From the desk: Wheatley honesty committee offers ideas

Elaine Kanas

At the Sept. 16 board of education work session, Dr. Feeney gave a presentation regarding the Wheatley Student Honesty Committee.  This committee was created in January 2013 as an outgrowth of concern among faculty that academic honesty was becoming more challenging for students.  

Committee members included faculty, administration, students and parents. The committee work included a review of policies and practices from district schools and other schools and universities, outreach to parents via an online questionnaire regarding student honesty at Wheatley, a comprehensive online survey administered to students, faculty discussion of survey results, and a presentation to the Educational Advisory Committee. 

Results indicated that as students progressed through their grades they reported a less absolutist view of honest behavior. Recommendations included ongoing communication to parents and students regarding the wide range of behaviors that constitute dishonest behavior, emphasis on the importance of maintaining personal integrity and utilizing such activities as Eighth Grade Orientation and Meet the Teacher Night to communicate to a wide audience. 

Further recommendations from the committee involved modifications in design and administration of examinations, as well as clear and consistent communications and application of consequences for academic misconduct.  All recommendations and implementation of suggestions focus on helping support students in making good decisions.   

The full power point presentation from the work session can be found on our website at www.ewsdonline.org > click on School Board in the left navigation bar > go to BOE Meeting Presentations and click on 13-14 Presentations in the drop down menu. 

This past June, the Wheatley administration and guidance department presented the class of 2013’s college admissions information.  In response to board of education inquiries regarding Wheatley acceptance rates compared to institution acceptance rates, a follow-up session on this topic took place at Monday’s meeting.

Wheatley’s college acceptance rate regularly exceeds most college and universities’ overall acceptance rates. Monday’s presentation also looked at local data. Dr. Feeney pointed out that ongoing work and outreach is always necessary to maintain and grow our students’ competitive advantage in the increasingly challenging and competitive environment of college admissions   

Look for some in depth description of some of the steps being taken this year to continue to grow our college admissions process in my upcoming superintendent’s newsletters. For additional information go to our website and view BOE Meeting Presentations. 

We have not yet received the parent reports on student test results from last year’s state assessments from the State Education Department, though we anticipate receiving them at the end of this month or the beginning of October.  

Once received, we will send home a more detailed letter regarding how to interpret the results.  Please note, that for this year, the state has changed the threshold for assigning academic intervention services to students. While in previous years students who received a two were automatically assigned to an intervention program, this year the state has changed those guidelines and not every student with a score of two will be required to have intervention. 

During this first year of implementation of the new assessments, it is perceived to be a baseline to help districts determine their progress toward implementation of the new common core curriculum, rather than a measure of individual student learning need. 

Some parents may have been contacted this month regarding the assignment of students to some additional support programs.  As you know, in addition to the state tests, the district has and continues to grow, a variety of benchmarking and formative assessment tools to help us continually keep “eyes on kids” and support each student as they need help, in what we hope to be an increasingly flexible model of intervention support, directly tied to particular student need.  

If your child has been assigned some supplementary help, it is based on the results of some of our additional benchmarking methods, and/or a child’s scale score on the state assessments, which the state will have determined does indicate that AIS support should be provided.

Last week, the New York State Senate conducted hearings on the topic of the new assessments, the change in the score cut points, which, as anticipated by the commissioner, had test scores across the state drop more than 30 percent as well as testimony on the implementation pace of the new Common Core Curriculum. In preparation for the hearings, Sen. Jack Martins met with me, as he did with other area superintendents to gain insight on some of these matters.

At the Senate hearings, Nassau BOCES District Superintendent Dr. Thomas Rogers offered testimony on behalf of the county that highlighted the value of Common Core curriculum and shifts, but that also raised some thought provoking questions regarding pace of implementation and the validity of the cut score determinations.  

You can read Dr. Rogers’ testimony on our Common Core Curriculum Info webpage by going to our district website at www.ewsdonline.org  > click on Common Core Curriculum Info on the left navigation bar. 

