Nov. 8. Principal Claudia Smith extended the invitation to all community veterans and received dozens of responses. Veterans were welcomed to the school with coffee and refreshments before walking alongside their cherished Miller Avenue students through the hallways. Patriotic music played, and red, white and blue flags were waved by students throughout the hallways to welcome and thank the veterans for their service to the country.
“This was truly a memorable and historic experience for our students and staff,” Smith said. “It was wonderful to thank these American heroes in person.”
Mills Pond Elementary School’s first Veterans Parade is held on Nov. 9. Photo courtesy SCSD
Mills Pond Elementary School’s first Veterans Parade is held on Nov. 9. Photo courtesy SCSD
Mills Pond Elementary School Principal Ireen Westrack proudly told local veterans that, “We wanted to do something more personal this year.”
So, she, Mills Pond staff and students hosted their first Mills Pond Veterans Parade on Nov. 9.
Veterans related to students and staff were invited to the school in honor of Veterans Day.
The veterans walked down a red carpet with their relatives, were served a hot breakfast, received thank you certificates and participated in a parade in front of the school.
The 5th grade choir also performed some patriotic songs and local Girl Scouts proudly led the parade.
Smithtown High School’s Douglas Antaky finishes second overall in the New York State boys Class A cross-country championship. Photo courtesy SCSD
Smithtown High School West senior Douglas Antaky finished as the state runner-up in the boys Class A cross-country state championship on Saturday, Nov. 11.
Antaky, running for the Smithtown High School East/West team, finished second out of 107 runners in the 5K, with a time of 15.56.
Antaky is just the second Smithtown High School athlete ever to place runner-up in the event.
Three Village school board discusses cell phones, including Regents exams in course grades
Public domain photo
District parents should not expect more information about the surprise reassignment and investigation of Ward Melville High School’s principal, according to Three Village Superintendent of Schools Kevin Scanlon.
Due to federal and state privacy laws, district representatives can’t discuss personnel matters — and they won’t be able to even after the issue is resolved.
The board had an emergency meeting Wednesday, Nov. 8, after announcing the personnel change, with a public portion that lasted only a couple of minutes, time enough for the board to confirm the interim principal — Paul Gold, previously an assistant principal — and his compensation, as well as to vote to engage the services of Investigative Management Group.
District parent Qin Wu at the Nov. 15 board meeting spoke out in support of former principal William Bernhard and indicated parents were concerned for high school seniors.
“As a parent, I hope the investigation will be fair and transparent, and maybe even as soon as possible to resolve the issue and have everything come back to normal,” Wu said.
Scanlon told TBR News Media after the meeting that even though such transparency is not possible, Wu and other parents have nothing to worry about regarding their children’s education or the district’s reputation.
“I think the school is in good hands, and the acting administration is doing a wonderful job,” he said. “The educational system is still intact. Classes will remain, students will still go to college. No one’s going to be harmed that way,” adding, “If that is the fear that is being propagated, that’s wrong.”
Board president Susan Rosenzweig, a district parent herself, also spoke against percolating speculation and hearsay on social media. “Don’t buy in,” she advised. “Let due process take its place. It’s tough, I know.”
Regents exams as part of final grade
During the meeting, the board tabled any decision regarding the so-called “Do No Harm” rule, the policy of including Regents scores as part of a student’s final grade only if that score improves the grade.
The policy, which proponents say supports students who don’t test well, was instituted during the COVID-19 pandemic and temporarily extended last year after a group of parents petitioned the district.
Assistant Superintendent Brian Biscari shared the consensus recommendation that came after “tremendous discourse” by the district’s grading committee to include the exams at 10% — down from the 12% that has been the policy outside the reprieve of the last few years.
Biscari also took issue with the label “Do No Harm” since it implies acting in any other way will inflict harm on students, when part of the concern was that students may not take exams seriously if they don’t count toward final grades.
“It was a very student-centered conversation,” he said. “Never was the conversation about what the district is going to look like or how we’re going to present data. It was all in relation to students.”
But for freshman board member Karen Roughley, a long-time supporter of the policy, a 2% decrease is not enough. “There are many different ways to gauge a child’s understanding of the concepts than just sitting for one single test that means so much,” she said.
Biscari noted that some form of testing is required by the state, and removing any pressure from the Regents exam could backfire for students who need to take licensure exams or other higher-stakes tests in the future.
