Rocky Point 2020 Valedictorian Hope Lantz-Gefroh and Salutatorian Molly Lambert. Photos from RPUFSD
Rocky Point High School is proud to announce that seniors Hope Lantz-Gefroh and Molly Lambert have been named valedictorian and salutatorian, respectively, of the Class of 2020.
Lantz-Gefroh’s diversified high school career includes president of the National Math Honor Society, member of the National Honor Society, a member of Compassion Without Borders, a math and science tutor, a regional team dancer and dance teacher, and is employed at a formal wear boutique in Mount Sinai.
The valedictorian will join the freshman class at Texas Christian University where she will be on the pre-med educational track.
Lambert’s list of achievements is comprehensive and includes being a member of the National Honor Society, the New York State Mathematics Honor Society, the National English Honor Society and the Thespian Society. She was selected to represent the Rocky Point school district at the New York State School Music Association’s All-County and All-State conferences as a senior, took part in the high school’s Pocket Theater Productions for three years and has been a leading character in numerous high school musical productions. She also took on the responsibility of assistant director on the school’s most recent show “Fiddler on the Roof.”
The salutatorian intends to major in biology and minor in English at Colgate University in the fall.
“In addition to being at the top of their class, these two exceptional students are both well-rounded in their academics and interests,” Principal Jonathan Hart said. “Their ambitions and defined goals will lead them to greater achievements and we all look forward to hearing about their successes in the future.”
Kings Park High School graduating seniors Celina Ma and Taryn O’Connor have earned the title of valedictorian and salutatorian, respectively.
Celina Ma
With the coronavirus, Ma and O’Connor have had to make the best of celebrating the conclusion of their senior year of high school in the face of a pandemic. Ma says that she has found positivity through the darkness.
“Losing my senior year to the COVID-19 pandemic was heartbreaking and disappointing, to say the least,” she said. “But through adversity, comes growth. While we have all experienced a great loss, I think the Class of 2020 has also gained a new resilience and strength that will serve us well for the rest of our lives.”
O’Connor added that while the restrictions have been disappointing, she has hope for
the future.
“I was definitely disappointed over losing the end of my senior year due to COVID-19, she said. “I found it difficult to transition to online classes, as I find that I work best in a classroom environment. I was also looking forward to all the events for the seniors that happen in the final months, whether it be prom or the Senior Countdown on the field. However, I’m happy that the school is trying to arrange an in-person graduation ceremony, and I’m hopeful that restrictions will eventually loosen so that the class can get to graduate together.”
Ma earned a final grade point average of 108.42 and will attend Duke University in the fall to study in their pre-med program. Well on her way to a career in medicine, Ma has conducted biochemical research at Peter Tonge’s laboratory at Stony Brook University on the “development of novel, boron-based bivalent inhibitors against Staphylococcus aureus” over the past few summers.
“It really opened my eyes to what the science research field was like, and I learned so much during those 10 weeks,” she said. “It was also super fun being able to get hands-on doing different chemical reactions and laboratory procedures.”
She has won multiple awards for her research. Ma is also a National AP Scholar and a National Merit Scholar. She is the captain of the varsity tennis team and is a co-president of Independent Science Research, Model UN and Science Olympiad, as well as the vice president of Mock Trial. She volunteered as the entertainment chair of the Kings Park Relay for Life and at her local food pantry. A dedicated piano player, she was an all-state qualifier, playing as both a soloist and an accompanist.
Despite all of these accomplishments, Ma said her favorite high school memory has simply been relaxing with her friends during junior prom. “[It] was a rollercoaster of a day,” she said. “I had two AP exams back to back, going from 7:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. I was super stressed after I finished because I was already late to prom pictures and still had to get ready, but I think the anxiety of the day ended up making the fun of the night all the more memorable. I made a fashionably late entrance to prom pictures and had a blast dancing with my friends all night.”
In line with her favorite memory, she advises next year’s seniors to “make the most of every moment. After the stress of applying to college is over, enjoy your final days of being a high schooler, and don’t forget to thank all the teachers/faculty you’re leaving behind.”
Ma credits those around her for helping her achieve her success.
