By JOSEPH KELLARD and RACHEL KALINA
While there are as yet no announced candidates to replace Eisenberg, the West Hempstead Board of Education hired a firm, School Leadership, to perform a search, and has formed a focus group to seek opinions about a new superintendent from both communities, since Island Park students attend West Hempstead High School, Island Park Superintendent Dr. Ed Price said.
³The firm prepared a questionnaire that they gave out to people in West Hempstead, and Island Park sent it out to all parents in its community, too,² Price said. ³They¹re seeking opinions from various groups within the West Hempstead school community, and they met with our board regarding the characteristics we would like to see in a new superintendent and the challenges this new person will face.²
³The search team sat with us for about an hour and didn¹t just pay us lip service,² said Mike Hastava, vice president of the Island Park Board of Education. ³They really wanted our insight.²
Asked what Island Park¹s top priority is for a new West Hempstead superintendent, both Price and Hastava emphasized the need to understand the unique partnership between the two districts. ³We just need to really continue the sense that the children who come from Island Park are still our kids,² Price said. ³Even though Island Park students are working through their staff at West Hempstead, it¹s been a partnership, because we feel responsible for those children as well.²
³We¹re just looking for someone with a willingness to work with our board and consider our schools an extension of the West Hempstead school system,² Hastava said, ³including us in some decision-making with respect to curriculum, development and implementation of state mandates.²
Eisenberg, who is leaving to pursue other opportunities, is confident the district will continue to succeed. ³I think educationally, financially and structurally, the district is in good shape,² she said.
Under her guidance, West Hempstead initiated new programs, such as full-day kindergarten, and upgraded school facilities through additions like the video conference room at the high school. Moreover, the district increased its Regents diploma rate, which served as proof that students were achieving the mandated higher learning standards, and the number of Advanced Placement classes was also increased, with art and business courses among the additions. Eisenberg also established inclusion classes and increased technology use in the district.
³The programs that are being offered in terms of the academic quality ‹ the number of kids graduating with Regents diplomas have increased significantly under Carol¹s direction,² Price said. ³She¹s brought in many new staff members who have enhanced the quality of education in West Hempstead. She has maintained standards there. She¹s just done an outstanding job, and she¹s going to be hard to replace.²
Calling Eisenberg a very good friend and a close associate, Price said the two have maintained close communications and cooperation during the integration of Island Park¹s students into West Hempstead High School. In particular, in recent years the two districts established various new activities to make Island Park eighth-graders¹ move to West Hempstead High much smoother, including a summer barbecue to bring the middle school students together to get acquainted before they met in the high school that September.
³Any time you make a transition from one school to another, it¹s always a little disconcerting to kids,² Price said. ³And so what we¹re trying to do is make this transition easier for kids from Island Park. Going to high school out of town, in West Hempstead, is a bit different from other communities.²
West Hempstead school board Trustee Martin Kaye, who has worked with Eisenberg throughout her tenure at West Hempstead, described the focus groups that will include community input to determine the requirements the district values most in a superintendent. ³We¹re doing it professionally, because you can no longer just look around your general area,² Kaye said. ³You have to really cast a wider net to find people who will take up the challenge of working in a middle-sized district. We hope to have quite a few good applicants, and this process will take us through early spring.²
Eisenberg is particularly proud of the high school¹s revamped library, for which she won the Nassau School Library System Administrator of the Year Award, and upgrades to the George Washington Auditorium. ³The high school library and the auditorium are showpieces for us,² Kaye said. ³Financially, we are very well off, and educationally, we¹ve really climbed the ladder in West Hempstead with Carol at the helm.²
Eisenberg was one of two superintendents chosen to join Gov. George Pataki¹s Project SAVE committee in 2000. Pataki established the program and a statewide committee to promote security and safe learning environments in schools, including the fingerprinting of staff members and background checks.
³She¹s always been a pleasure to work with,² said Christine Fennes, a member of the West Hempstead elementary schools¹ PTA. ³She always tried to work with the PTA within the guidelines of the district. From what we hear from other PTAs, we¹re very lucky that we have a superintendent that works so well with us and tries to accommodate all of our requests. We¹ve really been a partnership working together through health and safety issues and site-based teams.²
Jeanine Kurs, a West Hempstead resident and a former PTA and PTSA president, said of Eisenberg, ³Every year she worked very hard with all three PTAs to make sure our budget was passed, and she always got us very involved in that area. In a small community like West Hempstead, it¹s important to get the budget passed.²
In May the school budget failed, requiring a second vote to pass. Eisenberg said this was a particular challenge for her and for the community. ³It¹s always challenging to maintain and continue the support of the community for budgets,² she said. ³I do feel strongly that the board and the staff here understand the great impact that school taxes have on the community.²
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287.
