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Friday, February 10, 2017
Vol. 77, No. 6
THE YEAR OF THE ROOSTER
Jericho presentation on health, wellness Guidance Dept. initiative BY RIKKI N. MASSAND
On Sunday, January 29th, the Jericho Public Library celebrated the Year of the Rooster with internationally acclaimed acrobat Li Liu. Adults and children of all ages enjoyed this spectacular performance!
Syosset Library celebrates Chinese New Year this weekend
On Saturday, February 11, from 2 to 3:30 pm the Syosset Public Library will help the community turn out to celebrate Chinese New Year with a special dose of cultural education plus arts and crafts, tailored for the youngest students in the area. Chinese New Year officially started on January 28. With very well-attended a performance extravaganza Saturday, February 4 held at Syosset High School and again this weekend at the library, momentum continues to be built on. Local parent Cindy Lin of the Chinese American Association of Syosset
(CAAS) advises that the 2017 Chinese New Year Children’s program will be held on the last day of the 2 week New Year’s holiday, called the Lantern (or Yuan Xiao) Festival, February the 11th. The event has gained so much attention after registration opened on January 19 that to date 13 kids have been waitlisted. In the past Syosset library hosted the Chinese New Year show as in 2016, when it attracted over 150 attendees. This year’s February 4 at Syosset High’s theater carried seating for 750 people, with nearly a full-house. The event See page 19
At its work session on Thursday, February 2, one week before the second budget-centric school board meeting, Jericho Public Schools’ administration and board of education listened to and engaged in talks on the evolution of guidance, social work and the student population’s needs. As part of the process at hand, Jericho administrators will request that at its February 9 meeting the school board approve a recommendation to establish a new Director of Guidance position and appropriate funds to hire a candidate. Superintendent of Schools Hank Grishman says the conversation starts with managing and assisting students and families under stress, and the role of the guidance division of Jericho Schools. This week presented an opportunity to tell the school board about programs and staff development within guidance, identify concerns and district needs, and how decisions can set a better agenda for all parties involved. John Castronova, Jericho Schools’ director for pupil personnel services, said encouraging Jericho’s students to be involved and do as much as they can in the school community remains a top goal, along with envisioning and assisting long-term (postsecondary) success. He says a proactive approach was formulated as Jericho Schools started shifting away from an individual student’s relationship into preventative measures and reaching out to larger groups, breaking a silent stigma of “students who are in crisis counseling.” “We looked at what we could do district-wide to put things in place for being preventive and providing students with the tools they need. The
culture of the district is its culture and we are not trying to change that. The last few years the collective effort has started out with the high school and the Mindfulness Ambassador Council (J-MAC, hosted Wednesdays in Room 126), a part-time thing at first, and I thought the concept was a great one. That’s just one example of opening things up to a broader audience,” Castronova said. Todd Benjamin is a social worker (LSCW) who has 31 years of experience working with Jericho Schools. He has served primarily as the social worker, crisis prevention specialist, and substance abuse counselor at Jericho High School. He says six years ago Jericho’s social work and guidance staff started seeing more stress at the high school level and in the world in general, relaying statistics that 1 in six students does have some form of mental health disorders. “We have to start thinking about a universal approach – when I first got here it was like a clinic and we’d see 20 kids a week. They would come for appointments and leave, and while we were helpful to them we knew there were hundreds of kids we weren’t reaching,” Benjamin said. Danielle Largotta-Smith, psychologist with the high school, said in recent years Jericho staff had child study team meetings that went in-depth. At one of them Jill Rathus, Ph.D from the Center for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and LIU-C.W. Post professor spoke to guidance counselors. Some of those conversations covered self-injurious behavior and eating disorders, but underpinnings of the therapies involved could be applied to helping the general student body. Out of that See page 20
International Night at Berry Hill School PAGE 21 Synagogue celebrates Rabbi installation PAGE 3