North Merrick BOE Announces Completion of Capital Improvement Projects

While the North Merrick Board of Education’s first meeting of the 2012-2013 school year signified a joyful beginning to yet another year of molding young minds, it was also marked by a solemn remembrance of the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001.

Superintendent of Schools David S. Feller started Monday's meeting at Fayette by reading a poem entitled “One,” followed by a moment of silence for those lost on that day 11 years ago, as well as an overview of the District’s commemorative programs.

Once the meeting began, Feller praised the completion of the District’s 2012 Capital Improvement Projects, a $1.2 million dollar renovation of several of the district’s buildings overseen by Director of School Facilities James Saitta.

“I want to congratulate Mr. Saitta on getting all that work done on a timely basis. We’re ready to roll,” Feller said. “It was a lot of work, and I’m sure the public has seen the work done on each of our three schools. A lot of work went into the bathrooms, addressing drainage issues, parking and traffic congestion issues. During the first week of school, it was wonderful to hear all the positive feedback from the parents.”

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Feller also spoke on the opening week of classes, and how pleased he was with how the easily the North Merrick District slipped into the 2012-2013 school year.

“We did have a very smooth opening of school,” he said. “I want to thank our three principals for all the work that was done over the summer to get ready, as well as our administrative team and clerical staff, and teachers. It was work well done, and I saw a lot happy children on the first day, and that was great.”

Another positive announcement by Feller at the meeting was that each the District’s three schools had been listed as “high achieving” schools by New York State.

“This is quite remarkable," he said. "This is based on testing data from the past two years. There are only 101 elementary schools in all of New York State that were listed as high achieving, and we have three out of 101, which is pretty good.”

Presentations were also given to the Board and audience regarding remedial reading programs held by the District over the summer, as well as efforts to develop the District’s math curriculum to fall into line with New York State-mandated Common Core standards.

Beth Friedman, Lisa Drewes and Shila Kuschner outlined the research they had conducted regarding the amendment of the math curriculum and the final outcome they hoped to achieve to ensure the success of the children of the North Merrick School District.

“We wanted to prepare ourselves with activities that the children could learn from and improve in different areas,” Friedman said. “We were really so fortunate this summer to have the opportunity to learn together, look at the studies we conducted, internalize them and develop concepts in math that would be meaningful to all the students.”

The next meeting of the North Merrick Board of Education is scheduled for Oct. 9 at 8 p.m.