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Kevin Scanlon

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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.

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Ward Melville High School. File photo by Greg Catalano
Moving 9th grade to high school logistically complex

By Mallie Jane Kim

Three Village Central School District needs more time before restructuring the grade makeup of its buildings, according to Superintendent of Schools Kevin Scanlon, who officially recommended a delay on proposed changes until the 2025-26 school year.

“It’s best we do this right and not fast,” Scanlon told the board at a Sept. 13 Board of Education meeting. He also followed up with an email to district parents explaining the delay.

The board previously charged the administration with researching the feasibility of a proposal to move up sixth grade to junior high and ninth grade to the high school, based on the preferences of a majority of stakeholders in the community surveyed last year. 

At the meeting, Scanlon said administration staff spent the summer “working very heavily” to explore logistics of the proposed changes, such as secondary class schedules, staffing needs and classroom requirements.

The superintendent previously warned that restructuring likely wouldn’t be possible by the original target of fall 2024, and the summer research found enough snags to give Scanlon and his team pause.

The junior high schools would simply exchange one grade for another — ninth grade would move out to the high school and sixth grade would move in from elementary — a nimbler change than adding a fourth grade level to the high school, which currently houses grades 10-12. It’s not a matter of the number of students, Scanlon pointed out. Due to declining enrollment over time, the population at the high school with an added grade would be roughly on par with its population about a decade ago — just shy of 1,800 students, according to district data. But each grade has specific classroom requirements.

“Ninth grade does require some different courses — certified teachers in areas of science and languages — that need to be maneuvered around,” Scanlon explained, saying major considerations include the number of appropriate classroom spaces for art, music and science labs. “We just need a little bit more time to figure out those particulars.”

The board opted last April to table any decision on officially adopting the proposed restructuring until the administration could present research on logistics and cost, and also find a way to address concerns over early start times at district secondary schools.

Scanlon indicated the logistical research should wrap up next month, and a committee looking into start times is in full swing, with plans to send out a survey early this fall to assess related community needs. A possible second survey with more specific proposals may go out by the end of the calendar year, he added.

When asked, Scanlon didn’t rule out the possibility of changing start times sooner than 2025, but indicated that particular conversation would take place in the context of the upcoming survey results.

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Three Village school district staff members kick off the 2023-24 school year during Superintendent’s Conference Day Aug. 30. Photo courtesy TVCSD

Three Village Central School District Superintendent of Schools Kevin Scanlon, alongside district administrators and leaders, welcomed back faculty and staff after summer break at Superintendent’s Conference Day on Aug 30. 

Staff gathered at Ward Melville High School to kick off the 2023-24 school year. The day began with opening remarks from Board of Education president, Susan Megroz Rosenzweig, followed by a presentation from Scanlon.

Scanlon first thanked the district clericals, custodians and grounds crew for their efforts throughout the summer. He reviewed the district’s goals for the upcoming year, as well as giving a brief overview of the strategic planning committee’s work.

Finally, Scanlon wished all staff members a happy, healthy year and reminded them the importance of their daily work.

“I hope that all of you this year look for that happiness in everything you do,” he said. “When you look at the smiles on the children’s faces in front of you, you’re making an impact on future generations.”

Following the superintendent’s remarks, Kerrin Welch-Pollera, Three Village School Administrators Association president, and Brian Pickford, Three Village Teachers Association president, welcomed the group. Staff members then dispersed for faculty meetings and time in their classrooms. Additionally, they participated in a professional development day Aug. 31.

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File photo by Greg Catalano

Proposed structural reorganization for Three Village Central School District is likely to happen later than originally targeted, according to Superintendent of Schools Kevin Scanlon in an update to the Board of Education June 14. The update comes amid an ongoing internal review on the matter by a staff committee working alongside a school start times subcommittee, which is open to the public. 

“Currently the committees feel that the changes for the sixth and ninth grades will not be able to occur for the 2024-25 school year, however final determination will occur in September,” he said at the meeting.

