001I'll let Joe just gave me a thumbs up. Will we now be joined by the by led by the Seven students who will lead us in the pledge of allegiance. >> All right. Thank you for everyone being here. I'm going to let my friends introduce themselves real fast. >> Uh I'm Lexi Wayne Sarah Goto Norris back >> Matthew Easi. >> Good evening. Today is Thursday, November 20th. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. Salute. Pledge. I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Please be seated. If you don't mind, we're also going to let our friends lead us as we would in the regular morning announcements. >> Let's take a few
002moments to do our peaceful breathing. >> Oh, I thought you were doing announcements. We're gonna get in two seconds. >> Thank you to those of you joining us in person here at the Ratner Seaman School and those watching on YouTube live or on tape delay. I hope the Seaman parents in the audience enjoyed curriculum night and I want to give a special thanks or hello to all the Seaman teachers here this evening. As most of you, I'm sure already know, this is American Education Week, where we celebrate public education and honor the individuals who make a difference in school in schools. We thank all of you. Specifically, today is the the 20th is Future Teachers of America Day where we encourage students to pursue educational careers and we honor all those in the profession. I
003want to thank our faculty and administrators who are all once future teachers and we wish the best of luck to all those currently studying to be teachers as we might need you here one day in Jericho. I'd like to point out that our district does its part in originating new teachers. We have our our early childhood two semester class taught by the amazing Mrs. Roitz where our high school students among many other things get elementary classroom exposure and experience. A great opportunity for those career considering careers in K through 12 education. Couple of quick items before we move on to our great Seaman students. Um both our high school and middle school will be closed next week Wednesday through Friday the 26th through the 28th. However, our elementary school students will have school on Wednesday
004the 26th, and all your teachers are looking forward to full houses that day. One final item. Actually, we'll get to that later. Why don't we turn it over? We are fortunate tonight to be here at the Ratner Seaman School and to get an update on all the exciting things that are going there. Mrs. Cler has picked out six one even half dozen of her favorite students to tell us all about the exciting things they're doing here. So I now introduce Mrs. Cler who's now been our principal for f this is her fifth year here in Jericho. Thank you. Thank you. So when we were thinking about this evening at first we were thinking about trying to lead it somewhat like what our morning meetings are like at school. So there's a morning meeting in every
005classroom every day, but once a month we've been coming together as a school for a schoolwide morning meeting. And the part of that starts with that pledge. So tomorrow we have another morning meeting as a whole school and it's for our career day. You're all invited. Feel free to stop on by. Um but we went also included our school song. We're going to skip that for now. Yeah, my voice is a little off, you know. So we're going to keep on going. We just did our announcements with you and now I'm going to invite my friends over just to talk about a few of the goals that we have for our school this year. So my friends who are presenting with us are peer leaders or our sitebased members. But I'm going to invite up
006Max and Arthur and they're going to talk about our first goal that we have up here for our school this year. And the goal is to nurture a stronger sense of belonging and connectedness among students, staff, and families through responsive classroom practices like morning meeting and beyond. In our fifth grade class, we have developed a classroom charter. The classroom charter focuses on how we want to feel when we are in our class, what we need to do in order to maintain those feelings, and how to address conflicts as they arrive. The classroom charter is a promise to be the best that we can be in order to make our classroom safe and acceptable, accepting for everyone. Each day begins with a morning meeting. Our class comes together to identify their feelings. We use a tool
007called a mood meter. Identifying our feelings helps us to build empathy to understand each other's lives and help us to feel connected. >> Thank you to Max and Arthur. Our next goal is to cultivate a to cultivate a culture of digital wellness that prioritizes the intentional use of technology and reduces nonacademic screen time to promote deeper learning, fosters stronger in-person social connections, and support the overall mental and physical well-being of our students. Sarah and Lexi, come on up. This year the use of technology is allowed in the in school to do school work with. We use technology to learn and have stopped using technology during nonacademic times like indoor recess. This is a big change from last year and there are many positive benefits. Some of the benefits to limited technology during indoor recess is
