Friday, February 5, 2021
Vol. 98, No.24
FOUNDED 1923
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Make the Right Move
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LOCALLY OWNED AND EDITED
Danielle Zan g
Li c. R. E. Sa le sp er so
O 51 6. 30 7. 94 06 M 516. 44 6.15 73
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danielle.zang re@elliman.co m
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Teen project
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Fencing fun PAGES 54-55
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What will school look like in September?
THE COOKIES ARE HERE
BY RIKKI N. MASSAND
for next fiscal year is 1.0031 ($324,097 in increase) from the 1.0040 mark in the current year. The proposed budget is the total amount of money that the district plans to spend during the year. The tax levy is the amount of money that the school district will have to raise through property taxes. (In addition to property taxes, school districts also collect revenue from other sources such as state aid.) The “tax base growth rate” number represents the chang-
With Garden City’s school district budget season underway, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Kusum Sinha noted how the allocations of funds for the next school year are tied to the unknown trajectory of the Covid-19 pandemic, and in particular the difficulties in the vaccination rollout across the nation. Garden City School Board President William Holub understands that goal is for the local district to “go back to what we had for in-school operations before the pandemic but with necessary safety protocols built around it -- from the ideas of classroom sizes, special education, services and programs, and how we intend to operate overall,” he said at the Board of Education work session, held on Tuesday, February 2nd via Zoom. Superintendent Sinha explained that the district’s goal is to restore in-person services and programs for September. “From what we are hearing from New York State, they are talking about vaccinations for students (children) before September. They are also talking about the masks as universal masking will still be in effect for September. In our secondary buildings, over the next couple of weeks we will be back to fully open however without the six feet or more of social distancing -- there will be the physical barriers in-place. We will have to see just how we function with those barriers and seeing logistically how we operate. I am confident that we will be able to do that well,” Superintendent Sinha said. Board President Holub asked Dr. Sinha to confirm with the schools planning on returning more students to in-person instruction over the coming weeks, “social distancing of six feet” does not represent a magic number. The superintendent then provided more context for Garden City Schools’ reopening. “In what we receive from the County Department of Health, the distancing is one of the first questions we are asked. There are other medical journals and experts that have examined the issues and suggested it could be three feet instead of six feet, calling the total measuring into question. What the New York State Education Department told school districts, that we must abide by, is that if you don’t have physical distancing of six feet between each desk or students’ workspace then you must have barriers. That too is something we asked
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See page 41
Garden City’s Girl Scouts took delivery last week of pallet loads of cookies destined for local families. See page 28 Photo by Regina Moran
School district kicks off budget season with increase under 1% BY RIKKI N. MASSAND The Garden City School Districty’s budget development process for the coming 2021-22 school year has commenced, even as many uncertainties remain related to the pandemic. The series of budget meetings planned for coming months kicked off this week with an introductory presentation of budgeting and projected revenues for the 17 months ahead. Garden City Superintendent of Schools Dr. Kusum Sinha made a
presentation to the Board of Education on Tuesday, February 2nd to introduce district revenue projections, ‘budget drivers’ and priorities for academic year, which technically begins on July 1st. As proposed, Garden City Public Schools would have a budget increase below one percent. The proposed budget is $122,054,937, an increase over this year of 0.94% ($1,141,797). For the upcoming school year the projected Tax Levy will be 0.84% or $878,645 while the Tax Base Growth Factor
Student reaches out to help business PAGE 8 Finding love in all the right places PAGE 31