Helen Kotzky was instrumental in having Glen
Cove fifth-grade teacher David Smith chosen by Scholastic, Inc. to participate
in a national internet teacher training program. Scholastic will put
samples of Smith's lessons on the internet as examples for other teachers around
the country.
Thanks to Fern Lindenbaum for updating the
list of Glen Cove community leaders. We will use the list to invite people
to visit the schools and also to invite people to join the Coalition.
Congratulations to the school district for
the strong increase in scores on the New York State 8th grade English
and math tests. The English proficiency went from 35% last year to 63% this
year. Math went from 24% to 40%.
School board has
tentatively set at 3.5% budget increase for the 2002-3 school year
Long time Glen
Cove resident Lee Drucker died in October. He was 82 and living in Seattle
near his son. We will miss his letters to the editor.
There will be one school board member
elected next May. It has been suggested that we ask candidates to give us their
resumes and to speak at our meetings and that we then have a closed ballot to
select the candidate we will support.
In the next few weeks we will send letters
inviting people to join the Coalition. We have names of several dozen prospects
and are always eager for suggestions.
We would like to invite John Hildebrand from
Newsday and Carl McCall, the New York State treasurer, to speak. Also Steve
Sanders, the head of the education committee. How about an education roundtable
discussion with Sanders, McCall, Hildebrand, and others?
Father Doug Hutchings has offered to
coordinate a discussion on violence in the schools using, in part, materials
from the American Psychological Association.
We have also been having a continuing
discussion about inviting the people who wrote to the papers during the school
board campaign to a public discussion in order to hear their objections to the
Glen Cove schools.
Now is the time
to encourage parents to register to vote. We should cooperate with the PTAs.
Brunch committee:
It would be good
to get parent lists from the Junior Soccer League and the Little League.