008that the students started playing with other students. They are playing with people they may not have been friends with before. The students are having fun talking to each other and playing board games. I am a big fan of Guess Who and Uno. >> How many Uno fans are out there? Let's give a round of applause for Sarah next week. The next goal we wanted to highlight was to you utilize interdisciplinary learning practices to support students in developing meaningful meaningful connections across subject areas to foster critical thinking, creativity, and problem solving abilities and to nourish a deeper more applicable understanding of our world. Matthew, come on over. Good evening, parents, students, and teachers. I had the pleasure today I had the pleasure of describing interdisciplinary learning. Interdisciplinary learning is when our instruction brings together two or
009more subjects. For example, in fifth grade we completed a project focused on environmental issues. We focused on three raging issues. Acid rain, deforestation, and water scarcity. Our goal was to create an emotional ad to persuade people into donating to a cause that will help stop or reduce the amount of damage we do to our planet. This required us to integrate science, research, art, mathematics, reading, and writing. When my group and I completed our project, I felt accomplished. I learned far more. I learned far more from this experience than just some handouts. I learned the importance of teamwork. I learned that working together is key to success. is to incorporate a variety of strategies for increasing student engagement leading to student mastery of content articulated by daily learning targets and established success criteria. Nora, come on
010over. Many teachers use different tools to help students engage in learning. For example, we use turn and talk, gallery walks, and learning targets. In turn and talk, each partner shares their thoughts and ideas with other people. Sometimes we speak with the person next to us and sometimes we move around the room speaking with several different students. In a gallery walk, we move around the room the way you would in our gallery. Students discuss responses to various questions with peers throughout the classroom. Learning targets are a way to tell students that what they will be learning during a period or across the week. They help us maintain our focus and monitor our learning. All these tools are fun and helpful for students to engage in memorable learning. All right. So, we just wanted to highlight a
011little of that for you today. Before we wrap up, I do want to thank all of our teachers and staff who are here and all of them who work so hard uh not only for curriculum night, but every day in the classroom. The work our students do is meaningful. It's memorable. and we're very proud of our teachers, our staff, and all of our kids. So, if we can give them a round of applause, and we will just end our portion of this evening uh the same way we end announcements, which is be your best self, and don't forget to fill someone's bucket today. Thank you. >> Thank you very much to Principal Cler and all of her wonderful students. I love that our students are going to stay for a little longer, which means their
012parents will stay a little bit longer. Usually, it's the middle school representatives who set the bar, but this today it was our Seaman students setting the bar. But now for our middle school report, I would love to invite up Yash Dojani and Brooke Rand to give us an update on what's going on in the middle school. Hello, my name is Brooke. >> Oh, >> okay. Push the switch up. Hello, my name is Brook and I'm your student. We are eighth grade student council representatives. It is a pleasure to be here this evening. We would like to begin by sharing that the middle school winter 1 sports season began on Monday, November 3rd. While our middle school does not have a bobsled team, we do have many other teams such as winter track, swimming, boys basketball,
013girls volleyball, and play on. On Wednesday, November 12th, the middle school and high school quarterly grades were posted online and the portal was open to parents. >> Someone once said, "Where fail, music speaks." So true. On Tuesday, November 18th, the middle school orchestra at the coral concert delighted audience members at their 7:30 performance in the auditorium. On Friday, November 14th, in the lobby, we had the middle school yearbook retake portrait. Are you aware that we have rap artists in our building? Well, we have nearly 300 of them. In ELA, eighth grade students had the opportunity to cross tea with peers to choose a first novel to read, write a rap poem about it, put the poem to music, and rap it in a music video. Guest presenter Cousin Raj visited our school to excite students
