State education leader visits District 24

Fourth-grade students at Brooklyn Avenue Elementary School were treated to some interactive poetry on April 14, when Roger Tilles of the New York State Board of Regents read some poems to a select group of students, teachers and administrators.

Dr. Edward Fale, superintendent of District 24, said he met Tilles at a conference last fall, and Tilles mentioned to him that he liked reading to classes. So Fale said he chose Brooklyn Avenue as Tilles’ destination because it is the district’s flagship school and most historic building.

“It was a wonderful opportunity to have someone from the Board of Regents come down and interact with the kids,” said Dr. Scott Comis, principal of Brooklyn Avenue. “The children loved the poems he read, his selections were fantastic and the children left laughing and smiling.”

Tilles said he has already visited 55 school districts on Long Island and whenever he stops in, he requests to read to students for about an hour. “I have two kids, one in high school, the other is in college,” Tilles said. “When they were in elementary school, I went four or five times a year to read poems to their classes. Once they graduated, I couldn’t do it anymore. That’s why I always take the opportunity to read poems to kids. I really enjoy it.”

He noted that whichever class he reads to, whether it’s in Valley Stream or Great Neck, the response from the kids is always the same. “It just means that in the high needs districts, there is nothing wrong with them,” he said. “The only problem is that the system fails them. It leads me to want to help even more.”

Tilles added that he picked poems that have meaning, but are fun and interactive. One of the poems he read was “How to Torture your Teacher,” while another poem underscored how everyone, from kings to ordinary people, do the same things. “It shakes them up,” he said. “Sometimes they don’t understand that they are the same people we are.”