A survey earlier in the year revealed community and district stakeholders prefer moving sixth and ninth grades up to middle and high school, respectively, but the board did not adopt the plan outright. Rather, the trustees tasked district administration with researching costs, logistics and potential impacts of the plan first. They also asked the district to figure out how to include in the change later secondary school start times, per health and academic concerns. 

Scanlon has said at previous board meetings that such structural changes are extremely complicated with a lot of moving parts and, even before the board asked for the review, he had indicated the 2024-25 school year was an aggressive target date.

One sticking point is the need for additional mental-health support in the schools if younger students are moving up to the bigger schools, an issue that has percolated among some district parents, and came up during the recent board election. Scanlon said the internal committee agrees and is looking into options on how to provide that support effectively. 

According to Scanlon, one of the options on the table is a “house plan” for middle school, in which students would be grouped and rotate through the same set of teachers for core subjects, a program Scanlon laid out at a restructuring subcommittee meeting earlier in the school year as something that would allow teachers to better collaborate to recognize and address student needs.

At a previous board meeting, Brian Biscari, assistant superintendent for education services, indicated the district is already planning to expand its “departmentalization” trial for fifth and sixth grades next year to all five elementary schools, meaning students in those grades would change classes for core subjects to allow teachers to specialize and to help prepare students for secondary school.

Cellphone policy due for review, insubordination at events

Scanlon also informed the board the district is setting up a committee to explore changes to its cellphone policy in schools following a recent Newsday article laying out the potentially harmful effects of cellphones and social media on students.

In Three Village, there have been cellphone-related “acts of bullying and disrespect throughout the district, but especially at the secondary level,” Scanlon said. “We need to reexamine the use of cellphones by students under the code
of conduct.”

The code of conduct currently available on the district’s website prohibits the use of cellphones or other electronic devices during class, as well as the use of recording devices on school property or buses without permission.

In a separate item at the meeting, Scanlon addressed what he called “entitled, enabling and inappropriate behavior” by some students and spectators at district events. He said these behaviors have increased alongside the increase in use of cellphones as recording devices. “We have witnessed acts of insubordination and disrespect to not only our own staff, but also to police and other parents. This is a reminder that there is a code of conduct for students and for spectators at events, and the administration will enforce those codes.”

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By Mallie Kim

The results are in. Across stakeholder categories, the clear favorite in Three Village Central School District’s restructuring survey was Option B, moving up both sixth and ninth grades to mean the two middle schools would house sixth through eighth grades, and the high school would house grades nine through 12.

Option A represented maintaining the current configuration with kindergarten through sixth grade in elementary school, seventh through ninth in junior high, and grades 10-12 in high school; Option C would have moved up only ninth grade; and Option D was the Princeton Plan, which would have split elementary schools and placed upper and lower grades in separate buildings. All four options, including Option B, left open the future possibility of closing or repurposing an elementary school.

Among district parents, staff, secondary students and the community at large, the data followed very similar trends, with the status quo coming in a distant second place when all four options were ranked against each other. “We’re so often told that different groups are in conflict with one another — schools and parents and teachers and politics,” said Deirdre Rubenstrunk, the district’s executive director of technology, at a special meeting to present survey results to the Board of Education on Monday, March 13. “But here we got to see in this data a real alignment of where people want to go, and as a school district administrator, that was really reassuring.”

The strategic planning committee recommended the board adopts Option B, but BOE president Susan Rosenzweig said they would take their time making a decision.

“We are not in a rush to make this vote; there’s a lot to consider,” she said, pointing out that there were many helpful comments and concerns written in the survey responses, especially from some forward-thinking teachers who had suggestions from the front lines. “We’re going to do what’s absolutely the very best for the kids but while remaining within our fiduciary responsibilities.”

Restructuring plans are separate from the budget planning currently in process for the 2023-24 school year, but restructuring is under consideration because of declining enrollment trends and other budget concerns.

Even if the board votes to adopt Option B in the coming weeks, that would mark only the beginning of the work, according to Superintendent of Schools Kevin Scanlon. Whatever the board decides, he said, “the work then begins for the employees of the district — the administration, the staff.” 

