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This morning Mr. Pereira told me I had to watch Janet Ribando’s senior project. WOW. What a fantastic documentary about this year’s seniors. It warmed my heart to hear and see our students speak about their HS experience. Just another example of why Mineola is so special. Nice work Janet! BTW- Could have done without the ‘trashing’ the school comment.
Check it out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dpv7E5uECqg
Believe it or not, we are in the final WEEKS of the school year. For our graduating seniors, this is the busiest of times, but also the most rewarding of times. Together with their parents, friends and teachers, seniors celebrate the end of 13 years of dedication to their education with prom, awards/scholarship breakfasts, final concerts and of course, graduation. I wanted to give everyone a chance to get to know two of the many exceptional students in our district, who also happened to be graduating as this year’s valedictorian and salutatorian.
Valedictorian Sujith Maracheril is an AP Scholar with Distinction as well as a National Merit Semifinalist. He is president of the Science Honor Society, captain of the Brainstormers challenge team and a member of the National Honor Society, Mathletes and Student Service Center. Sujith also participates in spring track, plays the violin for the school orchestra and has taken advantage of the district’s science research program. He plans to major in pre-med in the fall at CUNY Sophie Davis Biomedical Education.
Salutatorian Julianne Falotico has been named an AP Scholar with Honor, received the 2012 Fairfield University Book Award, and has been named All-Conference and All-Class for basketball, All-Class for soccer and Academic All-American for girls lacrosse. A scholar-athlete, she is also a member of the National Honor Society, Science Honor Society, Leadership Council, Literary Society, Athletes Helping Athletes, SADD and the Lunch Bunch, in addition to serving as president of the Key Club and vice president of the Red Cross Club. She is undecided on her major, but will be attending Colgate University in the fall.
I would like to congratulate all of our seniors for their accomplishments. I look forward to spending some last moments together at the upcoming awards ceremony.
Boys Lacrosse yesterday made history! It has been a long time since we have won a first round playoff in boys Lacrosse. Timmy Gil was on fire with 5 goals and John Clancy was a rock in the net. Next up- Cold Spring Harbor at Hofstra next Tuesday at 5:30. Great Job boys!! Look forward to the next match.
I have been served a cease and desist order from Mr. DeMarino’s union over certain comments. I have been instructed by legal counsel to remove them from the blog.
I understand that there is a rumor floating around that the Winter Guard is being dismantled. That is not true. The Board and I are proud of the guard’s accomplishments and have supported the growth of the program over the last 10 years. I was the principal of the HS when the guard started. Like every successful program there are dedicated people that are the driving forces behind the success- the director, his assistants and most importantly the students involved. Sometimes over the course of time a change is needed to continue to grow the program. I would analogize it to a professional sports team that changes managers. Sometimes the team needs a new person at the helm; a fresh set of eyes to change the tone and performance on the field. Whether or not that will happen is yet to be decided. But no team or program is defined by one player or coach. Success is a collective endeavor defined by the whole group. We will continue to support the Winter guard as well as the Rockettes as we do all of our student programs.
Congratulations to the HS Math teachers, Mr. Desire, and Mr. Escobar. Yesterday’s Newsday ran Regents Diploma rates for the entire County. Mineola HS fared very well particularly in the Advanced regents diploma percentage. In order to receive an advanced diploma a student must pass trigonometry (Integrated Algebra Trig). Mineola’s rate of 65% ranks us in the top 25% of the county. Ahead of Districts like Hewlett-Woodmere, North Shore, Oceanside and Port Washington. This doesn’t occur by accident; it has been a HS goal for some years. The fruits of the labor are paying off. Kudos to all those involved.
I have been asked by a few people to further explain Mineola’s involvement with BOLD systems. We have used BOLD for several years to organize and produce our “voting books”. The company uses an electronic data base to alphabetically organize all registered voters by polling place. They just completed reorganizing our books to change from 4 to 2 polling places next month. Last year we purchased the web based version of the program as a cost saving measure. Traditionally we hired one person per book to maintain the ‘poll list’ a mandatory list of all people that voted. BOLD has an electronic ‘pen’ that scans a bar code under the persons signature. The scan automatically creates the poll list. Therefore we only needed one person to monitor the book and scan the poll list. The return on investment for the cost of the pens was one year. This year we will begin to see the savings. The poll list is also available in real time via the web – that is where the controversy arises. Since it automatically generates a list of who voted people could call nonvoters to come out and vote. Mineola does NOT do this. The system is password protected and the District clerk and I are the only people with access to the system. We do not generate any lists nor do we call anyone about voting. We strictly use the system for managing Election Day and try to make it as cost effective as possible.
Can you do it? No screen of any kind for a week? No Television, texting or video games; instead you can read, play outside, draw, play music, create something. You could even speak to one another!
As our State assessments come to a close I have had some time to reflect on all of the controversy surrounding this year’s exams. I think it really comes down to the fact that we all are guilty of placing too much emphasis on one single exam. More importantly, the State exam will never measure the Common Core as accurately as a teacher can. Therein lies the most important work we have as a school district; how do we measure student work on Common Core standards that accurately aligns with the State exam. If we do this work correctly there should be a strong correlation between report card grades and the grade a child receives on the State exam. The conversations among teachers, students and parents would be very different. Everyday assignments and homework need to focus on specific standards. Rubric need to become more commonplace and students need to be perfectly clear about the skills and competencies they need to master to move from one level to the next. Consider this 4th grade rubric for Reading for Literacy.
| Standard | Description | Level 4 | Level 3 | Level 2 | Level 1 |
| RL.4.3 | Describe in depth a character, setting or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character’s thoughts, words, or actions). | Provides an elaborate description of the setting using many specific details and descriptive language from the text. | Provides an adequate description of the setting using details from the text. | Provides a basic description of the setting using a few details from the text. | Uses little or no details to describe the setting of the story. |
Teachers need multiple “data points” of student work to demonstrate what level a child is performing. “Data points” are achieved by teachers assessing students. Not once or twice but consistently and objectively. The rubrics create the basis for the conversation. Discussion and samples of ‘elaborate vs. adequate’ will allow students to see the specific areas needed to move between levels. Assessments aren’t events; they are common occurrences that provide meaningful information to improve student achievement. Next year we will begin this monumental shift. Our elementary report cards will reflect grades in standards. This will not be easy, but through a collaborative effort I am confident we will create an exceptional system hat accurately depicts student work.
Congratulations to Marissa Karasz for winning the Town Of North Hempstead Earth Day T-shirt Design Contest. Many students also submitted designs and were recognized at last night’s event. They included: Nuvia Velasquez, Nicole Boshans, Will Andrade, Jasmine Muchlis, Yajaira Zambrano, Jinal Patel