“We, as a district, would want to arm kids in how to address that anxiety and deal with it so they can effectively take tests, rather than eliminating that stress,” he said. “It’s almost an avoidance in some cases that we’re not teaching kids these skills that they are going to need in their lives.”
The board opted to wait on voting about the issue until it could hear forthcoming data from the state to see whether exam scores changed when students knew low scores would not be included in their final grade, and to learn more about how comparable Long Island districts are using Regents scores for classroom grades.
Cell phone policy
Scanlon also updated the board on the ongoing cell phone policy committee’s work, laying out the current thinking for parameters around student cell phone use in schools.
Currently the committee is ironing out how to best enforce the proposed new policy, though Scanlon emphasized that any consequences will be decided by building principals or the district, and will not be a one-size-fits-all consequence determined by a planning committee.
The board engaged the committee to look into changes after it became apparent that issues of use during instructional time, inconsistent enforcement across classes and cyberbullying were popping up at the secondary schools.
“It’s fully recognized by the teaching staff and the administration that cell phones are an issue, and then we heard loud and clear from the student representatives on the committee that yes, they agree, cell phones are an issue,” Scanlon said. “Everyone seemed to agree: We’ve got a problem.”
He said the final committee recommendations should be available for the Nov. 29 board meeting.
Heather Lynch, above, is the inaugural director of the Collaborative for the Earth at Stony Brook University. File photo courtesy Rolf Sjogren/National Geographic
Heather Lynch is hoping to take a few pages out of the Coke and Pepsi playbook, which is rarely, if ever, used in the fields where she works.
A penguin expert who has traveled more than 9,000 miles to Antarctica to monitor populations of these flightless water foul, Lynch, who is the IACS Endowed Chair of Ecology & Evolution, plans to use her new role as the inaugural director of the Collaborative for the Earth at Stony Brook University to accomplish several tasks, including shaping the way people think about environmental issues like climate change.
“Coke and Pepsi understand the importance of psychological research and persuasion,” Lynch said. “The environmental community has not used any of the tools to get at the hearts and minds” of the public.
Scientists have been trying to reach people in their heads when they also need to “reach them in their hearts,” she added.
Lynch hopes to figure out ways to bring in people who are experts in psychology and persuasion instead of adding another model of climate change consistent with so many others that have made similar predictions.
Lynch, whom a steering committee chose from among several qualified tenured faculty at SBU to take on this new role, will also help organize forums in which researchers and participants worldwide discuss pressing environmental issues.
In the forums, Lynch plans to encourage debate about challenging topics on which researchers disagree, such as the role of nuclear power in achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. She also hopes to address the concept and moral hazard of geoengineering.
In recent years, scientists have debated whether geoengineering, in which scientists use chemical means to cool the atmosphere, could exacerbate the problem or give people false hope that taking steps to reduce emissions or mitigate climate change may not be necessary.
Lynch also suggested other “third-rail topics” as population control may be fodder for future Stony Brook forums.
Scientists “don’t discuss controversial things,” said Lynch. “There tends to be an echo chamber in the scientific community. The forum will help us air these issues.”
To be sure, Lynch believes the issue of climate change and the urgency of the climate crisis is well established. The differences she hopes to discuss relate to various potential solutions.
“I’m hoping to focus on things where we disagree,” she said. “We need to get at the root of that.”
SBU Provost Carl Lejuez, to whom Lynch is reporting in this role. File photo
The right candidate
As a candidate, Lynch met numerous criteria for the search committee and for Provost Carl Lejuez, to whom Lynch is reporting in this role.
“Her research is and has been squarely placed to understand climate change and the climate crisis and how we try to move forward toward a healthier planet,” said Lejuez.
Lynch is also a “creative, entrepreneurial thinker” who has an “exciting vision for what the Collaborative can be,” Lejuez said. “She has a real strength in leadership and is very good at bringing people together.”
Lejuez has several goals for the Collaborative in its first year. He would like Lynch to start creating forums that can “live up to the potential of being a leader in creating that academic conference that brings rigor to real-world problems” and is connected to policy, industry and politics and that has clear deliverables.
Additionally, Lejuez would like the Collaborative to move toward an understanding of Stony Brook’s role in the future of climate science, climate justice and sustainability.
