Sewanhaka Superintendent’s Report: 2012 Summer Program and Back to School

The following are the remarks of Sewanhaka Central High School District Superintendent Dr. Ralph Ferrie made during the public meeting of the Sewanhaka Board of Education on Aug. 28, 2012:

Welcome back. It looks like we’re almost ready for the beginning of another wonderful school year again. On Monday, August 27, we welcomed our new faculty at our new faculty orientation which took place at the H. Frank Carey High School Library. We welcomed approximately 23 new staff members; that would include teachers and TA’s and our new administration.

The staff will return tomorrow morning, August 29 and will participate in our opening day ceremony at , which we eagerly look forward to. We have some wonderful surprises tomorrow for everyone in attendance – I’m not going to let that one out of the bag – it’s a wonderful opening day ceremony. Teachers of the year from 2012-2013 will be honored and we will also honor those district staff that have dedicated 5 years to Sewanhaka and they will be honored during the ceremony.

We are opening our doors for the 84th time and welcoming approximately 8,500 students to our five schools on Tuesday, September 4. On Thursday, August 30, we will reconvene at Sewanhaka High School for the second day of professional development at which time we will unveil the proposed APPR plan to teaching staff and we will certainly be sending that home to the board at the end of this meeting and we propose to have all of the approved by the end of September by both the board and the teachers.

In addition I would like to mention that this afternoon we had a wonderful graduation ceremony for 14 students who participated in our summer credit recovery program and are now August graduates. And that certainly enhances our graduation rate and it was very moving in seeing these students and their parents and family and students who dedicated themselves over the summer just in that last finishing requirement completed as far as to graduate.

And certainly Regina Busso I’d just like to congratulate for her efforts in terms of organizing that program this summer, following through with the students and making sure this happened. In addition, the teachers in that program and Mrs. Acevedo who oversaw that program, our coordinator for world languages did just a wonderful job in how they motivated those students and many of those students were required to attain at some of the local high schools, to take Regents exams and successfully pass those Regents exams, and two of them are challenging Regents exams, global and U.S. History, very successfully. So congratulations to them.

We had a successful summer program, approximately 300 students participated and we’ll be working with our teachers, giving the information they need for those students as they enter seventh grade and eighth grade.

Most folks have met our two newest assistant superintendents, but let me introduce them again: Denise Nystrom, she comes to us from Lynbrook, and Cherly Champ, who comes to us from up in Westchester County with the Latham School District, and both of them have, it seems like they’ve been here forever, and they started in July and it’s been a wonderful trinity to have them join our core staff.