The Roslyn School Board of Education on Thursday continued its analysis of the district’s 2014-15 preliminary budget with presentations from its technology, athletics, physical education and special education departments.
The four departments combine for $6,083,666.60 of the district’s $102,699,685 preliminary budget for the 2014-15 school year.
In proposing a $2,451,399.60 budget, which represents a 12 percent increase over the department’s $2,188,936.60 budget for 2013-14, the district’s chief technology officer, Jason Lopez, said Roslyn will next year implement its iPad initiative to its elementary schools.
“We are light years ahead of most districts,” Lopez said.
Lopez said the district would recycle 50 iPads used by graduating seniors and redistribute them among teachers and students at East Hills, Harbor Hill and Heights elementary schools.
The district would also equip each elementary teacher with a cart, projector, Apple-compatible television and software, a $60,000 expenditure.
In addition, Lopez said, the department would allocate $200,000 for 280 new iPads and cases for each incoming high school freshman.
Lopez also talked about improvements to the school district’s security system, which includes the capability of tracking 911 calls to a specific part of a school building rather than solely to the school’s address.
“If a 911 call comes from floor one we want them to know that,” says Lopez.
The district is also looking to install security cameras to its athletic fields and add more wireless access points to increase bandwidth potential at each school campus, Lopez said.
Stuart Grossman, the district’s director of pupil personnel services and special education, said the special education program would operate with a $2,312,434 budget, a 12.42 percent decrease from expenditures approved for the 2013-14 year.
The board questioned whether the department, in decreasing its budget, is leaving some of the district’s special-needs students unserved.
But, Grossman said, “I do think [Roslyn’s special education program is] ahead of the curve” with regard to other districts on Long Island.
He added that the department has been using East Hills Elementary School’s sensory room, which special-needs students can utilize if they feel overwhelmed in general classrooms, with increased regularity.
The room has been so effective, Grossman said, that school officials said a room just like it could soon be implemented into another school within the district.
“We’ve made investments other districts can’t and as a result people are sending their kids here,” Roslyn Superintendent of Schools Dan Brenner said.
Athletic Director Dawn Cerrone introduced a $1,295,629 budget that she said would increase 2.25 percent from the budget approved for 2013-14.
She said the budget accounted more closely to actual expenditures than in previous years while further developing an athletic program whose football team won a conference championship and whose intramural programs have continued to grow in popularity.
The athletics budget – of which $919,894 would go toward Roslyn High School while $375,735 would be put toward Roslyn Middle School – would cover a new high-end speaker system for the high school’s gym as well as an outdoor public address system, Cerrone said.
She also said the department is working toward implementing a boys’ badminton team and making the cheerleading club an interscholastic sport, which would require the hiring of a head coach for eventual competition.
Cerrone also introduced a $24,204 physical education budget that accounts for supplies and equipment, training and certification for its new obstacle course program, professional development for staff and to fund the circus arts program at East Hills and Harbor Hill elementary schools.
Cerrone said the district would allocate $29,772 for its intramural program and $9,576 for an instructor for the Bulldog Intensive Training Experience program.
In other developments:
• Assistant Superintendent for Business Joseph Dragone said during a presentation detailing how the district’s proposed $41.3 million capital improvement bond that a combination of replacing debt scheduled to expire in the next few year; the use of $9.2 million in district reserve funds, $2.6 million in state aid and an additional $700,000 in unanticipated budgetary revenues will help drive down the community’s tax liability by more than $16 million during the bond’s lifespan.
Dragone said his office estimates that the bond will increase the average school tax bill by no more than $60 per year, adding that the community’s tax liability may even decrease in some years when compared to 2013-14 rates.
“What I’m trying to do is make as clear as possible is that we’re spending additional money, but we’re replacing old debt and the old lease is expiring,” Dragone said. “The new lease is coming on and we’re going to have a better car.”
• The board will next meet on March 20 at 8 p.m. in the Roslyn High School meeting room.
