Herricks Board of Ed Notebook - Dec. 9, 2010

The Herricks Board of Education held a meeting on Thursday, Dec. 9. Here are some of the things you may have missed.

Fans in School Gyms

The district has decided to install fans in each of the elementary school gymnasiums in lieu of the air conditioning units originally proposed under the 2008 bond. “We feel at this point  that this is something we’re going to move ahead and do,” Board President Christine Turner said.

The original air conditioning units were not installed due to higher than anticipated estimates and concern over the structural integrity of the roofs, which would have to be reinforced in order to support the weight of the air conditioning units. The cost for the fans is $3,800 per school for each of the elementary schools. The same number of fans would be installed in each building, with the number split between the two gyms at the Searingtown School. Superintendent John Bierwirth anticipates the project being completed before “middle spring” or at by the end of spring break in April at the latest.

Donations

The board accepted a $10,000 grant from the Asia Society of New York to be used in connection with The Confucius Classrooms Network. The District will receive a grant of up to $10,000 a year for up to three years from the Asia Society in connection with the Confucius Classrooms Network. This is the second payment. The money is used to promote Chinese language instruction.

The board accepted a gift of $1,749 from the Herricks Athletics Boosters for the purchase of a camcorder to be used at Herricks athletic events. Scoreboards recently donated by the Boosters are currently being installed at the high school. Also, work on the softball and baseball fields paid for by a grant is also underway.

Three donations in the amounts of $4,000 each ($12,000 total) were made to the district from the Herricks Indo US Community for the purchase of an iPad for the “iPad Project” at Searingtown School, four computers for the Denton Avenue School library and an electric keyboard/ piano and iPads for the Center Street School.  “It really feels good to give,” Jonai Singh of Manhasset Hills, President of the Herricks Indo-US Community, said “because the public education is seriously challenged and earlier this year the budget was reduced by $800,000 and there was a line in there which was technology and musical instruments. It’s almost like giving a portion of that line back to our children.”

Policies

Revisions were made to the following board policies: Board of Education Meetings, School Board Agenda Preparation and Dissemination, Accounting of Fixed Assets. A first reading was held of a new policy entitled “Electronic Banking.”

The changes were recommended by the Eerie County BOCES, which keeps track of reports and court decisions issued by the New York State Comptroller’s office in accordance with school audits and findings conducted on various school districts in the state. Herricks subscribes to the newsletter issued by Eerie BOCES in order to keep track of these changes and in preparation of State audits conducted on all school districts in the state.

Other News

Herricks senior diver Nicole Diver finished in second place in the New York State diving competition by only two points.

Congratulations went out to Herricks’ conference champion girls volleyball team.  The team also received Nassau County Conference AA sportsmanship award.
The Herricks High School chamber orchestra and chamber choir were invited to perform at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center on Dec. 19 as part of the Harmony for Peace concert. They were joined by the West Point Military Band and the Little Stars Girls Choir of Croatia.  They were also greeted by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

A special education contract was approved with the Port Washington School District for nonresident tuition for the 2010-11 school year.

The next meeting of the Herricks Board of Education will be on Thursday, Jan. 6 at 7:15 p.m. at the .