014about performance poetry and hearing freestyle rap for students. Yo, it was fire. What do you think of when you hear revolution, reaction, and reform? Well, we will soon discover what middle school students think of as that as this year's theme for Jericho History Day. Seventh and eighth grade students have officially embarked on their history day journey with guidance from our social studies teachers and our librarian, Miss Conklin, students will learn to find valuable resources, take notes, and begin creating their original projects. Now, not only can Shrek teach us valuable lessons such as inner beauty is more valuable than outer beauty, but this green or is also guaranteed to entertain. We are so excited about the upcoming performances of Shrek Jr. on Thursday, December 4th at 2:10, which is also a popular time for middle school
015student attendance, and 6:00 p.m. and Friday, December 5th at 7:00 p.m. The pre-sale tickets are now on sale for families of the cast and middle school staff. Take advantage of the pre-sale to guarantee a seat at your preferred performance. Tickets go on sale to the general public later this week. Please look for an email from Mr. Gleason to provide you with the online website to purchase tickets for the play. Tickets will also be sold in school by members of the cast and crew. Now, I'm sure many students are upset about this next announcement, and here it comes. Students will have no school on Wednesday, November 26th through Friday, November 28th. There will however be parent teacher conferences on Tuesday, November 25th from 3 to 5:00 p.m. and 7 to 9:00 p.m. and Wednesday from 8:00
016a.m. to 12:00 p.m. by appointment only. Lastly, November is not just a time to eat turkey, but also a time to show thanks. We would also we would like to share about what the student council is thankful for is all the amazing teachers and students in our school. Of course, this that is why the student council students will be decorating all classroom doors with leaves containing each teacher and students name. >> This Friday's nest focuses on gratitude. In their nest circle, students will be contemplating the spirit of giving thanks. Additionally, community service learning classes will be distributing gratitude grams to all students next week to reinforce how important they are to our school community. They will also be joining forces with the PTA to begin a food drive for Long Island Cares beginning the week
017after Thanksgiving. >> So, thank you for giving us your attention and time. We wish you a healthy, happy, and restful Thanksgiving. Have a wonderful evening. >> Thank you very much, Mr. Dejani and Miss Rand. Now for the high school update. Could we please get Dev Lani and Emma Zoo? >> Good evening everyone. I'm a Missou student council co-president. Our crowd's a little larger tonight, but that's okay. >> Um, I'm Devconi, the other co-president, and we're excited to share what's been happening at Jericho this November. >> To start off, we're proud of our high school orchestra and chorus musicians who opened the winter concert season on November 12th with a great performance. We'd also like to like to share congratulations to the art honor society for partnering with SEPTA to host a successful cookies and canvas
018event on November 17th. Thank you for all the students and families who participated from music or we also want to wish the cast and crew of the high school drama production Alice in the Wonderland the best of luck as they take the stage from November 20th to the 22nd. Tickets are available online and at the door. Moving on to athletics, the fall season has officially wrapped up and Jericho athletes had an outstanding show. This included 17 allcount athletes, 24 allconerence athletes, and eight all county honorable mention athletes. 10 all division athletes, one defensive player of the year, two Nassau County champion teams in boys in girls swimming, and one division champion in girls swimming and diving. That's certainly a lot of awards. >> We want to highlight the girls swimming and diving. Props to Cynthia
019as well as part of the team heading to the state championships this weekend in Webster, New York. Congratulations to Mia Shu, Joanna Juan, Lily Diang, Cherry Lee, Yuna Lee, Yuri Shaloo, and Emma Tien. Winter triyouts are on the way for the boys and we're excited for the season ahead >> and the girls. Jericho is also proud to host the Nassau County Unified Youth Summit again this year in collaboration with Jericho Athletics, Special Olympics New York, and New York Unified Sports. 16 schools and more than 200 students will be on campus promoting including inclusion and leadership. Looking Looking ahead, the high school fashion show will take place on December 6th, and all proceeds will go to Children's Co Children's Hospital. Tickets are now available in Dr. Finley's office, >> as well as our district-wide toy drive.
