Mount Sinai BOE holds first school year meeting, discusses harassment guidelines
By Jennifer Donatelli
Mount Sinai Board of Education held its first meeting of the new school year Wednesday, Sept. 18. Superintendent Christine Criscione began the public session by announcing the arts scholars, updating and aligning the district’s activities for the Dignity for All Students Act and its obligations for the schools, as well as introducing the first student member on the board. The BOE approved the first draft of the Student Harassment and Bullying Prevention and Intervention Policy Handbook, which will be distributed this year.
This year, the Long Island Scholar-Artist Award presented by the Long Island Arts Alliance was given to Mackenzie Kling for her theater performance. Matthew Manzo, Carrie Wang and Erika Lo received all-state honors and are among an elite group of musicians who received a score of 100 on NYSSMA. In addition, Orlando DiDesidero, along with Kling and Manzo were also named to the All-County Vocal Jazz Ensemble All-State Honors and will participate in November alongside 15 other students who were also nominated. Newsday will feature each scholar in its “monthly profiles” section. The students will also be eligible for early scholarship consideration by Long Island Arts Alliance higher education partners.
Christina Romeo, high school assistant principal, updated everyone about the benefits of DASA in the district and explained how it creates a learning environment free of discrimination and harassment for all students. She went on to explain that it also mandates the reporting of all incidents of harassment, bullying, cyberbullying and discrimination based on a person’s race, color, weight, nationality, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender or sex.
The district is currently developing guidelines for school training programs to discourage discrimination and harassment, raise awareness and sensitivity to potential issues related to those topics, and enable employees to prevent and respond to incidents of discrimination and harassment.
Romeo also mentioned that individual schools within each district are responsible for designating and training one staff member as the dignity act coordinator who is trained to address incidents of harassment, bullying and discrimination. The district must also provide training for all employees to increase awareness and sensitivity to the existence and effects of harassment, bullying and discrimination and develop a school strategy to prevent it. Romeo said, “We need a consistent practice across all three buildings and we need to come together as a district to make the policy work.”
The newest board member, Mount Sinai High School junior Audrey Han, represents all students within the district. She spoke about Spirit Week as well as the Homecoming Dance and football game against Miller Place. The school is rolling out a program called Mustang Manners, which is a character education system that encourages students, teachers and staff to live by certain values of respect, accountability and behavior in a fun way.
The next board meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 16.
