It’s Official!

I’ve known about this for a few weeks but haven’t been able to announce anything until today .. Mineola has been selected to join the elite Digital Promise League of Innovative Schools, a national coalition of school district superintendents that fosters collaboration between education leaders and entrepreneurs, researchers and thought partners. The first league meeting will be held in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 5-7 and I am very excited, and proud, to attend on behalf of our community. In the last three years, only 46 school districts in the nation have been chosen to join this prestigious league. More information to follow after my DC visit.

Survey on Summer Initiatives starts September 16

Keeping our students engaged and active during the summer months is an important part of ensuring success during the school year. This summer, Mineola Public Schools held recreation and educational enrichment programs for students entering first through ninth grade. Now, we are asking for your participation in a 2014 Summer Programs Survey.

The programs — Lego’s Build-a-Brick, Camp Invention, music, drama and sports — were designed based on parent responses to a survey last fall. Your continued feedback will help us improve future programs and offerings.

Designed and implemented by independent technology and communications firm K12 Insight, the survey asks for input from students who participated in our summer recreation and/or iPad programs, as well as from all parents in our community.

If you have a child who participated in one or more of our programs, we would like to learn about that experience — both from their perspective and yours. If your child did not participate in our summer programs, we would like to know why and what would compel you to enroll in the future. In addition, we are asking parents and students involved in our summer iPad program to submit comments to help us improve as we move forward with our technology initiative.

Parents and participating students will be emailed invitations to access the survey, which should take no more than 5-10 minutes to complete.

After the survey closes [October 1], we will begin to close the loop by sharing results and explaining how the data will inform future summer program offerings.

Thank you for your continued involvement in our school district. Your voice is critical as we work toward our goal of inspiring our students to pursue excellence and become competitive members of our global society. Working together, we can help prepare each student for a lifetime of learning.

National Merit Semifinalist

Congratulations to senior Nathaniel Levy who has been named a semifinalist in the National Merit Scholarship Program for 2015. This impressive young man has also been named an AP Scholar with Distinction by the College Board and scored a 2290, out of 2400, on his SAT. We wish him the best of luck as he continues in the competition for a chance at a scholarship.

Iced for ALS

Many of our principals took on the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge last week. As a community that embraces “contributing positively to a global society” there were many administrators, parents and students who gave to this great cause. I got my hands on a great photo of Principal Escobar at the high school. There’s also one of myself participating at the eighth-grade welcome bbq.