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Community Service Receives Serious Consideration as Putnam Valley High School Graduation Requirement
Board hires firm to survey graduates' post-high school lives
by Margaret Sternberg
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| Left to right: Maggie McCarthy, Stephanie Stoisits, and Jackson Gilman-Forlini: the high school students who received Pride in Putnam Valley awards for their selection to the All State Music Festival. |
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The idea of mandating a community service/learning component to high school graduation requirements is receiving increasingly serious consideration by the Putnam Valley Board of Education as demonstrated by the amount of time allotted to discussing it at the February 28, 2008 meeting of the school board.
Although Interim Principal Richard Herlihy said that recommendations on a community service requirement would come from a sub-committee, then to be presented to the Building Steering Committee, and then to the Board in the spring, the Board pressed to discuss the requirement that evening.
Herlihy said the thinking was to start with a 40-hour graduation requirement that would be phased in, possibly starting with the 2008-9 freshman class. Herlihy said that students would do 10-hours of community service each school year, thereby fulfilling the requirement. The sub-committee, he said, is "working on the specifics of how we could make that work," discussing the possibility of doing some aspect of the program electronically.
One area of concern was parental objections. Several Board members and Herlihy seemed in agreement that the requirement would be the same as any other requirement, whether academic or athletic, and that over time the community would adjust to the expectation. Herlihy noted that Mahopac, Croton, North Salem and Briarcliff have at least an expectation and some the requirement of community service, and all for at least 40-hours. Herlihy also said that he thought the requirement would be easy to meet, citing the Make A Difference and Interact Clubs as examples in which the requirement could possibly be met in one year, adding that many Putnam Valley students already do community service work on their own.
In another area that is part of the board's interest in the quality of the students' instruction, Superintendent Dr. Mark Space reported the district had signed a contract with Life Track Services to conduct a post-high school survey of this year's graduates as an added means of assessing how well the district was meeting the students' educational needs. The firm will get a baseline assessment, following graduates for two years, which is viewed as the best point at which to determine the success of a high school's program at preparing students for college.
Finance was another area covered, specifically the budget and the cost of health insurance. Dr. Space announced that among area superintendents, he had accepted an appointment to be their representative on the health consortium through Putnam - Northern Westchester BOCES, which designs and offers the district's health insurance plan. Dr. Space said he'd seen a presentation on the benefits of staying with the consortium, and he noted that that was the first time such a presentation had been given to the district.
Dr. Space also reported that he had solicited opinions of people who had participated in the budget process last year and who had been critical of the process in the past. He reported that their feedback, based upon the budget presentations they'd seen, was that "we [the district] are spending their money wisely, and it is what it is. There are increased costs that we do our best to anticipate, but that we've kept costs down through various actions…," ending that he felt the district had made progress in that area in terms of their goals.
Based upon the auditors' risk assessment recommendations, the Board is considering doing an audit in the area of payroll, which the auditors had designated a high risk area. Board Trustee Mary Maus pointed out that any area that deals with a lot of money is designated "high risk" and that the use of the phrase did not necessarily connote that there were any problems.
Without going into detail, Dr. Space also noted that restructuring the website is under consideration, citing as one reason that not all residents may have access to the televised meetings.
Under new business, the Board extended the contract of Interim High School Principal Richard Herlihy through the end of the school year. Subsequent to the meeting, the Board received notice that former high school principal Ray Cooper, for whom Herlihy has been a temporary replacement, has decided not to return to the district from his sabbatical. The Board has commenced a search for a permanent replacement for Cooper.
High school students Jackson Gilman-Forlini, Stephanie Stoisits and Maggie McCarthy were honored with Pride in Putnam Valley certificates for their selection and participation in the NYS Schools Music Association All State Music Festival, with each student being cited for their specific participation in band, chorus and/or choir. The NYS Schools Music Association Area All-State Festival encompasses "students from Putnam, Dutchess and Columbia Counties selected for their outstanding talent and ability in music."
The meeting also saw the announcement of the senior class' valedictorian, Hannah Schmidt, who is also one of two student representatives to the Board of Education, and salutatorian, Shannon Brown.
The next meeting of the Putnam Valley Board of Education will be Thursday, March 13, at 7pm.
Dawn Powell
Putnam Valley
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