“There are so many people who have helped me get to where I am today,” she said. “I’d like to thank my family first and foremost, my friends, my teachers and administration for their endless support. I couldn’t have done it without them.”
Taryn O’Connor
O’Connor finished high school with a final GPA of 106.59 and will attend Harvard University in the fall where she is set to study applied mathematics.
A daughter of Irish immigrants, her family settled in Kings Park a few years before she was born. O’Connor said she loved growing up in Kings Park’s tight-knit community. “Throughout my time in Kings Park, I have spent a lot of time with friends, and have made many memories along the way, whether it be from walking on the beach or getting a slice of pizza,” she said. “In school, I made invaluable connections with my teachers that I will never forget.”
The salutatorian cited the school’s annual Relay for Life event as her favorite high school memory.
“Each year, it was a fun-filled day with friends, whether it be at my team’s tent, on the field, or walking around the track,” she said. “Plus, the event sheds light on the importance of supporting the fight against cancer, and I believe that it is a great way to get the community together.”
O’Connor was also the captain of the Math Team and Trivia Team, the co-president of Model UN and Independent Science Research, the vice president of Science Olympiad, the treasurer of the Mock Trial team and a member of the Relay for Life committee. She was a member of the National Honor Society, National Spanish Honor Society and ran in the cross country, winter track and spring track teams.
When asked to give advice for next year’s seniors, O’Connor stressed the importance of setting goals and sticking to them. She added her teachers and parents have helped her to do so in her own life.
“Their guidance ultimately helped me to achieve the goals that I set for myself,”
she said.
The Eagle banner at Hauppauge High School. Photo by Rita J. Egan
By Leah Chiappino
Hauppauge High School has named Caroline Fortmeyer and Devin Capece as its valedictorian and salutatorian, respectively.
Caroline Fortmeyer
The graduates have had to finish their senior year and celebrate their achievements in the midst of a pandemic. Yet, Fortmeyer said that the situation has taught her resilience and perspective.
“Although it was very unfortunate to have my prom canceled and graduation delayed, this entire experience has transformed my life in ways that are far more important than these events,” she said. “The COVID-19 pandemic has yielded lessons of resiliency, innovation and gratitude for our entire society.”
Capece added that he chose to look at the positive aspect of having online classes, such as the fact his family grew closer together.
“We can’t change the fact that COVID-19 has forced us to distance ourselves from others and that all of the senior moments that we had been looking forward to were suddenly stripped away, but we can control whether we allow it to destroy our spirit,” he said. “I am hopeful that this crisis will display the resilience of our generation and teach us to find value and hope in a dire situation. … I am grateful that this period has provided all of us with the time to reflect upon what is truly important.”
Fortmeyer earned a final grade point average of 102.61. She is headed to Northeastern University in the fall where she will major in business. The valedictorian said that she is uncertain about what her specific career path will look like, but that she hopes to work with people in a math-oriented field. At Hauppauge, she was National Honor Society class president and was a member of the Mock Trial club and the chamber choir. The choir took her to competitions in New Jersey, Virginia and Florida and allowed her to perform at various community events. She said the choir’s trip to Disney last year as her favorite high school memory.
“It was truly an unforgettable experience,” she said.
Having lived in Hauppauge her entire life, she said the community is one of the things she will miss the most when she goes away to college.
“I am grateful to have grown up in such a supportive community,” she said. “In fact, some of my earliest memories involve attending school events with my brothers. It always amazes me how our community is so united especially during the most difficult of times, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic.”
Fortmeyer credited both the support of her family and the education she received as factors leading to her success.
“I cannot express sufficient gratitude to my parents for their tireless support and advice, which has been invaluable to me,” she said. “I thank them for their patience, love and for teaching me the most important life lessons. I would also like to thank all of my teachers, for their commitment and dedication has been so impactful. Since the day I began kindergarten, I have felt welcomed and supported by every teacher that has entered my life. I am beyond grateful to have learned from such knowledgeable teachers and people of admirable character.”
Devin Capece
Capece finished his senior year with a 102.18 GPA. He is set to attend Purdue University to study chemical engineering. He is unsure what he would like to do as a career but is certain that he wants to use his education to help solve societal problems he is passionate about.
