Minutes January 30, 2013

Date:

January 30, 2013

Time:

8:15 p.m.

Place:

Horace Greeley High School

Present:

Board of Education
Victoria Tipp, President
Alyson Gardner Kiesel, Vice President
Karen Visser
Randall Katchis
Jeffrey Mester

Staff Members
Present:

Dr. Lyn McKay, Superintendent

Mr. Eric Byrne, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum

Mr. Andrew Selesnick, Assistant Superintendent for Leadership, and Instruction

Mr. John Chow, Assistant Superintendent for Business

Theresa Markley, District Clerk / Adm. Asst. to Superintendent

Visitors Present:

Representatives of the Chappaqua PTA, school PTAs, building administrators, faculty, and other interested citizens.

President Tipp called the meeting to order at 6:15 p.m. The Retreat will be rescheduled. Alyson Kiesel moved to enter into Executive Session for the purpose of discussion of labor negotiations. Karen Visser seconded. The motion passed unanimously. Alyson Kiesel moved to adjourn the executive session. Karen Visser seconded. The motion passed unanimously.

President Tipp moved to reconvene the public session at 8:25 p.m. Alyson Kiesel seconded. The motion passed unanimously.

President Tipp welcomed the community, students, and parents. She announced that tonight we talk about all the hard work that our students do. Dr. Mckay welcomed them also and turned to Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum Eric Byrne and Horace Greeley Principal Robert Rhodes to begin the presentations.

Presentation:

Students Talk About Learning

Mr. Byrne declared this a terrific night because we often talk about planning and designing programs, but we don't often hear how the students feel about the programs and the impact they have on them. Our students have had some extraordinary accomplishments. Let me introduce:

NehaGupta - Field Hockey, Tennis Field Hockey Golden Dozen Award

Brent Lobian - Football, Wrestling National Football Foundation Scholar-Athlete Golden Dozen

Scott Wymbs - Wrestling Holder of HG wrestling record for most wins 118 ... and counting

Each student recreated their own experiences with hard work, team work and success through sports. They learned to manage time, worked through problems including family relationships, and developed skills to be stronger and able to push themselves farther.

Math competitions - Math teacher George Benack is the coach for the all female math team, that has been competing in the New York Math League and spoke in glowing terms of their accomplishments.

Team: Maya Anand, Jiayi Peng, Alexandra Medway, Aparna Nathan, Amy Wang are now in first place.

They explained the types of problems utilized in the math contests. Every year the competition includes a real world question such as in Moody's Mega Math Challenge 2012. The query was which high speed rail lines are most reliable, which city presents best location, and use math to determine if the rail system is feasible and practical to continue to be built. Criteria includes the need to know how people think, response to traffic and trends and then represent that with numbers. The team offered an optimistic point of view. The girls brought all of their own real life experiences, different backgrounds, and used their strengths to synthesize different points to collaborate on one paper. They used good research and interdisciplinary skills.

Science research - Science teacher Trudy Wesler provided some background on the three year program. In freshmen year students are interviewed. Work begins in sophomore year to find a topic of interest and a mentor. The second year is more research and senior year preparation for competition.

Jiayi Peng, Sara McElheny, and Sasha Zemsky

Sara McElheny - Sara's project was on student stress, utilizing surveys from 192 freshmen students

Jiayi Peng - Jiayi's project was entered in the Siemens competition. She studied the healthy vs non-healthy brain building in computer science. She learned self-confidence and perseverance by dealing with rejection from adults who did not want to mentor, and peer review process with lots of critiques.

Sasha Zemsky - Sasha performed research on Parkinson's disease using fruit flies. She learned that if the experiment doesn't work out as expected, it may be the hypothesis is incorrect.

1.

Information

Questions and Comments

2.

Organization

3.

Approvals

4.

Recommended Action: Personnel

Dr. McKay made the following recommendations.

5.

Recommended Action: Other

6.

Facilities

Jeffrey Mester introduced Chuck Napoli. Mr. Napoli is an architect and a realtor who recently presented a plan to the Town of New Castle to introduce new recreational, commercial and cultural activities into the core of the business district. He feels strongly that New Castle needs to use the Bell Middle School field for parking. Without it, he feels there is no place for the village to grow. His plan elevates the fields to the Senter Street elevation with cars parking under the Bell field. Improvements to Bell would result in a new playing field with lights and by moving cars off Senter Street, it would create a new, more efficient drop off and pick up for students. His detailed plan includes a performing arts center and stores.

Mr. Napoli explained PPP - public-private partnerships - a contractual agreement between a public agency and a private sector entity. He noted the field would be gifted so the district could lease the land underneath. He asked the board to partner and go to the next step.

Board members asked how this plan is integrated with the Town's master plan. Some board members felt it made more sense to wait for the new plan being developed before going forward. It was noted the Boehmer traffic study, completed in 2003, was used as a basis for this plan and would have to be updated. Additional questions remain such as where does it leave the district should the commercial project fail.

7.

Financials

8.

President Tipp gave Notice of Future Meetings -

9.

Adjournment - Jeffrey Mester moved to adjourn the meeting at 10:57 p.m. and to reconvene in Executive Session to discuss negotiations. President Tipp moved to adjourn Executive session at 12:20 a.m. and reconvene public session for final adjournment. Alyson Kiesel seconded. The motion passed unanimously.