020It's underway and will run through December 8th. New unwrapped toys can be dropped off in collection boxes throughout the school. >> And the PTA is preparing its annual Thanksgiving fundraiser. We appreciate their continued support um for families during the holiday season. >> Next, we want to share the highlights from the science department. Since the last board of education meeting, the third floor experienced an unusually spooky Halloween ostrich infestation, which made for a fun and memorable moment for teachers and students. We also had a huge showing at astronomy night on November 3rd with clear skies in the astronom um astronomical society of Long Island setting up telescopes. Students were able to see craters on and mountains on the wax and gibbus moon, Saturn and its moon titan, a meteor shower, and even Europe's Aryan 6 rocket
021passing through the field of view. National Honor Society volunteers help distribute glow sticks and hot chocolate. >> I could really go for some hot chocolate right now. Our science Olympia team had a busy month hosting their first virtual competition and attending the Cornell University event this past weekend. They brought home awards and for the first time ever earned an invitation to compete at the MIT Invitational. In research, 33 students completed the Regeneron STS submissions by 8:00 p.m. at the last board meeting. This reflects two to three years of dedicated work when they compete among 300 national they compete to be among 300 national scholars. In addition, what we grew up group received finalist prizes in the global 30-day uh green challenge and see junior Isabelle Dion will be traveling to San Diego next week to
022represent the team with a fully expenses covered trip. We also want to congratulate junior Arman Dewal who won first place from the American Association of Physicians of India origin for his work on a novel therapy for a progressive eye disease. The fall 2025 issue of the Columbia Undergraduate Journal featured six Jericho students out of 14 total publications. Nine students were invited to present their projects at the Association of Chinese American Physicians Award ceremony, earning over $2,000 in student awards and an additional $2,000 for the Jericho Science Research Program. Three students were also invited to participate in the finalist summit for Grow New York in um Kennedua for their uh Vio Islands work. >> Good try, Dev. Um and from aggra business, Jericho students attended a food and agriculture startup competition at Cornell through Grow New
023York last weekend, continuing our expansion into real world agriculture and sustainability innovation. Finally, we're getting ready for this year's family night, which will be taking place on February 5th. This tradition gives students and families a night to relax and spend time together without assignments. >> It's been a busy and successful month across the district, per usual. >> That concludes our report and thank you so much for your time. Have a great night. Clearly, our middle school and high schools are going strong into the Thanksgiving break. Um, next up for our parent teacher student association update, um, can we please have Miss Pratici Goena? All right, good evening everyone. Um, awesome updates by our middle school and high school and great presentation by our um, curriculum night uh, Jack Rottner's students. Um, good evening Dr. Kavitz,
024members of the board of ed, central administration, faculty, staff and community members. My name is Pratichi Goena. I'm vice president of the Jericho joint PTA council and I'm really excited to share updates that the PTA has been up to this month. So, our PTA council has been very active this fall. Um, at our recent monthly PTA council meeting, we had the honor of welcoming Mr. Mike Larkin, who is our new technology director. He led a very engaging and informative conversation about the digital platforms that our district utilizes along with apps and subscriptions available to our students. We're really excited about the new district website currently in development and look forward to continued collaboration with our families and our staff to understand and feel confident and comfortable navigating all of our technology platforms. This past Monday
025morning, council had its first open council meeting of the year, open to all Jericho families. Um, we were thrilled to have Mr. Greg Sloan, our curriculum associated for school counseling K through 12, moderate a fantastic panel discussion with guidance counselors from every building from elementary, middle, and high school. They provided us with a really thoughtful and comprehensive overview of all the programs and services offered throughout the year as well as what to expect at each season as well as their critical role in fostering and welcoming a comfortable environment for all of our students. We really felt so fortunate to have great dialogue and understand the dedicated and compassionate professionals that are working with our kids every day. As always, we encourage if any parent has any question or concern about their child, please reach out
026to your counselor, your teacher, or your building principal. We're always here to help. All of our individual units were also very busy this month. Kanti kicked off their November with an autumn fall festival fundraiser on the 7th. Families enjoyed live music, delicious food, bubble tea, sweet treats, and a wonderful array of crafts and games. On November 10th, they also launched their annual food drive in partnership with Long Island Cares, which will run through November 24th. Jackson proudly uh celebrated the official completion of their auditorium with a ribbon cutting ceremony. They also hosted a festive trick trunk or treat on Halloween, which brought together many rambunctious families and trick-or-treaters for a fun-filled and spirited afternoon. Uh, Ratner Seaman is currently running their Miss Chocolate and Pie sale fundraiser. On November 11th, they held a successful skateathon