The salutatorian was involved in a number of honor societies, was a varsity tennis player and played the saxophone with the advanced jazz band. He was president of the ethics and debate club, secretary of the robotics team, and competed in the Model United Nations competition. He also volunteered with Vincentian Leadership Institute to go on various community service trips throughout New York City and was a Eucharistic minister and outreach volunteer at Christ the King Parish. Capece also worked with Long Island Cares to organize food drives.
Capece said his favorite high school memory was hanging out with friends and ordering pizzas late at night at the hotel during the trip to the Festivals of Music in Virginia Beach he took his sophomore year.
One of four boys, Capece credits his close-knit family for his success.
”Both my parents are the most giving people in the world, and represent love at its core,” he said. “Of course, no family is perfect, but it’s the imperfections that make it perfect. My parents have always taught us positive values, most notably selflessness and doing good for others, but have also made us aware that nothing good ever happens without hard work.”
Specifically, he thanked his mother for helping him navigate the college search. She “helped me to figure out which schools were best to apply to, and she became a database of college information,” he said. “I am truly thankful that she has put so much effort into my life, and that she enjoys doing so.”
Capece also thanked the high school band director, Andrew Monsen, and credits him for making his experience in the music department so enjoyable.
SWR 2020 Valedictorian Jacqueline Holden and Salutatorian Stephanie Searing. Photos from SWRCSD
Shoreham-Wading River High School announced the top scoring seniors of the Class of 2020 with Jacqueline Holden and Stephanie Searing having been named valedictorian and salutatorian, respectively.
These two well-rounded students both have impressive achievements and interests and have taken advantage of many of the district’s courses and extracurricular activities.
Valedictorian Holden’s achievements include involvement with the Drama Club and Tri-M Music Honor Society, where she serves each club as treasurer; leadership roles as secretary for both Women in Science and Engineering and Students Against Destructive Decisions and varsity captain of Brainstormers. Outside of a busy high school career, she is a leader in St. Mark’s Teen Choir and a Girl Scout.
Holden will study molecular biology at the University of Pittsburgh in the fall. She, along with other valedictorians, were saluted by the Suffolk County School Superintendents Association this year in what would have been their 26th annual valedictorians luncheon, which was canceled due to the pandemic. Instead Superintendent Gerard Poole presented Holden with a commemorative program, congratulatory video, a certificate of achievement and a cherished childhood storybook, “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” by Dr. Seuss.
Salutatorian Searing served as vice president of the National Honor Society’s Peer Tutoring, is treasurer of Tri-Music Honor Society, represented her peers as the ex-officio student member of the Shoreham-Wading River board of education, is a member of Mathletes, the varsity track team and the varsity tennis team. Searing is principal violist of the Children’s Orchestral Society and participated in the Plum Island Animal Disease Center High School STEM Forum, a unique opportunity where she presented her findings on the organ shortage in America to scientists from Plum Island, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, University of Connecticut, Suffolk County Community College and Mystic Aquarium among others.
Searing will attend Stevens Institute of Technology where she will major in biomedical engineering.
“These two students represent the exceptional programming offered at our high school,” Principal Frank Pugliese said. “Their leadership skills and well-rounded academic, athletic, extracurricular and community involvement exemplify the goals of the Shoreham-Wading River School District – providing all students the skills required to become lifelong learners in a self-sufficient manner. We look forward to hearing more about their accomplishments in the future.”
With a 104.46 weighted grade point average, Kimberly Liao shares the honor of Commack High School academic leader with Louis Viglietta.
Liao will be attending Massachusetts Institute of Technology later this year with a combined biology and chemistry major.Her father,Xiangmin Liao, is a chemist, so she said going into that field was always in the back of her mind. Her mother, Xia Zhou, works in the public health sector.
Through the student’s years in the Commack School District, she has been involved in the Regeneron Science Talent Search and was named one of its top 300 scholars for 2020. She also has been class president from her sophomore year through senior year and was a member of the
tennis team.
In 2015, while in eighth grade, she won the Suffolk County girls tennis title and became an all-state qualifier, and repeated the feat a year later.
She said sometimes balancing schoolwork with other activities can be stressful.
“But, I think that all-around prioritizing and knowing when to take a break and when to step back and what needs to be done in that moment of time helps,” she said.
