Superintendent Gerard Poole addressed national school safety concerns at the Shoreham-Wading River Board of Education meeting Tuesday.
The presentation comes roughly two weeks after an airsoft gun was found in a student’s backpack at Riverhead Middle School, only about 10 miles from Wading River Elementary School. READ
The Shoreham-Wading River school has decided to install eight new classrooms in its elementary schools as initially planned even though the state Department of Education is recommending the district only build six classrooms.
(Credit: Paul Squire)
There are 16 students in Riverhead sophomore Shannon Zeltmann’s AP Physics class. But all but two of the students go without a lunch period each day, she said.
The reason why the kids are skipping lunch? There’s just not enough time in the school day, the sophomore said. (more…)
The Shoreham-Wading River High School tennis courts have been closed and locked since March after they were declared unsafe. Fixing them up will cost over $800,000. (Credit: Joe Werkmeister)
Shoreham-Wading River School District residents will vote Jan. 13 on a $48 million bond proposal on capital improvements throughout the district.
On Tuesday, the district released an itemized list of upgrades that will be paid for — should the vote pass — as well as a packet for the public summarizing the project, which the district’s public relations firm has dubbed ‘Renewal.’
“Since the formation of our district decades ago, only minimal work to our schools has ever been undertaken with the exception of emergency projects (roof at Briarcliff) or small infrastructure projects,” the material states. “Meanwhile, communities all around us have addressed deteriorated or inefficient building systems and instructional environments with upgraded facilities.”
The district will hold two separate meetings in early December for residents to learn more about the proposal.
On Dec. 2, a presentation will be given by architects hired by the district to complete the work. On Dec. 9, the public will have the opportunity to speak with board members and administrators about the proposal.
Below are the highest-ticketed items proposed.
• $5.6M: Wading River Elementary School: Four new classrooms, multipurpose room.
• $4.6M: Miller Avenue Elementary School. Four new classrooms and reconstruction of library/media wing.
• $3.7M: Prodell Middle School: kitchen and cafeteria addition.
• $2.4M: Miller Avenue Elementary School: New bus loop/parking.
• $2.3M: Wading River Elementary School: New bus loop/parking.
• $1.7M: High school: Synthetic field turn and lighting for multipurpose field.
• $1.4M: Miller Avenue Elementary School: New roof.
• $1.3M: High school: New window system.
• $976K: Prodell Middle school: New window system.
• $811K: High school: Tennis court reconstruction.
For a complete list of the proposed upgrades, as well as the Renewal packet released by the school district, see the following page.
Credit: Patrick W. Moore
One concerned grandmother went before the school board Tuesday night, railing against what she called a “secretive” decision to install a solar panel plant on a sod farm across the street from the district middle school.
Michelle Sterling of Shoreham said she was disgusted by the Town of Brookhaven, which she claimed approved the sod farm solar plant without informing residents or the district.
Residents have complained to other boards in recent months: namely Brookhaven Town Board and Brookhaven Planning Board. The latter unanimously approved plans for the project last month, despite much opposition from neighbors, according to Newsday.
“We went by the codes,” Planning Board Chairman Vincent E. Pascale told the paper. “We did all our checking. We took facts from factual sources.
Board president William McGrath said last week that the Shoreham-Wading River Board of Education was also concerned by the circumstances around the approval of the installation and said the district was “looking into it.”
Ms. Sterling went on to claim that the solar panels would cast radiation onto the district’s students and said “studies” couldn’t prove that the solar panels wouldn’t cause cancer.
“Our children are certainly not going to be the guinea pigs to find out,” she said. The board didn’t comment on those claims.
JENNIFER GUSTAVSON FILE PHOTO | Shoreham-Wading River superintendent Steven Cohen and school board president Bill McGrath.
The Shoreham-Wading River school board approved a contract worth over $7 million with a worldwide manufacturing company to improve energy-saving measures throughout the district.
Assistant superintendent Glen Arcuri said the contract will pay for itself through resulting energy savings.
Mr. Arcuri explained that the district will borrow the necessary money to pay off the contract.
“It’s a type of a lease arrangement,” he said.
Officials from Honeywell, which recently won the project bid, said in February that making the improvements will save the district more than $250,000 each year on its roughly $1.2 million energy bill.
Improvements would include energy-efficient LED lighting, a “smart” system for heating and cooling and a natural gas line to the high school that would allow the school to use either natural gas or oil, depending on which fuel was cheaper.
The district will use those energy savings to pay off the entirety of the lease, Mr. Arcuri said. If the district doesn’t save as much as projected, Honeywell will have to cover the difference between what they promised and what they delivered, he added.
The state education department will next review the scope of the work to ensure that the district gets “maximum savings,” Mr. Arcuri said.
If the state determines that the district won’t break even on the deal, they will refuse to issue the site plans.
Shoreham-Wading River School District Superintendent Steven Cohen, left, and school board president Bill McGrath. (Credit: Jennifer Gustavson)
The union representing Shoreham-Wading River School District’s administrators received a four-year contract extension at last month’s school board meeting, granting the faculty members three percent raises this year, followed by smaller raises over the next two years before no increase in the contract’s final year.
In addition, eligibility for retirement incentives for union members was reduced from 12 to 10 years.
According to the terms of the deal, which was OK’d at the district’s Oct. 21 meeting, raises this year don’t apply to administrators hired for the 2014-2015 school year. For the 2015-2016, and 2016-2017 school years, members of the union will receive a 1.5 percent raise.
“I think that the district and the administrators’ association came together to settle a contract so that our schools could move forward and the kids could benefit from everything,” said union president Linda Anthony, principal of Prodell Middle School. “And it was positive that it was settled early in the year.”
The union has 11 members: principals at each of the district’s four buildings, assistant principals at the middle school and high school, and directors of athletics, technology, special education, humanities, and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).
The contract comes after the previous deal held by the union expired at the end of June this year. That deal had lasted three years, held salaries flat in its final year, and upped employee contributions to healthcare from 15 to 20 percent for new members, and 15 to 17.5 percent for existing members.
Board of Education President Bill McGrath said that partly due to those previous contributions, he was happy to sign the new deal.
“Basically, we were pleased with it from the point of view that we value these members and they’ve already increased their healthcare contribution,” he said. “And we’re trying to be as fiscally prudent as we can in light of everything the state government is doing with public education.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was updated on Monday, Nov. 3, with comment from Linda Anthony, president of the administrators’ union.
Riverhead school board vice president Greg Meyer honoring Ann Cotten-DeGrasse Tuesday night. (Credit: Jennifer Gustavson)
Ann Cotten-DeGrasse was congratulated Tuesday night for six years of service on the board. She was hired as a business teacher by the district in 1966 and served as president for the Riverhead Central Faculty Association before retiring in 1997.