If Option B moves forward, Scanlon said, district staff would need to go through all the nitty gritty details to figure out logistics, such as moving instructional staff, adjusting curriculum and planning to have enough guidance counselors in the right school buildings. That work, Scanlon said, would need to be finished by next December to make implementing changes for the 2024-25 school year possible. “We want to do this properly,” he said. “We don’t want to rush at this.”

Scanlon mentioned that making secondary school start times later, the part of the strategic planning committee process that wasn’t included in the survey, was still high on the administration’s priority list, but they have not yet figured out logistics and finances. 

The district plans to schedule four informational meetings in coming weeks, two at night and two during the day, to explain the survey results to interested parents and community members. In the meantime, the results — including comments — are posted on the district’s website and can be found by clicking on the “District” drop-down menu and selecting “Committees.”

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Option four in the survey, which would create primary schools for kindergarten through second grade and intermediate schools for third through fifth, has been widely panned. Setauket Elementary School pictured above. Photo by Mallie Kim

By Mallie Kim

Declining enrollment alongside a history of budget vote woes has Three Village Central School District eyeing structural changes, and the Board of Education is asking parents, students, staff and the community to weigh in by survey. 

The request for community involvement, which comes after a series of public strategic planning meetings, is a step toward forming the 2023-24 district budget after last year’s budget proposal squeaked by with 66 votes and the 2021 budget failed to pass the vote at all, forcing a tighter contingency budget and no tax levy increase. The vote this spring will be the first under the leadership of new Superintendent of Schools Kevin Scanlon.

Results of the survey will weigh heavily in upcoming budget and planning discussions, according to Scanlon. “The board and administration will only consider those options which receive the majority of support from each of the groups surveyed,” he wrote by email.

The survey, which opened Feb. 2 and will close Feb. 17, includes explanatory video messages from Scanlon and asks residents to rank the favorability of four restructuring options individually and then against each other. The options include maintaining the status quo, moving up ninth grade to high school and sixth grade to middle school, moving up only the ninth grade and finally the Princeton Plan, which calls for dividing elementary students into lower and upper grade schools.

According to district data, there’s been a 23% decrease in the student population since the 2012-13 school year, from just over 7,000 students enrolled a decade ago to about 5,500 this year in grades K-12. Maintaining the current structure of district schools may only be sustainable if enrollment increases, according to Scanlon. Proposed restructuring is an effort to prepare in case enrollment continues to decline along its current trajectory. In response to rumors among concerned parents, Scanlon has emphasized at strategic planning meetings and in the survey videos that no decisions have been made about closing or repurposing any of the five district elementary schools. Any such move “would not be considered by the administration until the budget process next year for the 2024-25 school year,” Scanlon wrote.

The options on the table this year, which have been explained and discussed publicly at the strategic planning meetings, have varying popularity among local families.

Creating sixth through eighth grade middle schools and a four-year high school would bring Three Village more in line with schools across New York state and the country, give sixth graders more course and extracurricular offerings and, according to figures provided by the board, save about $450,000 per year on transportation costs alone, for ninth graders traveling to Ward Melville High School for athletics and advanced placement courses.

The proposal to move ninth grade to the high school has received a lot of public support, due to the prevalence of four-year high schools in the United States and the fact that it would save the district money. Kim Moody, who has four children spread across all levels of district schools, agrees. “I really think it would benefit the ninth graders to be at the high school,” she said, pointing to the inefficient time management for those who bus to Ward Melville for extracurriculars and for the high schoolers who have to wait for those buses to arrive. “It is an ambiguous year that ninth graders can be part of JV sports teams, but they’re still housed separately from their teammates,” she added.