027and this month they are partnering with the high school to support NSH. Please consider donating to help families in need during this holiday season. The middle school held a wonderful meeting for parents and faculty on November 6th where attendees actually participated in a nest session just like the Nest sessions we hear our students participate each month. It was a huge hit and inspiring to see the meaningful connections that these sessions fostered. I was there and it was really amazing to see how these sessions are facilitated and what each of us get to share in these really important and um meaningful conversations. The high school continues to be hard at work planning for the senior party and organizing ongoing fundraisers. The PTSA has been actively connecting collecting donations for NOSH. As I mentioned earlier, they also
028teamed up with SEPTA this month for an informative meeting where Dr. Kravitz and Mr. Sloan uh presented support how to support students as they transition from high school into college. SEPTA, in addition to their joint meeting with the high school, hosted a fun and creative cookies and canvas paint night this past Monday, November 17th. And lastly, I wish all of our families a very happy, healthy, and restful thanks Thanksgiving break. Thank you and good night. >> Thank you, Dr. Goena. Now I would love to turn it over as have a nice evening. Anyone who wants to leave before Dr. Kravitz delivers his superintendence report, please exit to your left or rights. And thank you so much for joining us. No, you say I can see your room, so I feel really confident now. >> You
029said you get nervous in front of crowd, so I wanted to help you out. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. I'll be here all week, ladies and gentlemen. >> Next week will be a short Don't forget to try the be. Thank you. >> So, first I will share the enrollment numbers in my report just to remind everyone that um last year this time we had 3,38 students and this year we have 3,179 students. And what did I want to talk about? I like these little things that we've been doing at the board of education meetings, slides, presentations, so they're informative to, you know, everyone just to make sure we're all speaking the same language. I think it's really important. What is curriculum? Well, curriculum is is the standards that are mandated guidelines developed by
030the New York State Department of Education. They define what students learn, but not how teachers must teach school in schools and districts have flexibility to choose their own curriculum materials and teaching methods as long as they meet these standards. Why do they exist? They ensure equity and consistency in education across New York State. They prepare students for college, career, and civic life, set clear expectations for student learning and teacher instruction, and they guide the creation of our curriculum, the assessments, and teacher professional development. What areas do they represent? The academic areas, English language arts, otherwise known as ELA, mathematics, science, social studies, arts, physical education, health and family and consumer sciences, languages other than English and computer science and digital digital fluency. So resources and and sometimes people ask that question, well what are the
031resources? Curriculum resources are any materials that support teaching and learning within a particular subject or grade level. They are designed to help educators deliver lessons aligned with the learning standards and objectives. Textbooks, workbooks, novels, articles, etc. Videos, online programs, teacher guides, and lesson plans are all part of resources. We offer assessments. Assessments are tools or methods used to measure what students know, understand, and are able to do in relation to specific learning goals or curriculum standards. That's how we measure what we do every day to make sure your children are learning. There are formative assessments. You might hear this term. They are ongoing checks for understanding during the learning process. The purpose is to provide feedback to both the teachers and the students so we can adjust our instruction as needed. So, examples of formative
032assessments, quizzes, class discussions, exit tickets, observations, draft essays, and practice tests. Summitive assessments. These occur after instruction has taken place to evaluate what students have learned at the end of a unit, a term, or even a year. Purpose is to determine mastery of the content or achievement. Final exams, state exams, end of course projects, standardized assessments. They're all summitative assessments. Diagnostic assessments used before instruction to identify strength and areas for growth. Benchmark or interim assessments used periodically throughout the year to monitor progress. and performance-based assessments where students demonstrate learning through projections, projects, excuse me, projects, presentations, or portfolios. Assessments can include tests or assess to make sure the student has some knowledge and skills and concepts and attitudes whether they're learning something. So, we took a book. If you give a mouse a cookie, what
