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Friday, September 22, 2017
Vol. 77, No. 38
Syosset superintendent addresses bias graffiti
JERICHO HS HOMECOMING COURT
BY RIKKI N. MASSAND
Jericho High School held a pep rally on September 15 to kick off its annual Homecoming celebration. Above are members of the Homecoming Court.
District plans sessions on construction projects BY RIKKI N. MASSAND
This fall Syosset Central School district plans to host a series of public information sessions and meetings in an effort to keep all members of the Syosset/Woodbury community aware of ongoing Phase I infrastructure projects and the coming Phase II projects. The school district’s capital plan, involving $7.7 million in infrastructure needs for Phase I, is underway and partially complete. Along with the typical groundwork for changes came a communication initiative. The district worked with a committee of parents to make sure that various groups of the community are reached through electronic, print, advertised and readily accessible information.
At the Syosset Board of Education one year ago, September 19, 2016, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Thomas Rogers delivered a comprehensive overview of longrange facilities’ planning for the district’s physical plant, ten school buildings which all approached 60 years old in the past few years. At that same meeting, the board of education had approved the infamous Woodbury property sale (adjacent to Walt Whitman Elementary) to developer Basser-Kaufman. After a community uproar over planned development and impacts on schools, quality of life and traffic, the board rescinded the sale and Syosset Schools paid the developer $125,000 for inconvenience. At the heart of the problem was a lack of community input stemming from inadequate
notice of the proposal, residents argued and convinced the school board. “Last September I gave a very lengthy PowerPoint presentation to the board. In the time since then we’ve taken on some of our work and we broke the projects down into phases. In May our district’s voters approved bonding of projects. I will remind everyone what the projects consist of and what the next steps are for our facilities,” Rogers announced at the Monday, September 18 board meeting. He spoke about ways to be proactive on informing the community after the lessons of last year. “We collected information about people in Syosset/Woodbury who are not necessarily See page 18
On Monday night September 18, Syosset Superintendent of Schools Dr. Thomas Rogers stated a question on many residents and school district leaders’ minds: “How do we as a community move forward and learn from this incident?” Back on Sunday morning August 27 a school security officer discovered that the walls, doors and windows of Syosset High School, were sprayed-painted with anti-Semitic graffiti that included swastikas. The “MS-13” gang initials were also spray-painted on the school. Rogers told the Board of Education and about 50 residents in the audience that in the last three weeks his office fielded questions about security within the school district and at each of its facilities. The authority handling further investigation is the Nassau County Police Department. Rogers’ brief comments this week come at the first regular school board meeting since the late August incident. “We take what happened very seriously and we are pursuing it very aggressively. But what we have not been doing is pursuing it publicly because this is an ongoing investigation by Nassau County Police. When the community is asking for updates about this, the answer is because it is not our district investigation. When it comes time for an announcement that will not come from the school district, it will come from the Nassau County Police Department,” Dr. Rogers said. He adds that the board, personnel and administrators in the district cannot say anything at this time as some information could jeopardize the police’s ongoing investigation. “I can understand how that might create some frustrations in terms of communication from the district,” he said, referencing the statements made in a letter distributed to the community and district parents at the end of August. At the September 18 meeting, School Board President Dr. Michael Cohen spoke about the board of education’s interactions with 1,600 of Syosset teachers and staff during Superintendent’s Conference Days prior to Labor Day. He learned of illuminating details about perceived race relations in Syosset. “It was a very moving day coming right on the heels of these events. Something that came up to me during the discussions after the incident was that we have parents in the community that do not think this is an attack on diversity in our district. It is shocking to hear this. Much more See page 18
New business teaches video design PAGE 3 Schools open for Syosset students PAGE 4