New podcasts
Lynch plans to dedicate considerable energy to this effort, cutting back on some of her teaching time. She plans to conduct podcasts with people on campus, speaking with them about their work, what keeps them up at night, what technologies excite them and a host of other topics.
She also hopes to bring in the “brightest lights” to big-stage events at Governors Island and on Long Island.
She is pondering the possibility of creating a competition akin to the entrepreneurial TV show “Shark Tank.” At Stony Brook University, faculty judges could evaluate ideas and advance some of them.
The Shark Tank could give students an opportunity to propose ways to create a greener Stony Brook campus.
As for the psychology and social science of environmental efforts, Lynch plans to work with the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science to explore ways to understand how people think about these issues.
The evidence and impact of climate change increases the urgency of this work and the potential contribution of the university to debating, addressing and proposing solutions.
Earlier this year, Hurricane Otis intensified within 12 hours from a tropical storm to a deadly Category 5 hurricane, slamming into Mexico.
The potential for future storms with intensification that occurs so rapidly that forecasts might not provide warnings with sufficient time to take emergency measures should ring alarm bells for area residents.
Hurricane Otis, whose intensification was the second-fastest recorded in modern times, “should scare everybody on Long Island,” said Lynch. “People think toddling along with business as usual is an option. That is not an option.”
School board hears statistics of drug and alcohol use — and perceptions
By Mallie Jane Kim
Three Village students generally report drug use at or below state norms, except for alcohol, according to results of a 2022 student survey by New York State’s Office of Addiction Services and Supports.
“Alcohol is the primary drug of choice above any other substance for adolescents in our district,” explained Alison Herrschaft, the district’s lead social worker and drug and alcohol counselor, as she presented the data at an Oct. 25 school board meeting. “It’s also the only category in our district where we exceeded the state level.”
Among the Class of 2022 seniors, 20% reported having at least one drink within the past 30 days, and about 18% reported binge drinking, or having five or more drinks at a time. That’s compared to 19% and 11% respectively, statewide.
Vaping was another area of concern, with 10% of seniors reporting having vaped within the past 30 days, compared to 13% across New York, and 12% reported using marijuana in any form, compared to 15% statewide.
Herrschaft also shared data related to student attitudes toward drug and alcohol use from the survey, which 1,750 seventh-through-12th-grade students completed 18 months ago, during physical education class. She warned that legalization and broader cultural acceptance of marijuana could lead to increased use among students.
“We’re always stressing to students that just because a substance is legal does not mean that it’s healthy for a developing brain,” she said.
There was no reported use of methamphetamines, heroin or cocaine within the district or statewide. But Herrschaft said that since the opioid epidemic is still affecting the 18-25 age group in New York state, “it’s critical that we ask these questions anyway, and continue to educate students on the risk of use.”
She added that this education includes making students aware that deadly fentanyl is cut into many illicit substances.
Erin Connolly, head of pupil personnel services, said the data collected was anonymous and should be helpful to the district in knowing where to focus future efforts of student and parent engagement. “The hope was that the results provided to us by the state would help to improve our community’s understanding of our students’ strengths and risk factors,” Connolly said.
Families are integral to efforts to combat substance abuse, according to the survey, as more than 70% of secondary students reported “family attachment” as a protective factor against drug use, and more than 60% reported “family rewards for prosocial involvement” as protective.
“Parent involvement is crucial to healthy decision-making,” Herrschaft said. “We know that in our district, parents are very involved in their students’ education and well-being.”
The district’s chair of secondary health and physical education, Christina Driscoll, shared current efforts in drug and alcohol abuse prevention, including a recent sixth-grade-wide presentation about the dangers of vaping at Ward Melville High School and a “sticker shock” campaign last spring, during which high school students submitted designs for anti-vaping or anti-underaged drinking stickers. Students applied stickers with the winning designs to products at Setauket Pastaria, Setauket Beer & Beverage and the 7-Eleven on Old Town Road, in conjunction with the business owners.
While the survey has historically been done every 10 years, the presenters indicated there are plans to conduct it again in spring 2024 for better comparative data.
Residents can watch the full survey presentation on the Three Village Central School District YouTube page, under live videos. The PowerPoint presentation with the highlighted statistics is available on the district’s BoardDocs website, linked within the agenda of the Oct. 25 meeting under OASAS.
