NHP-GCP Board of Ed Notebook: November 26

The New Hyde Park-Garden City Park Board of Education held a meeting on Monday, November 26. Here are some of the things you may have missed.

Korean Parents Organization and Guild Award

• Superintendent Robert Katulak was recently the recipient of an award from the Korean Parents Organization and Guild.
• “Each year they select one or two educators for the work that they do with the Asian community,” Katulak said, “and this year I was very humbled to get the award, it was a lovely ceremony, it was a whole afternoon, a series of affairs, they had Korean food demonstrations, dancing, singing, a man dressed in his native Korean costume presented me with a beautiful wooden plaque and a bouquet of roses. So I was very humbled for your outreach and making all your Asian – especially your Korean students – feel welcome, as well as their parents.”

Auditor’s Report

• The board approved the  and management letter for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012 from R.S. Abrams.
• “They fund no inconsistencies with anything,” board president Ernest Gentile said. “As she said, ‘unremarkable,’ there was nothing there that they could see and even the one that they said they found last year – implementing the point-of-sale service for lunch, that’s the only thing they found last year – and we already implemented that, which by the way, does keep the costs down associated with these audit reports as well. The district is so clean with these audit reports they reduce the dollar costs. All the budget builders when they start this whole process, it all seamlessly fits together and makes our district look good. They told us that they never had a district like this, ever.”

Donations

The board accepted the following donations:

• $1,390 and $1,200 from the Manor Oaks School PTA for Arithmetickles; $167.58 to the Hillside Grade School from Target’s Take Charge of Education; $3,170 from the Manor Oaks School PTA for the Peter and the Wolf Assembly.
• “Basically it’s part of the cultural arts that they’re bringing in for the students,” superintendent Katulak said of the Arithmetickles program. “Most of their fundraising now is going towards their cultural arts program and they’re supplying a lot of different great programs for the kids.” Added board vice-president Joseph Bongiorno: “that’s a significant, very generous donation.”
• The New Hyde Park Elks Lodge #2107 also donated a dictionary to each third grade student, which will be presented during an assembly through the Elks National Dictionary Project. “They do this every year, they supply the students with dictionaries,” board president Ernest Gentile said, “and in these days of these handheld devices it’s nice to have that paper product there. You know, when the lights go out the power doesn’t work you actually have something to look up a word because Wikipedia is not always correct,” Gentile said.

Personnel

• The board approved several additional payments to staff at the Garden City Park School, including to an a.m. door monitor, student council moderator, AED Coverage for the 2012-13 school year and a half-time reading teacher mentor. The teachers conduct their extra work either before or after school. “It’s for 21 sessions,” superintendent Katulak said of the AED monitor. “It’s to be on call in the event that God forbid, somebody had the AED.”
• A total of 27 inactive civil service employees, 11 substitute teacher aides, 9 substitute cleaners, two security aides and one substitute nurse were removed from the district’s non-instructional employment rolls. The persons listed had not worked in the district for a number of years.

Fundraisers

The following PTA fundraisers were approved for the 2012-13 school year:

• Manor Oaks School:
  • American Red Cross – Game Show Night
  • Birthday Wishes – Pencil Grams
  • Birthday Wishes – Birthday Parties for Homeless Children Toys for Tots
  • Community Housing Innovations
  • Turkey Trot
• Hillside Grade School:
  • American Heart Association – Jump Rope for Heart Program Multi Cultural Show
  • Family Portrait Night
  • Holiday Plant Sale
  • St. Jude Math-a-thon
  • Yankee Candle Sale
• New Hyde Park Road School:
  • Island Harvest – Hurricane Sandy Relief
  • St. Jude Math-a-thon
  • Student Council Hurricane Sandy Relief Buckets – New Hyde Park Road School Concert
  • New Hyde Park Road School Community Hurricane Sandy Relief per grade level

Contracts

The board approved the following contracts:

• The district approved contracts with the Henry Viscardi School and a Nationwide Instruction for Cardiovascular Education Service Agreement for the 2012-13 school year.
• Manor Oaks School: Encore Performing Arts; Arithmetickles show; two Notre Dame clinic teachers; district piano tuner and a class trip for Manor Oaks students to the Green Meadow Farm Colonial Farmhouse. Regarding Notre Dame, the district bus the kids over to the school a few years ago “We started the process where they are doing it on their site,” Katulak said. “The only kids who failed to meet their state benchmarks that they have in their district.”
• An emergency contract with Henrich Equipment was approved for the installation, repair and maintenance of fuel oil storage tank leak detection. Two emergency transportation contracts with Dell Transportation from October 23-24 and from October 25 forward as well as a developmental disabilities contract with Sewanhaka were approved.

Other Board News

• The district will donate its surplus milk that was not used during the emergency school closing in the wake of Hurricane Sandy to non-profit organizations.
• Due to Hurricane Sandy, the annual school Christmas concerts have been rescheduled to the following dates: New Hyde Park Road School – December 6; Manor Oaks – December 12; Garden City Park School – December 18; Hillside Grade School – December 19. All concerts are at 7 p.m. and are free to attend.

The next meeting of the NHP-GCP Board of Education will be on Monday, December 10 at 8 p.m. at the Manor Oaks School.