033is the knowledge? What students are expected to know now? Okay. student skills, what students are expected to be able to do, concepts, what's the big idea. You know, we teach very young students in elementary schools always if they're reading, you want them to start things such as predictions and what's going on in the story. It's the most important thing in the attitudes where students develop that curiosity about what are you going to what's happening in the story? Tell us what's going on. What is not curriculum? And this is I I I left this side to be very simple and basic. When people come in and say, "Well, I don't like the curriculum." Meaning, I don't like this book. A book is not a curriculum and a lesson is not a curriculum. It's very important when
034you're speaking to your your teachers or you're speaking to an administrator, please don't say, "I don't like the book, therefore I don't like the curriculum." They're two different things, and I really want to stress that. That's the most important thing to understand. >> So, what do you call the book? It's a resource. The book is a resource. The lesson is a resource. And it's actually it has happened everywhere I've ever been. And I think if you speak to teachers many times, people say, "I don't like the book." That means I don't like the curriculum. It's actually not the case. So that is the presentation on curriculum. Looking forward to the next one. Any questions? >> Couple of quick questions. >> I wouldn't expect anything else. four main >> for the four main topics that you
035talked about ELA, math, history, and science. >> Yes. >> The first on the first four, how do we determine in elementary school the number of hours or minutes that is dedicated or allocated to each of those categories? In the elementary school, I understand the high school, they get an English class, they get a science class, they get it. How do we determine that or how do the teachers or who who determines how much time is spent in each of those core areas? >> So, I believe it's the it's the ability for a teacher to determine what they're doing. There's some you have to make sure you're um you have to make sure you're you're assessing students and studying language arts and mathematics in the classroom. But many times, in my experience as an educator, you
036want it to flow naturally, right? You want to be able to cross over. So if you're studying social studies, you should be learning some of the attributes of writing which is in the language arts. So sometimes they flow and it's a combination exact minutes. I couldn't answer that question, but I can tell you that an elementary classroom should be just flowing all day long from one thing to the other because as you see with the advanced students in high school, a lot of the mathematic assessments that are given now are language based. So you want to be able to flow that whole concept. What percentage of the curriculum is dictated by the state and how much is it dictated by you and our curriculum associates? >> So curriculum comes first we start with our standards
037from the state of of New York and that flows into our curriculum. So all of your curriculum should match the standards right the state will tell you you should be learning by the end of first grade this and our curriculum has to match that. So it's we are following the state standards. That's what makes consistency across the state. But then once you get into high school, we have classes that in many cases are more advanced than other schools. So clearly that's not meeting what the curriculum of New York State says. We've sort of said, "No, no, we don't want our kids to understand just regions biology. We want them to be able to do advanced placement biology." So who makes that decision about where how far we take their curriculum? So the the standards are
038based on the the ter the class biology, right? The same way an AP have an AP classroom will follow the follow the AP curriculum. But there are standards in biology that you should follow. That's why the United States has SK codes. SKD codes make sure that anyone who's studying a class in anywhere in the United States, it matches this the same uh criteria for learning if that makes sense. It's called a SK code. I'm sure Mr. Clone Mr. will tell you about that because when you in the back end of powers school you will see what those codes are and they match every other school in the United States. >> I know you love them. Um >> so but I still don't understand. So who decides that AP biology should be part of the Jericho
039curriculum versus just New York State region standard curriculum? Are you saying they're the same thing? It's just one. >> No, there's a there's a different So, the curriculum, you might have an advanced curriculum with more resources available in AP biology than you would have in general biology, but in biology, you have to the standards would say you have to meet these criteria when you're teaching biology. Thank you. You're welcome. So I remember when Common Core was introduced and New York State gave modules of I guess we would call it a resource but they gave specific lessons that people adopted. So does that still go on or that's >> No, we didn't use those. We've never used those modules. So >> So we've always used our own resources and never but there was a whole series
040of New York State modules. >> New York City. >> Oh just the city. Any other questions? >> I'm glad to see none of our curriculum associates have any questions about curriculum, so it's a positive. >> Well, thank you. I look forward to the next meeting. >> Thank you very much, Dr. Kravitz. We love the slideshows. Before we get down to core business of the board, we're going to move into the opportunity for the I guess faculty or administrators to be heard, but also the public. >> I've cleared this with Miss Vega. We're going to do them right before we get to new business. Right before we get to unfinished business. >> Yes, Miss Vega. We're still good with that, right? >> Yes. >> Thank you. opportunity for the public to be heard. You've heard it
