Accused ex-mariner relinquishes license

BY ROBERT PELAEZ

A former maritime electrician surrendered his license to the U.S. Coast Guard after being accused of sexually harassing a teenage United States Merchant Marine Academy cadet in 2021, according to Newsday.

Paul Pagano, who worked on the Alliance Fairfax ship, relinquished his maritime license before hearings against Pagano began. The U.S. Coast Guard fled a complaint seeking to revoke Pagano’s license and credentials last month.

Eforts to reach Pagano or other ofcials for comment were unavailing. ministrator this year to aid English as a New Language learners, and coursework is also planned to be added for students.

The sexual harassment allegations were fled by the female cadet, who was 18 at the time, in 2021.

She identifed herself as ‘Midshipman-Y’ in the account. She said was warned by another female cadet who completed work on the Alliance Fairfax ship that the nearly all-male crew was flled with “creepy” individuals.

Midshipman-Y, in the complaint, said she endured unwanted sexual touching and advances along with sexualized jokes. Her experience was so harmful to her that she said she began to sleep in the bathroom clutching a knife.

The bathroom, she said, had the only door that could not be unlocked by other crew members who had master keys.

Midshipman-Y’s direct supervisor, the chief mate, allegedly treated her worse than other male counterparts, constantly belittling her and made her do tasks outside of her job description, according to the complaint.

Part of Mineola’s foundation aid money is planned to be used towards continuing their Northwell Health School Mental Health Partnership, a program which sees the healthcare network working “closely with the school counselors, psychologists, and social workers to help determine the needs of students in the district.”

Casale also mentioned that the district will continue to fund full-time equivalent social workers and other related additions the board has added since the pandemic.

The board is earmarked to receive $1.4 million from the American Rescue Plan Act.

The federal relief plan has certain parameters when it comes to education, including 20% to be spent on learning loss, roughly amounting to $292,540. Casale mentioned that the funds expire in 2024, but the district is on track to spend all the money it’s been granted.

“In 2021-22, we were still in the middle of COVID, and we did use some funds to purchase PPE equipment for faculty, staf and students,” Casale said. “We also hired nurse aids to assist with symptom checkers, Covid protocols… [We] ofered evening and after-school virtual sessions to assist identify achievement gaps during the 2021-22 school year.”

Casale continued on the topic of putting an emphasis on all-around support, saying, “[During the 2022-23 school year], we also did some leadership training and Professional Development for district administrators and all of our teacher leaders in the district. We also continued some of those extra support sessions at the high school after school to help with achievement gaps. And then we also did the summer literacy support, providing targeted literacy support mostly to our ENL population.”

The resolutions voted on during the meeting were all unanimously approved.

Among them was the board’s decision to enter into a fve-year contract with Nassau BOCES, for the Regional Information Centers “to furnish certain services to the district pursuant to education law.”

The contract is not to exceed $466,949.77, which is inclusive of related estimated borrowing fees plus yearly regional Information Center support.

Nagler also made a point to mention that the state government’s funding resources go into the board’s budget, with some exceptions, while federal monies are separated apart from the budget and audited separately as well.

Looking ahead, the board is looking to improve the high school building ventilation by upgrading all the unit ventilators in the high school and all classrooms, of which a large portion of their ARPA aid — $915,000 — is going towards.

“The bid came back very favorable with that,” Nagler said, “so we actually are able to do all the classrooms with this money, which we’re very happy with.”