Detractors at strategic planning committees have raised hallway crowding and increased traffic around Ward Melville as primary reasons for pause.Moody is less firm in her opinion about moving sixth grade up to middle school. “I don’t think they can make a wrong decision around sixth grade, personally,” she said. Moody, who works with adolescents through the Christian organization Young Life, has noticed both in personal and professional experience that students tend to make a developmental leap around the middle of sixth grade. “As a parent, the first part of sixth grade I was glad they were in elementary school, but by the second half, I would think: ‘This kid could be in middle.’”

Some parents, including Moody, say if the change goes through, the district should find ways to scaffold this variance in readiness among sixth graders during their first middle school semester and should also begin preparing fifth graders to switch classes — something district elementary schools are already piloting this year. 

Option four in the survey, which would create primary schools for kindergarten through second grade and intermediate schools for third through fifth, has been widely panned at strategic planning subcommittee meetings and on social media. In the Princeton Plan, common in surrounding school districts on Long Island, classroom and special area teachers would specialize in a smaller range of grades while students in programs like the Intellectually Gifted classes would no longer have to bus to alternate schools. This option would also mean adding a school transition for students, splitting elementary-aged siblings and a lengthening commute time for some children, away from their neighborhood schools.

Data from the survey will be broken up into the four respondent groups: the community at large; parents of students currently enrolled in Three Village schools; secondary students and district staff and will be shared in the relevant committees before moving on to a formal presentation to the school board.

For more survey information, visit the district’s website www.threevillagecsd.org and click on School Restructuring Survey on the home page.

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By Mallie Jane Kim

Setting secondary school start times later is a priority, but the initiative faces budget barriers, according to Three Village school district Superintendent of Schools Kevin Scanlon.

Scanlon shared his strong support for a time change at a strategic planning subcommittee Monday night, Jan. 23, where he and Deputy Superintendent Jeffrey Carlson introduced proposed alternative schedules for Three Village schools. Each alternative requires additional buses, and with New York’s 2% property tax increase cap in place, that money has to come from somewhere else in the budget, Carlson said at the meeting. “Anything that goes in, something else has to come out.”

Currently, junior high students in the district start the day at 7:40 a.m., and high school students begin at 7:05. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends a start time of 8:30 a.m. or later for adolescents, citing a body of research indicating too early a start time is a prime culprit in teen sleep deprivation, which negatively affects physical and mental health — and, crucially, school performance.

“We all get the idea that the start time is too early,” Scanlon said, adding later that in his 31 years working in education, “I’ve witnessed the impact of health issues on children, [including] drugs and alcohol. This is one of them, and this is something we need to address.”

But getting secondary start times past the 8 a.m. mark is complicated due to tiered busing. Currently, the district’s fleet of 47 buses transports students in four waves, starting with the first high school pickup at 6:10 a.m., and ending with the last drop-offs at Arrowhead, Setauket and Mount elementary schools, which start at 9:25 a.m. Carlson told the subcommittee he would welcome additional schedule configuration proposals but clarified that Ward Melville High School can’t simply switch start times with the late elementary schools because its Section XI sports league requires participating schools to end by 3 p.m. And starting all schools closer to the same time would require additional buses.

The other issues currently facing the school board — proposals to reconfigure elementary schools, move ninth grade to high school and move sixth grade up to form middle schools — could make some room in the budget, as could an idea to convert an existing school into a tuition-based school of the arts.

District parents making public comment at the meeting were passionate in their dislike of the early secondary start times, with one parent calling the start time “vile,” and another comparing it to a dangerous substance, saying if the district knew a substance in the schools was causing anxiety, depression, increased sports injuries and lower test scores, “we wouldn’t balk at spending this money to do something about it, without question.”

Others suggested that the elementary school students who currently start school at 9:25 a.m. could benefit from an earlier start time since younger children tend to wake up earlier, and some families have to arrange day care before school to accommodate work schedules.

District parent Barbara Rosati, who is a Stony Brook University research physiologist and founder of an advocacy group on this issue, expressed gratitude at the meeting that the new board leadership is taking the start times seriously, but is frustrated that changes have not been prioritized in the budget up until this point.

“What we are seeing here are costs necessary to keep our kids healthy,” Rosati told the subcommittee. “Whatever we don’t do, our kids’ health is going to keep suffering.” 

