______________ VALLEY STREAM _____________
HERALD Dever hosts STEAM Night
Blakeman wants armed civilians
Village organizes leadership
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Vol. 35 No. 16
APRIl 11 - 17, 2024
$1.00
V.S. 24 renews search for diverse teachers By JUAN lASSo jlasso@liherald.com
Juan Lasso/Herald
danica Jovel, Maia arce and Walter Jovel, on the front lawn of the Waldinger Memorial Library, marvel at Monday’s solar eclipse.
Villagers gather for a unique, historic lesson in astronomy By JUAN lASSo jlasso@liherald.com
For Jeanette Azzaretto, Science Department Chair at Valley Stream South High School, it was the celestial event of the year, the astronomical Super Bowl. On Monday, the moon prog ressively wedged itself between the Earth and the sun, mostly obscuring, briefly, the glowing disk of our nearest star and casting its shadow across a swath of North America. Down below, in Valley Stream, informal viewing parties, like the one Azzaretto
planned on the South High football field bleachers, materialized throughout the village and beyond. “I’m not going to lie, I have lost sleep over the weather,” Azzaretto said, adding that she had prayed that the viewing conditions would be ideal. Indeed, they were. Apart from a few puffs of clouds, there was a bright blue sky. By around noon, a sign was posted at the Waldinger Memorial Library telling patrons that it had run out of free eclipse-viewing glasses. Residents who had managed to nab a Continued on page 10
leadership.” Pent-up demand for more minority teachers in 2020 soon led to the creation of a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee, the first of its kind in the district. However, the ostensible lack of considerable progress concerning one of the group’s founding goals—diversifying the teaching staff—has pushed Karakas to try new ways of recruiting minority talent.
For years, local education policy experts have lamented an ongoing trend that while Long Island’s student population is becoming increasingly ethnically and racially diverse, the same cannot be said for the Island’s teaching staff. I t ’s a s e r i o u s problem for administrators like Valley Stream District 24 A new playbook in Superintendent diversity hiring Unal Karakas, who “I’ve done a lot oversees a district of reflecting on where roughly 87 this,” he said, who, percent of students UNAl KARAKAS Superintendent, as of press time, a re s t u d e n t s o f told the Herald he color, according to Valley Stream will be sending the latest state edu- District 24 himself to Washingcation data, but ton D.C. to attend a only a fraction of career recruitment fair at one teachers are non-White. “Our students come from so of America’s best-known histormany different backgrounds, so ically black colleges: Howard many different religions, and University. There, he plans on shaking different subgroups of learners, such as students with disabili- hands, exchanging business ties,” said Karakas. “Having cards, and showing a friendly diversity reflected in our teach- face to scores of educational job ing force allows students to, you candidates, making the case for know, see themselves in those why they should join the staff that are in our classrooms or Continued on page 5
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