While she was born in Kansas and lived in Minnesota when she was younger, Liao said she has spent all her school years in the Commack district. She attended Indian Hollow Primary School and Burr Intermediate before attending Commack High. Among her favorite classes, she said, was chemistry and she enjoyed conducting science research and being hands-on in biology.
She said while the state mandate requiring schools to close due to the coronavirus was difficult to get used to, she found the workload to be less and tried her best to find things to do to fill her free time. She would go to the tennis courts with her mother, catch up on sleep, and cook and bake a lot.
Liao also finished research for a scientific paper that was recently edited, and she hopes it will be published in ACS Omega, a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
As she looks back at high school, she said she is grateful for her teachers, especially club advisers Holly Bellisari and Michael Jeziorski, research teacher Jeanette Collette and chemistry teacher Stephanie O’Brien.
As far as Liao’s future, she said she’s not 100 percent set on a career path yet, but it’s something she looks forward to discovering as she’s thinking of possibly working in some way in the health devices field.
While she’s at college, she said she’ll miss spending time with her family, and her dad said he wants to come up to watch all her tennis matches. She’ll also miss Commack.
“I’ll miss having this great community that I’ve grown to love and has supported me during this journey,” she said. “That will be very hard to let go.”
This year she was part of the prom planning committee. She said that during the first two weeks of quarantine it was hard to grasp that milestone events would be canceled,
but overall she was more troubled by the smaller everyday events than the bigger milestones.
“I was more upset about the little things like seeing my teachers every day, gossiping with my friends,” she said.
When it comes to advice for younger Commack students, which includes her brother Edward, she said it’s important to
find something that they enjoy and really pursue it.
“Take some chances, because you never know what’s going to happen,” she said.
As the school year ended, Louis Viglietta was named one of Commack High School’s academic leaders along with Kimberly Liao. Viglietta capped off the year with a 105.34 weighted grade point average.
Viglietta is preparing to attend Princeton University at the end of the summer and will major in chemical and biological engineering. Once he attends college, he said he will miss the Commack community.
“I’m excited, but there will actually be things I will miss about Commack,” he said, adding that he and his friends have already discussed how they will visit each other.
The academic leader said that at a young age his father, Peter, a software engineer, taught him chemistry, and he continued to focus on the subject in high school. He said his interest in biology developed over the years watching his mother, Anna Marie, battling a mild case of cerebral palsy.
He was 4 years old when he moved to Commack from Wantagh and attended Rolling Hills Primary School and Sawmill Intermediate before starting high school. Viglietta said he has appreciated his education in the district and was lucky to have supportive teachers, including his math teachers and chemistry teacher Stephanie O’Brien.
In addition to his studies, during his time in Commack, Viglietta was involved in the Simons Summer Research Program at Stony Brook University, performed as principal flute player with the ICA Wind Ensemble, was treasurer for the class executive board and Science Honor Society and president of the Quizbowl club. During his high school career, he won second place in the Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVision contest and is a Rensselaer Medal scholarship winner.
Viglietta said he enjoyed being on the class board as treasurer, dealing with financial decisions, organizing big events and the senior gift, as well as working with the advisers and his classmates. He added that he also gained a lot of positive experience as president of the Quizbowl, a competition team he joined in ninth grade.
Viglietta said the Simons Research Program provided great experience in the biochemical and bioresearch fields, allowing him to work in a Stony Brook Medicine lab and research pathways that cause some of the side effects of chemotherapy, and hear from some of the faculty members about their research.
Regarding this year’s school shutdowns due to the coronavirus pandemic, Viglietta said he found the online learning experience interesting but manageable. With prom canceled and graduation tentatively scheduled for August, Viglietta said he was able to adjust, but all of his friends are dealing with it differently.
“When I started to think about it, it was the little things that won’t get rescheduled — the goodbyes to teachers and friends, the yearbook signings — all those smaller events that don’t have a setting to take place anymore,” he said.
For his fellow students, he said his best advice is to keep at it and persevere even when times are tough.
“Even though this class had the year chopped off a bit, there still have been great milestones and things to look forward to,” he said. “Just keep looking ahead, and you’ll get through it.”
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.
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