Friday, January 18, 2019
Vol. 95, No.17
FOUNDED 1923
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LOCALLY OWNED AND EDITED
Queen of Hearts PAGE 16 n Will Sing For Food PAGE 8
Garden City School District aims for even higher marks
SWIMMING TO VICTORY
By Rikki N. Massand
The GCHS Boys Swim and Dive team beat Long Beach 105-80 at a recent meet. See pages 60-61
County Exec. talks taxes at Democratic Club BY RIKKI N. MASSAND On Thursday night, January 10 Nassau County Executive Laura Curran made an appearance at the village’s senior center on Golf Club Lane, just a few blocks down from her county offices off of Franklin Avenue. To kick off 2019 the Garden City Democratic Club and its membership hosted Curran as part of its monthly speaker series. The series will continue at the senior center on Valentine’s Day, Thursday
February 14 as Garden City resident and Town of Hempstead Clerk Sylvia Cabana will be the featured speaker on “renewing your wedding vows.” In Garden City, Curran shared some highlights of the speech she would deliver the next morning (January 11) in front of the Long Island Association. First she was met by a crowd of 45 attendees and a truck parked across the senior center, idling in the Lord & Taylor parking lot and carrying an illuminated sign that read “Laura Curran is driving
seniors out of Nassau County.” Topics discussed at the club meeting touched on several quality of life and affordability issues for county residents, and chief among them was the reassessment of properties that many homeowners will be impacted by in the near future. Curran explained the freeze on assessments during the Mangano administration after the program was started and not finished on time, and assessments remained at their “Recession-era levels.” See page 45
At the Garden City Board of Education work session held Tuesday January 8, the Board considered ways to enhance the K through 12 experience and better prepare students for their future. Dr. Edward Cannone, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, said Garden City Public Schools can benefit from conversations on the Student Achievement Report each year. “Looking inward is really important as we are not perfect, yet we achieve excellent results compared with ourselves year-to-year -- compared to our comparator districts and especially compared with New York State averages. This makes me proud to be part of our work in progress,” Cannone said. Parent of three and PTA volunteer Lauren Kennedy listened to the administration’s reflections that followed, and during public comment she told the school board how much she values its “authentic dialogue and discussions” that were rooted in data and real-world priorities. Garden City High School Principal Nanine McLaughlin said the single biggest improvement that GCUFSD should focus on is working with children in the district to develop better resilience and grit, which will ultimately allow them to become more comfortable failing in some endeavor or “failing forward.” School Board President Angela Heineman called this concept the development of a life skill, as McLaughlin explained what she’s seen at GCHS. “We are still struggling with resilience and grit. That whole struggle is hard to cope with as you want kids to try things and find success, ‘you are not good at every single thing.’ Kids need to be comfortable with that and they need to be persistent. Somewhere in middle school or high school it becomes worrying over their grades…. It is sometimes an uphill battle to develop, and part of it is that kids wouldn’t think ‘yes, it could be better to get my head knocked in a little bit here, while I’m still in high school and staying at home with mom and dad who love me and support me, while I am able to get extra help at high school every day, rather than while I’m away in college and my education is costing thousands and I do not have that support,” she said.
Math + statistics success
School Board Trustee William Holub asked about the ways Garden City High School supports its students who perform “somewhere in the middle” of their grade and how GCHS fosters See page 44
Girl Scout Troop 1242 visits LI Science Museum PAGE 51 WPOA hosts Laura Gillen at general meeting PAGE 30