Scanlon, who took the helm of Three Village district last summer, emphasized that any changes the board approves would be, at the earliest, for the 2024-25 school year.

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Assistant Superintendent for Educational Services Kevin Scanlon speaks at a meeting. File photo

A new superintendent will be overseeing the Three Village Central School district come July 6.

Kevin Scanlon will become the school district’s new superintendent on July 6. Photo from Three Village Central School District

TVCSD’s assistant superintendent for educational services, Kevin Scanlon, is ready to take over the reins with nearly 30 years of education experience behind him.

Last year, current superintendent Cheryl Pedisich’s announcement that she would stay on for one more school year coincided with Scanlon receiving offers from other districts. After the board of ed reviewed his résumé and interviewed him, they asked if he wanted the job. He said in a phone interview that after enjoying his work immensely in Three Village over the years, “I’m going to be happy to continue on in my new role.”

Background

The 52-year-old lives a short distance away in Smithtown, and he and his wife Kerri have two children, Meghan, 25, and Sean, 14. A native of Bay Shore, he grew up as the youngest of 11 children and began his college career at first majoring in accounting at Iona College. He soon switched to history, with a concentration on middle eastern history. Scanlon went on to get his master’s in criminal justice at the school and was employed by the college as an admissions counselor and then managed the dorms. He recently received his doctorate from St. John’s University and has an administration certification from Stony Brook University.

His interest in teaching grew when he was in college tutoring underprivileged students. He said that’s when “chalk got in my blood.”

“I felt I would do more for our world in general if I was working with kids like that,” Scanlon said.

Throughout his career, he’s taught social studies at every level from seventh grade to 12th, including Advanced Placement, honors and Regents classes.

“I’ve enjoyed that immensely,” he said. “I see so much of the good that our teachers do and teachers in general do, just affecting the future.”

His first teaching job was in a school in Upper Manhattan that saw an increase in crime right in its own hallways in the late 1980s and ’90s. The former amateur boxer, who spent eight years in the U.S. Navy Reserve, was conducting a student observation when he had to tackle a student with a knife in the hallway.

“The next morning, I was brought in to replace the teacher that was stabbed,” Scanlon said. “A little frightening, but well needed in that place. It was a very large high school in Upper Manhattan, 4,000 students. They set the state record for robberies and rapes in a school.” 

After working in the New York City school system, he went on to teach Catholic school for a short period in Connecticut. He also has taught night school in Brentwood High School for 10 years.

His first experience teaching in Three Village was in 1996 when he became a social studies teacher in Ward Melville High School, five years later he became chair of humanities at Paul J. Gelinas Junior High School and remained in the position until 2003.

He had a two-year stint in the Oyster Bay school district as district supervisor of social studies and became principal of Roslyn High School in 2005 after a scandal in the district which is the subject of the movie “Bad Education.” After spending seven years heading up Roslyn, he returned to Three Village in 2012 as assistant superintendent for educational services.

The future 

Scanlon said he is ready to work on some significant challenges when he begins his new position July 6. He said before the pandemic parents had been discussing school start times with the board and administrators. Many have said that some students, particularly high school students, have first classes that start too early and interfere with healthy sleeping patterns for teenagers. A start-time committee was formed before the pandemic, but discussions had to be put on hold as administrators dealt with COVID-19.

“We’ve had discussions on time and things of that nature, but we’re going to need to address some of that moving forward and involve all the constituencies in the district in that discussion,” he said. “Whether we do reconfigure or we stay in our current configuration, I think we need to at least discuss what that would look like going forward,” adding that things may not change drastically, but a closer look needs to be taken at the issue.

Scanlon also feels that divisiveness in the nation has carried over locally. 

“We want to try to heal the community as much as possible, and I think what will go a long way is continuing to be as transparent as possible,” he said.