041before. If you would like to make a comment or ask a question, please approach the microphone, tell us your name, and if you are representative representing a specific group, your affiliation. If you would like your statement to be included in our board minutes, you must hand a written copy of your remarks to our district clerk, Victor Manuel, before leaving tonight. As always, public discussion on matters relating to staff and students during which their reputation, privacy, or right to due process or those of others could in some way be violated is prohibited. As people rush their way to the mic, um I'd like to just take a quick moment. As everyone knows, the Jericho School District is going through a bit of a transition. We have a new superintendent. We have several new senior administrators. We
042have other senior administrators who've only been in their position for a short time and an educational landscape that is evolving quickly on many fronts. An important part of this transition is a thorough evaluation of how the district operates, including our policies, our procedures, our personnel, our reporting structures, our IT systems, our finances, and our communication channels. Some of these evaluations are quickly completed. Others are expected to take months. Some improvements or fixes are simple and quickly accomplished. Others are more complex and will take significant time. Just a quick rundown of some of the issues we have already discussed or started to address over the first 4 and 1/2 months of the Kravitz administration. >> We don't do that anymore. We don't count days. We're months. We're up to months. I know. We have increased communication
043by holding two public board meetings per month. We used to sometimes go six plus weeks between meetings. That will never happen again. We initiated a focus on data analysis. Please note I said initiate. This is a work in progress as much of this analysis is new to our district and our personnel and it will take time to get everyone and everything up to speed and where we want it. We started to include more informative presentations at board meetings to provide greater transparency and a more complete understanding and and um understanding of the issues and explanations of what we're doing. We've begun the process of completely updating and rewriting our district policy manual. We've completed an organizational chart to clearly delineate our reporting structure. We've begun the process of writing the district's first 5-year strategic plan.
044We've exponentially increased our social media presence to better showcase what our students and staff are accomplishing. We've begun the process of completely redesigning the district website from scratch with the goal of making it more userfriendly and more informative. We're working on streamlining many of our IT operations and systems to provide cost and time savings and improve and simplify communication protocols. Your administration and board is doing all this while remaining focused on providing a top education to almost 3,200 students. We recognize that some of these issues could have and probably should have been addressed previously. However, we are only looking forward. We are moving as expeditiously and prudently as possible to address these and myriad others. We want to hear from you. We value your feedback on the things we are working on and the things
045you think we should be working on. Comments, concerns, complaints, compliments, criticisms, questions, and suggested corrections. We want them all. Whatever the delivery channel, whether you convey it through emails, texts, websites, newsletters, chat groups, phone calls, in-person conversations, letters to the editor, or social media, we like and appreciate it all. Our favorite clearly is when you come to meetings in person to tell us that we understand that tell us in person though that we understand is not always possible. With that, who has something to say? ask or comment on. I heard the pin drop. We are going to go once, twice, three times. The floor is now closed for the opportunity for the public to be heard. Unless anyone on the board has anything to say. Actually, before we do that, we're going to talk about
046one thing that did come to I'm sure several board members and everyone who reads News Day, should you choose to read News Day, saw um back in September, early October, I informed the community that News Day would soon be publishing the highest compensated educators in New York State, and I expected our just retired superintendent to be included. As with most lists, Jericho took the number one spot in that survey also. And I just want to address some of the inquiries that have been posed to the board through various channels and uh even through Newstep. As reported by News Day, the total compensation for our retired superintendent was $662,000 and change for the 2425 fiscal school year. As pointed out in Newsuesday, much of that compensation was tied to retirement benefits that he received. Just to
047run through it very quickly so there is no confusion and people aren't scratching their heads. The base salary was approximately $289,000. There were sick days that were purchased for the specific year of 2425 which equated to about $36,000. There was payment for an unused vacation days of about $41,000. There was a payment for life insurance and also auto usage to true up a tax payment that he needed. Between the two of those, that was approximately $10,000. And then there was another $300,000 basically tied to accumulated unused sick days over a 30year career. That was how you got to your 662. That was not the number he made simply for 12 months of work. That was money that was accumulated over 30 years. Some of the other questions that have been posed to the district is,