Joseph Pierce, associate professor in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature and the inaugural director of Stony Brook University’s Native American and Indigenous Studies program. Photo courtesy Stony Brook University
Stony Brook University named Joseph Pierce, associate professor in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature, the inaugural director of a Native American and Indigenous Studies effort as the university plans to hire three new faculty in this nascent undertaking.
Next year, the southern flagship school of the State University of New York plans to add staff in the English Department, Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies and Anthropology.
“I have been eager for this to start,” said Pierce, a member of the Cherokee Nation who has been at the university for a decade. “We have so much to contribute to broader discussions that are happening around the world. The university is better by including Native American studies.”
Andrew Newman, professor and chair of the Department of English at SBU. Photo courtesy Stony Brook University
Andrew Newman, professor and current chair of the Department of English, who is also chair of a committee advising Axel Drees, interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, described Pierce as having a “real national profile,” adding that he was the “right person to be the founding director.”
Starting next fall, students at the university can minor in Native American and Indigenous Studies, where they can study the history, art, social and political interests, languages and cultures of Indigenous peoples.
The focus on Native American Studies will emphasize transdisciplinary topics such as environmental justice and sustainability.
Indigenous scholars should have a “seat at the table,” said Newman, “as they are globally one of the demographics most impacted by climate change.”
Islands in the Pacific are disappearing, Guam is undergoing “significant environmental degradation,” and fires in the Pacific Northwest and leaking pipelines in the United States and Canada are “disproportionately affecting Indigenous peoples,” Pierce added.
Indigenous groups relate to the land in a way that’s different from others, approaching it as stewards and caretakers, Pierce said.
“We see land as a relative,” he noted. “We’re asking very different questions about what it means to care for a place and to care for the environment and to care for the life that sustains it.”
The New York City government proposed plans for flood relief on the lower East Side of Manhattan in the event of future storms like Hurricane Sandy. The proposals included building massive walls and raising elevated platforms, including clearing thousands of trees.
Numerous indigenous groups objected and protested against such plans, Pierce said.
In an email, Carl Lejuez, Stony Brook University’s provost, suggested that a significant piece of Governors Island is climate justice, so the link between the Governors Island effort and indigenous peoples “fits naturally with the goals of the New York Climate Exchange.”
Axel Drees, interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at SBU. Photo courtesy Stony Brook University
Lejuez credited Drees as a “driver of this in collaboration with Professor Pierce.” Lejuez added that his office is “definitely providing support to see it come to fruition.”
The most crucial component in the start of this effort is hiring faculty.
“If we build the core faculty across the university, we can definitely consider expanding research and curriculum opportunities,” Lejuez wrote.
Student interest
Students from the Anthropology Department recently invited Pierce to give a talk about some of his current research.
“It was evident that a lot of them have an interest in working toward understanding humanity, what it means to be human,” he said. They also have an understanding of how anthropology as a discipline has sometimes historically “adopted rather unscientific and proto-eugenic methods” in describing and analyzing Indigenous Peoples.
Students are eager for an alternative perspective on the acquisition and acceptance of knowledge.
Pierce believes students have considerable interest in Native American Studies. His courses about Latin American indigenous populations are full.
“There are numerous students who are interested in Native American and Indigenous studies but don’t quite have a cohesive plan of study that’s available to them,” Pierce said. “This is remedying that disconnection.”
Long Island students grow up in numerous towns and communities with Native American names, such as Sachem, Wyandanch, Montauk and Setauket.
Newman added that the staff hopes the new effort can do some “outreach to local schools and provide professional development with kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers. It would be an important mission for the university to educate Long Island as a whole about Native culture.”
Hauppauge High School students host French exchange students, visiting Montauk Point Lighthouse during their stay on Long Island. Photos courtesy HSD
Several Hauppauge High School students in Christine Rigaud’s French class had the unique opportunity to participate in a once-in-a-lifetime exchange program. While a group of students from Angers, a city in the Loire Valley, France, visited Long Island, staying with Hauppauge students for 10 days, their Hauppauge counterparts will be going to Angers in November to stay with the French students and their families.
Arriving on Oct. 9, the French students met their American hosts at Hauppauge High School before going home with the local families for the first time. The following day, students were given a welcome breakfast and tour of the school where they followed their exchange partners, going from class to class and at after-school activities.
