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Friday, February 17, 2017
Vol. 77, No. 7
LEARNING ABOUT JUDAISM
For Syosset Schools, plans for increased community outreach BY RIKKI N. MASSAND
50 participants from the Jericho Jewish Center gathered at 9:00 am on Super Bowl Sunday to learn about Tefillan (black boxes we put on our arms and heads which contain teachings from the Bible). This is part of a national effort to teach how to wear this ritual item and its practicality in our everyday lives. It was geared towards students in Grades 5-7 to learn how to wear the Tefillan before their Bar Mitzvahs. The event was followed by a wonderful breakfast, which everyone enjoyed.
LI artist honored by Hall of Fame BY GARY SIMEONE
Mort Kuntsler, a famous artist and resident of Oyster Bay, will have his latest work unveiled and put on display at the Baseball Hall of Fame and the White House. The painting which depicts soldiers during the Civil War playing baseball on the White House South Lawn will also be on display this month in Huntington at the Heckscher Museum of Art and on the February cover of the Saturday Evening Post.
Kuntsler said he committed hours of painstaking research in finding historically correct images to make sure his painting was an accurate description of the event. “It was like detective work,” said Kuntsler. “All my life I’ve been doing this sort of thing and the authenticity is part of the fun of it.” Dr. Michael Schantz, Executive Director of Heckscher Museum of Art, said that he was elated to have the famous artSee page 8
The Syosset Board of Education and school administration have made it very apparent that they learned a lesson in communications and perspectives from the recent uproar over the Woodbury property sale to developer Basser Kaufman, which was officially retracted by a board vote at its January 25 meeting. The district will have to pay the developer $125,000 as part of a negotiated settlement, but strengthening the community’s trust is now at the forefront of all budget and school investment-related priorities, presentations and outreach this spring. “No one in district administration or anyone in favor of this project (the sale and Basser Kaufman’s original plans for the property) was trying to put up a group of stores near Walt Whitman Elementary and in residents’ backyards and sneak it in overnight. That’s just not the way Syosset Schools functions. I support getting the community together and revisiting things and ideas but it has to be the whole community. Should another discussion on the property come to fruition, it will involve the entire community,” Dr. Michael Cohen, the school board’s president, said on January 25 at a packed school board meeting at Harry B. Thompson Middle School. Cohen added a word of caution to over 150 residents in attendance then, saying that for notice of public forums and major district issues it isn’t the responsibility of school board trustees to go door-to-door in Syosset and Woodbury to make every resident aware. “We’ll figure out the communication aspects of it and get it right, but there’s a role on both sides,” he said last month. For Syosset district administration there’s a new initiative underway. On February 13 at the school board’s meeting, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Thomas Rogers said that he’s instructed Peggy Grasso, Syosset Central Schools’ coordinator of educational services, “to acquire the email addresses or other means of contacting every homeowners’ association or senior living community/complex within the district.” He also announced meetings with leaders of homeowners’ groups and senior citizens’ complexes and associations scheduled for the next six weeks. “We are trying to make sure that as we go through all the facilities work and a timeframe for it, the seniors will have opportunities to participate in this process along with everyone else in our community. We will continue our many communications with the PTA’s and the parents and children. (Deputy Superintendent) Adele Bovard has put together a district group of key communicators with us, representatives of the PTA in every school building, and we have been asking them for their suggestions on how we can do more communications of our ideas with our facilities plan,” Rogers said. New collaborations and outreach from school administration include the first ever Chinese-English Town Hall, scheduled for Friday evening March 17 at H. B. Thompson Middle School. Dr. Rogers will be speaking and taking questions from community members, some that will be prepared ahead of the event and some in an open dialogue. The Chinese and English statements will be translated for all See page 8
Syosset robotics teams unite to win PAGE 4 “The Singing Bus Driver” at Berry Hill PAGE 6