048well, how much is he costing us going forward? Going forward, the only thing that comes out of our operating budget is a requirement to pay for life insurance. I'm sorry, health insurance, health and dental insurance. Nothing to do with life insurance. Again, that is perfectly clear in his contract should you want to read it. >> That's also like every other >> as Mr. Emanuel said, it's like every other retiree. For those of you who are interested in seeing the contract, the primary terms of the contract were in the 2000 were approved in 2011. Since then, the benefits package had not changed. Initially the two of three contracts 1998, 2005, 2011. You may look at that now and and look to see what they talk about relative to other districts on Long Island. Um I think
049anyone who looks at that will now say some of those were are anacronistic terms. Again, this was a contract that was most recently updated almost a decade and a half ago. We're not going to have that debate, but that's fine. As Miss Citron said, yes, he did not take a raise since 200 what year? >> Was that the last raise? 2011. He still was the highest paid guy decade and a half later. Um, so that basically sums that up. Thank you. So now, as Mr. Emanuel is getting antsy, can we please move to the business of the board? Official business. New business. Recommended motion. Be it resolved that the April 16th, 2026 meeting of the board is changed to April 13, 2026. Do I have a motion? >> Thank you, Mrs. Varnoff. Second. Second. Thank
050you, Mr. Jyn. All in favor of moving Hold on. Just waiting for the minutes. >> I did forget the minutes. I promised you that. We're going to hold this while M while Dr. Balachander reads her calendar. We're going to go back. >> Okay. >> Yes. No. >> Perfect. Um, all in favor I vote. Our meeting has been moved. Going backwards. Recommended motion. Be it resolved that the board of education make any necessary corrections and move the approval of the minutes of the regular meeting dated October 29th, 2025 and the regular meeting dated November 6, 2025. Do I have a motion? Thank you, Mrs. Vartnoff. Second, Mr. Jin. Thank you. Any discussion about the minutes from those two meetings? Thank you very much. All in favor? 5. Thank you very much. Now we shall move on
051to approval of schedules. We are going to for purposes of this remove schedule G under schedule DG under which one? Under high school club service function appointments. So schedule G under human resource board schedule G high school club service function appointments. We're going to remove that from this package. No, those are internal activities. Bear with us for one second. So, we are going to remove schedule G. And with that schedule removed, unless any of my colleagues have any other concerns, um we would like to move all the schedules together. So from schedule little I1 through schedule KK, the entire package excluding schedule G under human resources for club advisor appointments. Do I have a motion? Thank you, Mrs. Vartoff. I believe that was Dr. Balichander was giving me a second. Thank you, Dr. Balachander. Any
052discussion? Mr. Manuel, I thank you. I'd sent you a number of questions. I believe Mr. Jyn had sent you a number of questions about specific payments. Um, and those were all answered very clearly. Anyone has any interest in those, please feel free send me an email. Um, nothing then. All in favor of approving all the schedules absent schedule G on invite club appointments. Dr. Belchander, are you with us? We are there. 500. We look We are so good tonight. Look at that. Still under Is that clock right? Really? Jeez. Going to be home for the football game. We look forward to seeing many of you and others at our next meeting on Thursday, December 11th. The highlight of that meeting will be a presentation on New York State's recently adopted quote portrait of a graduate
053close quote. For those of you not familiar with this term or topic, the geniuses on the board of regions and at state ed have developed a quote unifying vision of what it means to be a graduate of New York State and describes the essential skills and dispositions that all students should develop to be successful in college careers and civil light civil life close quote. It is part of the 2024 New York Inspires quote plan to transform education in New York State close quote. That is the idea that includes the elimination of many regent exams. I expect we will all learn a lot that evening and I highly recommend you try to attend or at least listen particularly if you have a student currently in elementary school. We will be back in the middle school library
054for that meeting. Do any of my colleagues have anything to add before we leave? >> Yes. I just want I just wanted to say happy and healthy Thanksgiving to everyone sitting here watching at home, the entire community. Uh, one thing that I'm super thankful for is living in this wonderful community surrounded by the students, the parents, the community, everyone that participates and makes this um, school and the surrounding areas where we live so amazing. So, I'm very thankful. Thank you. Wishing you guys all a happy and healthy Thanksgiving. >> Thank you very much. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? Thank you, Mr. Kid. Thank you, Mrs. Bartnoff. All in favor of adjourning. Have a lovely evening.