Guggenheim HSA General Meeting
January 9, 2015
8:45 AM
Cafetorium
Karen Sloane, Christine Naldone and Nora Johnson, members from the
BOE, presented information about the district’s proposed $69 capital
improvement bond.
There will be a BOE meeting on Tuesday January 13, 2015.
Voting to have this bond passed will be on March 10, 2015.
Improvements:
Spatial needs based on the demographer’s report.
Each school will have a common area for air conditioning.
All portables will be removed for safety and better education.
All exterior doors fixed to make sure they lock.
Bathrooms repaired.
New closets.
Improvements are encompassing the whole district. All elementary
schools, the middle school and the high school will receive needed
improvements. Everyone needs to be satisfied. The community needs
to be involved. There is a community committee in place that took
input from the community. There is also a budget committee.
They are proposing that there will be 3 years up front with no impact
to taxpayers. Then there will be an average of about $100 over the
next five years. So approximately $500 will be the total impact to
taxpayers. The life of the bond is 25 years. All improvements must be
in the bond or it can’t be done. The money from the bond has to be
spent in a certain amount of time. We will be borrowing in phases but
whatever money is taken in each phase needs to be spent in two years.
People involved are making sure that everything that’s done is really
needed. Improvements will be prioritized. Some improvements such as
expansions will come later to make sure the demographer’s reports are
accurate.
There has been some negative press. A group of people are concerned
about the taxes going up.
Guggenheim Improvements
The process began with speaking to all principals for their input. Mrs.
Geibel was very involved.
Expansion: There will be four classrooms built on past Ms. Toscano’s
room and a corridor to join the yellow and blue hallways. In that
corridor there will be speech and reading specialists. There will also be
an expansion off the backside of the gym for rooms for the band and
orchestra to eliminate the portables.
Safety is the biggest issue. There will be better security. A good
amount of the budget is for security.
All exterior doors will be changed to be properly locked. Accordion
doors in the cafetorium will be changed for proper lockdowns. All doors
will have buzzers. There will also be a mantrap (two doors to pass
through for security).
Air conditioning will be put into the cafetorium.
Repairs to bathrooms will be done.
Repairs will be the first priority along with safety. Expansions will
take place later but given we have portables to eliminate, our
expansions may start sooner.
Weber
Repairs in the bathrooms and locker rooms are a priority.
Auditorium is also a priority (the roof/ceiling is falling).
Windows need replacement in certain areas.
Districts all over Long Island are putting in for bonds. So it is taking
longer for approvals. Originally it was 6-9months, now plan approval is
taking up to a year. And any construction firms need to be approved by
the state.
An architect can’t do anything until the bond is passed so it’s important
the bond gets passed. Everything is currently being done on spec. so
it’s very rough. However, once the bond is passed and plans are
approved, it will be made certain materials are durable and stand the
test of time.
Since we will be borrowing the money in stages, everything needs to be
done in stages.
Restrictions
We can’t buy equipment.
We can’t buy text books.
We can’t pay for additional staff.
If the bond is approved in March, then it is up to a year for the plans
to be approved. Then bids to construction companies will be made. So
any construction/improvements will be the summer of 2016 at the
earliest. Also, work has to be done around the children’s presence
depending on what’s being done.
This summer the current bond, not the new bond, will include repairs to
the nurse’s bathroom which is currently not ADE compliant. Also the
gym bathrooms will open to the hallway for additional bathroom use.
Vote March 10th!
HSA Teacher Report for January
Presented by Mrs. Koulouris
The Kindergarten classes had a great time welcoming winter and
celebrating the holidays with their parents before the long winter
vacation. With the new year, the kindergarten classes are learning
about the 5 senses in science, in math we continue to learn about
numbers, focusing on more, fewer and how many in all. We continue to
work on reading and writing in ELA. This month we will also learn about
Martin Luther King and learn how to use our words and not our hands
when we see something that is wrong.
Guggenheim’s First Grade enjoyed their "Holiday Giving
Celebration" where they made cards for soldiers and vets and donated
$170 to them through the Red Cross Soldier/Vet Organization. The
holiday breakfast served filled their tummies and the holiday songs
warmed the audience’s hearts. Thank you for all who were able to
attend and help.
Second grade is excited to be back in school after a long vacation. We
are keeping warm in the classrooms learning about the solar system.
We have all begun or will begin shortly learning about the sun, the
planets, meteorites, astronauts and everything else in our solar system.
The children are very excited. In March we will be going to the
Vanderbilt planetarium to practice all we learned. We continue to
improve our mathematical skills. We are currently learning all about bar
modeling.
We would like to thank the HSA for Wednesday’s fabulous assembly.
We were all up and dancing. We would also like to wish you all a happy
and healthy new year.
Third graders are back to learning in 2015. We are utilizing bar
models to represent and solve addition and subtraction problems in
mathematics. Soon all of our third grade classes will be diving into
multiplication. Students are also working on strengthening their
reading comprehension by recognizing the main idea or author’s
purpose. Just before the holiday break, we continued to develop our
map skills and were excited to share our island/landform projects. You
may still see some hanging up in some of the classrooms. We also
celebrated the holiday season with our Celebrations of Lights
performances. The students learned about the different holidays
around the world and found a common thread in each… light! This
month we are looking forward to reading about Martin Luther King Jr.
and understanding the impact he has had on our society.
The 4th graders are continuing with their ELA curriculum, using
the Journeys program. They continue to work on close reading
techniques and are reading a lot of informational text. In Math, the
students are finishing their unit on area/perimeter and starting their
Fractions unit. The 4th graders are excited to have begun their new
science unit, Mystery Matter. During this unit, students are making
observations and inferences. They are testing different substances in
order to see which most resembles the "Mystery Substance" found at
a crime scene. They love it! In Social Studies, the classes are learning
about Native Americans of NY state. Each class had a terrific holiday
party!
The fifth grade started reading a novel titled Esperanza Rising.
This is a historical fiction book. Throughout the book we will focus on
answering text based questions by citing evidence from the book. We
are continuing to work on adding and subtracting fraction and solving
word problems. Our next chapter will be on multiplying and dividing
fractions.
We are getting ready for two exciting field trips. Our first will be to
the Federal Courthouse where we will meet with a federal judge. We
will take part in a mock trial and learn about his job. It's always a
fantastic experience. We will also travel to Commerce Plaza this
month. Each child will work in a real business for the day. Children will
learn to write checks and make deposits in the bank. It's very
exciting!