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UNIONDALE _____________
HERALD BEACON
Reflecting on a great leader
Making a beautiful noise
Knights are off to a fast start
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JANUARY 11 - 17, 2024
School district is focused on growth in 2024 By REINE BETHANY rbethany@liherald.com
Holden Leeds/Herald
Rosita Orellana, far left, Addie Blanco-Harvey, Juana Hernandez, Monica Linares, Iris Granados and Estrella Olivares-Orellana all put hands and hearts to work making pupusas at a meeting of the Latina Mentoring Initiative in Uniondale last Saturday.
Pupusas, tradition, pride, giving with Latina Mentoring Initiative By REINE BETHANY rbethany@liherald.com
In the brightly lit Yellow Room cafeteria at Uniondale High School, a cluster of women and teen girls watched Juana Hernandez’s swift hands knead warm water into fine cornmeal, creating a thick dough called masa. It was a deceptively simple start to a morning of nutrition, tradition and supportive fellowship at a meeting of the Latina Mentoring Initiative last Saturday. Businesswoman Addie Blanco-Harvey, a Uniondale Board of Education trustee of Salvadoran heritage, was leading the day’s meeting, which she called, “Bonding through the art of making Salvadoran pupusas.” Now Blanco-Harvey stood with Hernandez and Rosita Orellana, two Salvadoran women who are staff members at Uniondale High. Blanco-Harvey narrated the process — and the meaning — of making pupusas, the filled flatbread of El Salvador. “Just this process itself, from making the
salsa to filling the masa, takes about three hours,” she said. Pupusas pack protein, complex carbohydrates and vegetables into cozy griddle cakes meant to be consumed companionably, sitting around a table with friends. A common street food in Salvadoran cities, the pupusa was proclaimed the national dish of El Salvador in 2005. They are an important national export, and nowadays most U.S metropolitan areas are dotted with pupuserías — restaurants whose specialty is pupusas. Once the masa had been kneaded, BlancoHarvey led the group into the cafeteria kitchen, where Hernandez’s and Orellana’s skilled hands pinched the dough into circles, added palmfuls of bean-and-cheese filling (with or without meat), and deftly flattened the nutritious balls into pancakes destined for a hot griddle. When ready to eat, the hot pupusas are traditionally laid on a plate, topped with a spicy cabbage slaw called curtido, and moistened COntInUEd On pAGE 16
Every spring, third- through eighth-grade students in New York sit for a series of stategenerated exams in English Language Arts and math. Every student in each grade answers the same questions as every other student in that grade across the state. The purpose is to assess whether students are learning the material in the state curriculum. But what do these test scores actually reveal? According to Monique Darrisaw-Akil, superintendent of the Uniondale school district, the results should not be viewed as if they were college entrance exams. They are not a summation of a student’s potential, but more like a timed lap in a runner’s training. “State tests are one part of the story,” Darrisaw-Akil said. “We use them to help us assess where students are on their learning journey right now — and to help ourselves think about what we can do to move them to a more proficient place in their journey.” Matthew Ritter, the district’s assistant superintendent for data, assessment and accountability, detailed what happens
wh e n t h e t e s t s c o re s a re released. “We examine the state test data with the understanding that it’s only one piece of a much richer picture,” Ritter said. “We have other tools that will help us get a much more detailed picture and plan more acutely for student learning. For example, we use i-Ready” — an online assessment program — “to assess students periodically in reading and math throughout the school year.” Taking reading as an example, Ritter said, “We do an i-Ready assessment in fall, winter and spring, which gives us a picture of student g rowth across the year in seven different areas of reading, including phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary and comprehension. Teachers use the assessments to help plan their instructions.” “We also use Fountas and Pinnell for benchmarking reading levels in early grades,” Darrisaw-Akil added, referring to the literacy-focused website for teachers and administrators. “Direct demonstrations of student ability when they produce projects are also important. We are constantly monitoring our students’ progress. We don’t COntInUEd On pAGE 16