NHP-GCP Superintendent’s Report: Reward Schools and Capital Projects

The following are the remarks of New Hyde Park-Garden City Park Superintendent Robert Katulak made during the public meeting of the NHP-GCP Board of Education on July 2, 2012:

We had a smooth closing of school at all four buildings and we sent our students on their way for a safe and hopefully a reading filled summer vacation.

We have extremely good news: we were notified by the New York State Department of Education that out of 4,520 schools in the state, they selected 230 schools as “Reward Schools.” We had three schools in our district get that designation for high-performing student achievement from New York State test score data over the past couple of years. Those schools are , and ; all have received this designation. We are very proud of the principals and the teachers for all their hard work leading our students to excellence and we want to thank our entire instructional staff for their embracing and implementing of all the educational innovations that we have asked them to assume from central office.

Our entire administrative staff completed two days of additional training on the which is the Danielson rubric along with the administrative staff from Floral Park–Bellerose and Franklin Square. This is another example of how our districts are entering into partnerships and collaborating in order to save money.

Our summer school special education, English as a Second Language Learner and Kindergarten Readiness reading programs began today as did our summer recreation camp. We wish all the students and the staff involved in these programs a safe and productive experience. We are continuing to negotiate contracts with various bargaining units in an attempt to reach fair settlements in these fiscally challenging times.

Our capital reserve projects at all four schools is now well underway at each site since the closing of school. For those of you in the public we have added a link to our homepage on the district website that gives you all of the project bids as well as the budgets that were awarded in each phase of the project’s money allowance. These projects, if you recall, when they went to your vote, were bid out into phase ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ depending on the projected and actual cost and all that information is online. We are also including timelines for the completion of the projects and we’re posting before, during and after pictures so that you can stay current with what work is going on. Most of the nurse’s office has been demolished, our bathrooms at Manor Oaks, locker rooms at Garden City Park, IST rooms at Garden City Park, the library at the New Hyde Park Road School, all that demolition has taken place, now they’re cleaning it up and then they’re going to start to rebuild.

Tonight we reestablished our policies, programs and the positions of board officers for the upcoming year. We want to continue to invite you to attend our monthly board meetings, to stay connected and when that’s not possible, please check the website for updates.