Hewlett-Woodmere unveils academic initiatives for 2015-16

Before it unveils its proposed budget for the 2015-16 school year, the Hewlett-Woodmere district announced at a board meeting on Jan. 28 that it would consider a half dozen new academic initiatives, expected to cost $472,413, for inclusion in the spending plan.
The programs are being developed through discussions among teachers and administrators, and will be presented at a budget forum in March, which, according to Superintendent Dr. Joyce Bisso, has been a “major boon” the past two years in helping the district prepare the budget and stay ahead of planning deadlines.
“This is the second year in which bringing up these initiatives prior to our major March budget meeting has been very beneficial,” Bisso said. “Folks across the district have really begun to understand the initiatives and the standards to follow in creating them. We’ve had a concerted effort by teachers to bring up these proposed initiatives.”
They include a math support lab for geometry and Algebra II students at Hewlett High School; an outdoor environmental center at Woodmere Middle School; an elementary integrated co-teaching program for children in grades one through five at Franklin Early Childhood Center and Hewlett and Ogden elementary schools; lab support for Regents-level science students at the high school; a music therapy program for Life Skills students; and a summer language immersion program for students learning to speak English.
Mark Secaur, the district’s assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, said he had been working with teachers to develop the initiatives since last October. “We’ve all learned quite a bit in this process,” he said. “We started with a review process, which involved starting to think about needs for our classrooms and the district. We’ve begun fleshing out what these initiatives would do, affecting the whole school system. It has been very important that we balance desires with fiscal responsibility.”

The likelihood that the initiatives will be adopted will depend on the amount of state aid the district receives, according to Assistant Superintendent for Business Dr. Peter Weber. “The state of the state right now is very confused,” he said. “Sheldon Silver’s issue has affected a lot. Nobody knows what will happen in the coming weeks.”
Silver stepped down last week as Assembly speaker after his arrest on federal corruption charges. Carl Heastie, a Bronx Democrat, was elected to replace him on Tuesday.
There is also the usual budget tug-of-war among the Assembly, the Senate and the governor’s office to wait out. April 1 is the state-imposed deadline for a budget to be approved. If the funding is available, Weber said, the programs would be finalized over the summer and commence in September.
Hewlett-Woodmere received $7.87 million in state aid this year, and Weber is estimating that next year’s total will be $8.71 million. The increase would allow the district to implement the initiatives.
Speaking in support of the environmental center at the middle school, Bisso stressed its potential to help students prepare for the change in how they are educated as they progress through school. “Kids go from hands-on learning in lower grades to textbook learning in the high school,” she said. “An outdoor education center like this is real science.”
Weber said that the summer language immersion program is needed to help ensure that students who are learning English retain what they have learned. “We have the concern that a number of students that return from a school break have experienced language loss,” he said. “The academic summer language immersion program … would be a teaching-English-only program.”

Have an opinion about Hewlett-Woodmere’s proposed initiatives? Send your letter to the editor to jbessen@liherald.com.