One way Scanlon said that can be done is using social media more often to supplement the district’s website. He said it also ensures that the community is getting their information from the district itself, especially when it comes to matters such as the budget. The future superintendent said social media is also a way to “be open to listening to some of the differing opinions that exist in the district and try to make the best decisions possible for the students that we have.”

“I want to make sure that as we do move forward that we have people understand about what we’re trying to do, and improvements we are trying to make and planning for our future, but also involving all our parents, our community members, our students, our faculty, our administration, in those decisions as we go forward,” he said.

Scanlon added that Pedisich has always been open to parents, returning emails and phone calls, and he will miss how deeply she cares about the community. He said he’s happy he was able to work with her for the last 10 years. Scanlon said she approached every issue with a calm attitude and is “a real model to emulate.” 

While he will miss working with Pedisich, he’s proud to take on his new role in the district.

“I’m truly honored to be in this role,” Scanlon said. “I’m going to work my hardest for the benefit of the students and the families and the staff.” 

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Dr. Philip Schrank, a Three Village district physician and chief medical officer for concussion management, spoke at the most recent board of education meeting about starting school later in the morning. Photo by Andrea Paldy

By Andrea Paldy

The recent Three Village school board meeting included a presentation of the district’s report card and the continued discussion of school start time, a topic initiated by a parent group.

Utilizing statistics from the 2019 state standardized tests, Regents exams and Ward Melville’s graduating class, Kevin Scanlon, assistant superintendent for educational services, was able to give the board a detailed snapshot of the district.

Enrollment continued to decline in 2018-19, dropping from 6,131 in the previous year to 5,812. However, Scanlon said, with prekindergarten enrollment, numbers stabilized this fall.

Three Village students excelled on the Regents exams with pass rates between 91  and 95 percent on English and social studies exams, and with 67 to 84 percent of students receiving mastery level scores in the various humanities. Math results included a 92 percent pass rate for algebra, 95 percent pass rate for geometry and 99 percent pass rate for algebra 2. Between 46 and 50 percent of students received scores of mastery, Scanlon reported.

The district’s students led the state in scores for physics and chemistry with 94 and 96 percent pass rates, respectively, he said. Ninety-three percent of students passed the earth science exam and 94 percent passed the living environment Regents. Mastery scores ranged from 46 to 68 percent.

Of the 544 students in last spring’s graduating class, 311 were Advanced Placement scholars, the largest number in 20 years, the assistant superintendent said. Additionally, the senior class, which had 100 fewer students than the previous year, had a 97 percent graduation rate and 95 percent college acceptance rate for both four-year and two-year colleges.

The New York State assessments for students in grades 3 through 8 showed that the district’s opt-out rate dropped from 65 to 64 percent for the English Language Arts tests and from 67 to 65 percent for math.

Scanlon said that Three Village student rates of passing far exceeded those of Nassau, Suffolk and New York State for each grade in the subjects tested. District students outperformed students in nearby districts — Commack, Half Hollow Hills, Harborfields, Hauppauge, Northport, Port Jefferson and Smithtown— on the ELA and ranked first in all grades except for grades 3 and 4, where they ranked second.

The math scores followed a similar pattern in which district students ranked first in all grades, except for third grade, where they ranked second, and eighth grade, where they ranked fifth. Scanlon said the latter was because a majority of the district’s eighth-graders take the algebra Regents exam instead of the math assessment.

As a final metric, the district’s independent auditor, Thomas Smith of the EFPR Group, said that the school district is “way below the debt limit set by the state” and is “very financially healthy.”

It’s about time

With passage of a California law prohibiting public high schools from starting before 8:30 a.m. and middle schools before 8 a.m., Three Village parents thanked the district’s administrators for taking time to consider their request but continued to lobby for similar change.

Joining the ranks of speakers on behalf of later school start times were Dr. Philip Schrank, a Three Village district physician and chief medical officer for concussion management, and David McKinnon, a professor of neurobiology at Stony Brook University. Both gave biological reasons for the need for change.

