Coalition for Glen Cove

Coalition for Glen Cove

Minutes of  the

Meeting of December 19, 2000

Janet Bates-Wilkins will run for the school board in May. The candidates committee has met two times and is working on promoting a second person to run for the school board.

The Covello Charter School was voted down by the SUNY Charter School Institute. The final vote regarding this issue was held late today by the Board of Regents. We await word on this decision.

Dolores D’Elia, the retiring shop steward of the secretaries’ union will distribute Coalition membership invitations at the union meeting this month.

We have contacted the custodians’ union regarding membership but need to follow up at this time.

We are now a nonprofit corporation in New York State.

Jean Kuttruff, Ian Siegel and Don Ranieri have assembled a list of Glen Cove community leaders and organizations. Jean is arranging for visitation of community leaders to begin in January.

Janet Bates-Wilkins will be speaking to the Kiwanis Club on January 10th. She will talk about the middle school STRIVE program and about the Coalition.

Dr. Freeley has arranged for visits by school board members in January as well. Dr. Silletti has already visited Deasy and Landing Schools.

Leslie Whitely has received entries for the bookmark contest "One Great Thing About the Glen Cove Schools" and has selected winners. She is still working on the artwork. The bookmarks will be distributed throughout the community.

Our membership stands at about 150 members. Chuck Kuttruff reported that he will send renewal of membership forms in early April, with an outline of monies needed for continued Coalition business.

We are working on a committee to draw up a budget for the next seven months to include mailings and ads. Ian Siegel has agreed to help organize a fund raiser to help finance the budget vote.

Lorri Prince is working on sending absentee ballot requests to homes of graduates of the past four years. Hopefully this will be accomplished during the Christmas vacation.

Natheley McElrath suggested the Coalition organize a town meeting to discuss the budget vote, administrators’ salaries and related issues that might be of concern to voters. She felt it would be beneficial to invite influential community leaders to speak about the budget in an effort to convince previous "no" voters to hear and learn more information. It was suggested that now is the time to speak about these controversial issues, while as the election draws closer, we should focus on the positive aspects of our schools.

The committee talked about how to engage more parents to hear their concerns regarding their children in school. School based site committees should be addressing these concerns on a regular basis. There is a particular concern for the parents of non-English or limited English speaking children in understanding and participating in school related issues. It was suggested that either Dr. Freeley or the site committees circulate a questionnaire to parents to solicit their feelings and/or concerns regarding their children's education or related school issues.

The committee talked about the possibility of shortening the term for a school board member.

It was unanimously agreed that we should begin to include refreshments at our Coalition meetings, and organize social functions as well!

The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 16th at 7:00 p.m. Donald Scarl will post the location as soon as he can.

Ronnie Lavine

December 30, 2000