Janet Bates-Wilkins has arranged for Senator Carl Marcellino to speak at a special Coalition meeting on Wednesday, October 18 at 6:30 PM at City Hall in the Council chamber.
We had a press release in the papers about Vito Abbondandolo speaking at our last meeting.
We have sent membership invitations to 400 teachers who live in Glen Cove.
The Coalition now has over 120 members.
Jean Kuttruff is organizing visits by community leaders to classes in the Glen Cove schools. She needs one person to help her arrange these visits with the six school principals and two people to choose the leaders to invite and to send them invitation letters.
We will start a series of interviews with school people which we will submit to the local papers and post on the Coalition website. Some of the first interviews will be with Bob Desiano, Carl Lapointe, Dale Zurbrick, Mary Ellen Freeley, Karen Ravener. Let us know if you want to do an interview, can suggest a candidate, or can suggest questions.
We will call a small meeting of all of the people who are rumored to be planning to run for two school board seats next May.
Here are criteria several people have submitted for the two candidates we will back in the next school board election:
Constituencies in Glen
Cove (did they move into town just last year?)
Having a relation to a school system, as a parent of a student (past or
present), as a teacher, or from working in another capacity in a school system
Having a relation specifically to the Glen Cove school system
Having children in the Glen Cove schools
A focus on children
Ability to think on their feet and to debate
Calmness in the face of provocative positions and statements
Respect for school leaders, teachers, and staff
Respect for each other and for community members
Willingness to listen to other peoples’ ideas and occasionally to change their
own
Willingness to express their philosophy and ideas openly in the hope of
persuading others.
Familiarity with Board of Education meetings (have they attended many during the
year before the election?)
Willingness to acquire at least a rudimentary familiarity with state education
law
Having an understanding that the role of the school board is to make policy, not
to run the schools
Willingness to attend training workshops, seminars, and conferences sponsored by
the Nassau Suffolk School Boards Association and the New York State School
Boards Association.
Willingness to commit time beyond Board of Education meetings
Willingness to follow established protocols and processes and not try to
circumvent them for personal ends.
Willingness to listen to concerns and then recommend action through proper
channels rather than trying to solve school issues by themselves
The ability to make decisions based on what is right for children
A desire to provide the resources the schools need
Sensitivity to taxpayer concerns and the burden of school taxes
Willingness to accept financial responsibility for the timely maintenance of
school property
Unwillingness to participate in irresponsible financial practices such as
borrowing money to pay for ordinary continuing expenses.
If you are willing to help with any of the things below, just do it, and let us know. We rely on Coalition members to choose their activities and work on them independently. The Coalition, of course, can always help with advice, information, and support.
We would like to collect numbers that show the performance of Glen Cove schools and students in comparison with other districts. Fern Lindenbaum has gotten us a list of the excellent Glen Cove scores in the last Advanced Placement tests.
We would like to organize a panel discussion with leaders of Glen Cove Real Estate Firms. (Leslie Whitely, Mary Ellen Freeley)
We will start a series of interviews with school people which we will submit to the local papers and post on the Coalition website. Some of the first interviews will be with Bob Desiano, Carl Lapointe, Dale Zurbrick, and Mary Ellen Freeley.
Dr. Freeley is working on making school board meetings easier to understand and more popular. Suggestions: publish agenda a few days before meetings. Make copies of documents available. Publish minutes.
Dr. Freeley will write a “Superintendent’s column” for the papers once each month.
Mayor Suozzi has promised a community meeting on public education: (Janet Bates-Wilkins)
Ask churches about church groups we could speak to
Help people sign up for STAR exemptions
Explain mechanics of elections to new voters
Put Coalition literature in boxes in GC Library. We are working on a Coalition brochure similar to the one we handed out at the voter registration booth at the Craft Fair.
Involve parents of ESL students
Make list of losses caused by austerity budget.
We have applied to the NYS Department of State for incorporation as a non-profit corporation. They replied that we need approval from the NYS Department of Education. We have applied for that approval.
We have applied to the United States Postal Service for permission to mail at non-profit rates. They responded with a request for more documents. We are about to send them more documents.
For the website we need:
PTA officers meeting dates and committee members names (Carol Spahn)
Names and addresses of people on school building site committees, Boosters, Scholarship Committee (Angela Hamel)
A description of what the curriculum supervisors do. (Angela Hamel)
Information about members, meetings, and activities of CSEA, SEPTA, BOCES
Pictures of graduation, play, football, basketball, girls soccer, track, Rising STAR, jazz band, physics lab, kindergarten, fashion show, art room, shop, handicapped inclusion: (Scott Goldberg, Joe Vignolini)
Events, plays, concerts, games, meetings