“Eight years ago, I stood in front of this tremendous board, and you guys had the courage and the vision to be the first district in Suffolk County to implement a concussion management program,” Schrank said. “You made our kids safer and healthier. I would ask you to have the same courage and vision to be leaders on this issue, which dramatically affects all of the kids in this district.”

Superintendent Cheryl Pedisich, who met with the leaders of Its About Time: Three Village Parents for a Later School Start Time to discuss the issue, said the district is exploring the impacts and costs of a time shift. The findings will be presented to the board in December.

Dignity for All Students Act

Triggered by an incident at Arrowhead Elementary School, three parents attended last week’s meeting to discuss the Dignity for All Students Act, also known as DASA, particularly pertaining to early grades.

Heather Cohen, Shari Glazer and Cindy Morris asked that elementary school principals and teachers have age-appropriate resources for students and their families. They also want a protocol for DASA forms for students or parents to complete to allow “hate crimes” to be tracked and monitored over time. The parents also requested that when an incident occurred at school that all parents be notified.

During an interview, Pedisich said there’s “a definite protocol for DASA” and the handling of complaints. Additionally, she said, each school has DASA coordinators — the principal and a social worker — and district procedures are outlined on its website.

The superintendent said that though the specific case had been closed at the school level, it had now been reopened at the district level because of additional concerns brought to the administration.

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Kevin Scanlon, assistant superintendent for educational services, delivered good news about Three Village students tests scores at a 2018 school board meeting. Photo by Andrea Paldy

By Andrea Paldy

The Three Village school district’s 2017–18 report card indicates that Three Village students continue to excel. That’s happening even as the state continues to update standards and tests.

Kevin Scanlon, assistant superintendent for educational services, gave the report at the district’s Oct. 17 school board meeting. He said Three Village students received among the highest Regents scores in the state and provided statistics on the class of 2018.

Three Village students passed English and two social studies Regents exams at rates of 94 to 97 percent, with a majority of students achieving a score of mastery — 85 percent and above — on those exams, Scanlon said. A handful of students — 10 percent — took the old version of the Global History and Geography exam with a 42 percent pass rate.

The rate of passing on the math Regents was equally as impressive, with 92 percent of students passing Algebra, 93 percent passing Geometry and 99 percent passing Algebra II. The mastery rates were 42, 38 and 49 percent, respectively.

Science Regents results showed more than 90 percent of Three Village students passing the exams with rates ranging from 91 to 95 percent and more than half of students achieving mastery in Earth Science, Living Environment and Physics.

Scanlon also reported that 94 percent of the class of 2018 went on to college, while 3 percent went into the workforce. One percent of graduates joined the military, he said.

In other good news, just under half of the class was recognized as Advanced Placement scholars, students who, according to the Advanced Placement website, “have demonstrated outstanding college-level achievement through their performance on AP exams.”

Scanlon also gave an update about the spring 2018 state assessments, administered to students in grades 3 through 8. The assessments tested students on the 2017 Next Generation Standards for English language arts and math. He said the standards have been revised since the rollout of the 2011 Common Core Learning Standards.

Last spring’s testing decreased from three to two days, Scanlon said, adding that since 65 percent of Three Village students opted out of the ELA assessments and 67 percent opted out of math, the scores reflect only about a third of Three Village students in the grades tested.

When compared to nearby districts — Commack, Half Hollow Hills, Harborfields, Hauppauge, Northport, Port Jefferson and Smithtown — Three Village’s fourth-, fifth-, sixth- and seventh-grade students had the highest rates of proficiency on the math assessments, Scanlon said.

The rates of proficiency for grades 3 through 7 in Three Village ranged between 76 and 78 percent and were well above those for Suffolk County and New York State, the assistant superintendent said. Lower levels of proficiency on the eighth-grade math assessments are due to the fact that the majority of the district’s eighth-graders take the algebra Regents instead of the state tests,
he said.

The pass rates for the ELA — 62 to 77 percent proficiency — also exceeded the state averages of 45 percent proficiency.

As of Oct 12, the district had an enrollment of 5,884 students, a slight decline from last year’s 6,131, Scanlon said.

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