Herricks band trip cost raises concerns

Catherine Teevan

A miscommunication caused controversy over a trip for music students at the Herricks school board meeting last Thursday

Each year, a group of Herricks High School students travels for performances in a different city every spring, for which their families cover some of the cost.

This year’s trip to Philadelphia, scheduled for March 18-20, 2016, will cost $550 per student.

Typically, parents are not supposed to know the details of the trip, including the cost, until the school board approves it. 

But this year, word got out to parents sooner.

School board Trustee James Gounaris said the information was a “serious breach of procedures.” 

The $550 fee may be too high for some families, Gounaris said, and others may not have realized the trip is optional.

“The expense on some people who may be struggling, people with financial obligations elsewhere, it’s not fair to them,” he said.  “It would hit some of them out of the blue.”  

Gounaris said the “mix-up in communication” was a “collective failure of the policy not being followed.

School board President Nancy Feinstein agreed that the policy should not have been breached, but added that the trips are learning experiences for students.

Feinstein said the cost of the annual trips has varied according to the destination, the number of days, the number of chaperones who go with them, the number of students who attend and other factors.  

Last year’s trip to Disneyworld “was double (the cost) at least,” she said.

In response, Gounaris said he thought procedures should be followed more carefully before entering the sole “no” vote on the trip, which was approved.

The board also took time to recognize student achievers at the meeting.

Twelve Herricks High School students were selected for prestigious All-State Ensembles by the by the New York State Student Musician Association. 

They earned top scores at auditions last spring as vocalists and performances on piano, flute, clarinet, cello and other instruments.   

The students getting all-state selections are juniors Alan Chen, Adam Cordera, Jon Sanelli, Kayla Sinkevitch, Natalie Tan, Sam Tesch, Jaywon Woo and Kelly Yu; and seniors Jasmine Benjamin, Jane Chen, Lisa Soohyun Lim and Nic Mrakovcic.

The board also recognized sophomores Alan Chen and Nora Koe for their winning solar research project “Sol Invictus,” which was selected this past summer at the EmPower Solar Student Competition. The annual competition is sponsored by EmPower Solar, a solar energy company based in Island Park.

Chen and Koe will be representing Long Island at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon in Irvine, Calif., later this month.

The board also noted seven Herricks students named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists, plus 16 who were commended. They will be celebrated next month at the Nov. 5 meeting.

In other business:

  • The board unanimously agreed to resume membership in the Tri-State Consortium, a group of high-performing public school districts in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, at a $7,140 fee.  Membership had been discontinued as a budget cutback.
  • BBS Architects in Patchogue was unanimously approved to conduct the district’s state-mandated building condition survey for $20,950.
  • The board also unanimously approved the middle school boat trip for 2016, which will treat graduating eighth-graders to a cruise run by Caliber Yacht Charters in Whitestone, costing $61.50 per student.  

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