Throughout the week, the students were taught a lesson on Long Island geography and historical points before visiting Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, home to President Theodore Roosevelt, and Montauk Point Lighthouse.
The exchange students even experienced an American Homecoming football game Oct. 14. During their remaining days exploring Long Island, the exchange students spent time with their host families, doing local activities such as Topgolf, bowling and even trekking into Manhattan for a Broadway show.
Their trip culminated with a few days in Manhattan, visiting Times Square, Grand Central Station, the American Museum of Natural History, Chinatown, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, the 9/11 Memorial site, the Empire State Building and a tour of Columbia University.
On Nov. 4, Hauppauge High School students will visit the Lycée Mongazon school in Angers for the exchange. While there, they will attend classes, participate in a walking tour and scavenger hunt with their exchange partners and visit several castles and cultural sites. Then, they will head to Paris where they will visit the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Latin Quarter, Shakespeare and Company bookstore, Saint-Germain-des-Prés the Eiffel Tower, Les Champs-Elysées, L’Arc de Triomphe, travel the Seine River via boat cruise and more.
“When the students participate in an exchange program, the rewards are infinite,” Rigaud said. “Using the language in real-life situations, learning firsthand about the culture, traditions and food, speaking with the locals, visiting historic sights and learning about the history are just a few of the benefits.”
She added, “The students become more mature and self-confident as they navigate new situations. They learn to see things from a different perspective and become global citizens who are more understanding and accepting of cultural differences. Every time I travel with them, I get to see things through their eyes. It’s an amazing experience.”
The existing outdoor bleachers at Earl L. Vandermeulen High School. File photo by Lynn Hallarman
By Lynn Hallarman
The Port Jefferson School District Board of Education held a public work session on Tuesday, Oct. 24, to discuss re-bid proposals for replacement bleachers at the Earl L. Vandermeulen High School.
Concerns about the price of the bleachers voiced by some members of the public prompted the school board to call for additional bids with the hopes of receiving a “fiscally responsible plan to replace the bleachers,” board member Randi DeWitt said at the October 10 meeting.
The board also weighed the cost of pool repairs at the elementary school, discussed updates in the plans for the retaining wall project at the middle school and funding options for upgrading the HVAC system at the high school.
Present at the meeting to answer questions by the board were project leads — Facilities Director Robert Minarik, Deputy Superintendent Sean Leister and Architect John Grillo.
District voters approved $561,000 for replacement bleachers and $553,612 for pool repairs in May of 2022 as part of the 2022-23 budget.
The decades-old bleachers, while structurally sound, do not meet current safety codes or Americans with Disabilities Act requirements, according to Leister. However, initial bids for the bleacher project last spring estimated nearly double the cost, at $1 million for reduced seating of 650 from the current capacity of 750 seats.
This cost includes a new press box, a concrete base — the bleachers currently sit on bare ground — removal and disposal of the existing bleachers, press box removal and disposal, labor costs set by New York State and architect fees.
Board members reviewed six bids for the bleacher project at various price points and configurations. Proposal options included 450 seats versus 650 seats, and remodeling the existing press box versus installing a new one.
“We are using a new way to approach projects bids,” using a base price and add-ons if deemed affordable, Superintendent of Schools Jessica Schmettan said.
The board has the discretion to move funds between the bleacher replacement project and pool repairs as they are part of the same line item on the budget. To meet the price tag for several of the six bleacher bids would require shifting money away from the pool repairs, according to Schmettan.
“My reservation is taking away from something that is an instructional space, like the pool, and putting it toward something that is a noninstructional space, like the bleachers,” school board trustee Ryan Walker said.
He added, “The pool is part of the curriculum, and the bleachers are not.”
Other board members expressed discomfort with not addressing the safety concerns of current bleachers cited by the school’s insurance carrier (NYSIR).
Mr. Grillo proposed a plan that stays within budget while preserving the pool repairs. He suggested a 450-seat bleacher with room for expansion with an open-air press platform as a temporary solution, keeping the possibility of a new press box in the future.
The board made no final decisions.
The meeting ended with an announcement about launching a new way the public can track projects on the district’s website “to increase the transparency of the district’s capital projects,” Schmettan indicated.
The next board meeting will be held on Nov. 14 at the Elementary School.
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