At the upcoming Sept. 30 board meeting, to take place at 8 p.m. in the Wheatley auditorium, the building administrators will give an update on implementation of district goals and Common Core Curriculum, other initiatives and highlights, and how we are using the results of last year’s first Common Core Assessments as a baseline from which to continue to move forward our common core curriculum implementation.  

The East Williston community extends a warm welcome to the twelve students and their teacher, from Orihuela, Spain, who arrived on Tuesday evening to meet their host families as part of the Wheatley-Spain Exchange Program.  Wheatley students from Level four and five classes met with the Spanish students and their 12th grade hosts at a meet and greet breakfast on Wednesday morning.  

The Cutinella family provided a buffet of typical American breakfast foods. Our Spanish visitors then spent the day attending classes with their host students. Thursday was spent sightseeing in NYC while their hosts attended classes.  

On Friday, they visited Spanish classes to make presentations on Spain’s cities and chat with Wheatley’s Spanish students. Plans for Monday include visits to two sixth grade classes at Willets Road and a fourth grade class at North Side.

A special thanks to our host families: the Araujo family, the Cutinella family, the DeLay family, the D’Annunzio family, the Dwyer family, the Gatoff family, the Kotin family, the Mason family, Mrs. Martinez and family, the Mendes family, the Miceli family, the Perry family, the Reddy family, the Richman Sellinger family, the Siegler family, the Wolff family and to the Zuckerman family for their help and support.  Also, an additional thank you to the D’Annunzio family who opened their home to Lola, the exchange teacher. 

If an event does not have a specific ending time, the website lists the starting time of the event but defaults to the end of the day … which shows up as midnight.  We are working with the website host to fix this, but in the meantime, please expect that most school events should be approximately one to two hours.  (FYI: The only school event that ends at midnight is the June Senior Class Party!)

Wheatley senior Samantha Siegler was honored this week as one of twenty students to receive the prestigious Long Island Arts Alliance Scholar-Artists for 2013-14. This program recognizes students who excel in both academics and in the areas of music, visual arts, dance, theater or media arts. Along with recognition in Newsday, she will be honored at the end of the school year at the Tilles Center on the C.W. Post campus. 

Congratulations to the 115 Wheatley students who received AP Scholar recognition for their exceptional achievements on the college-level Advanced Placement examinations.  The College Board’s AP courses give high school students the opportunity to take college-level courses while still in high school and receive college credit.  The names below include Wheatley 2013 graduates.  45 students earned their recognition as juniors and two earned them as sophomores.

• National AP Scholar Award – Seven students earned an average grade of four or higher, on a five-point scale, on all AP exams taken and grades of four or higher on eight or more AP exams: from the Class of 2013, Jamie Brensilber, Lambert Chu, Maria D’Iorio, Samantha Golden, Amaan Karim, Tiffany Truong and Graham Turk

• AP Scholar with Distinction Award – 35 students earned an average grade of at least 3.5 on all AP exams taken and grades of three or higher on five or more AP exams: Robert Berman, Matthew Black, Justin Borczuk, Jamie Brensilber, Suril Butala, Justin Casali, Allison Chowdhury, Lambert Chu, Erin Connolly, Daniela Czemerinski, Maria D’Iorio, Thomas Giunta, Samantha Golden, Robert Halpern, Mitchell Han, Yuval Hananya, Joseph Jacob, Aaakash Jhaveri, Taylor Kaminsky, Amaan Karim, Ahmad Khanzada, Paul Kim, Melissa Koelsch, Ian Lerman, Katelyn Lituchy, Michael Lituchy, Allison Perry, Gregory Pfadenhauer, Matthew Rothstein, Tiffany Truong, Graham Turk, Eugene Yan, Mali Zaken, Tao Zeng and Ariana Zetlin

• AP Scholar with Honor – 37 students earned an average grade of at least 3.25 on all AP exams taken and grades of three or higher on four or more of these exams: Blake Abram, Ana Ainechi, Katherine Araujo, Uzayr Arif, Davin Bahk, Julia Balboni, Brittany Barnett, Dana Calabrese, Caitlin Calio, Nicole Cutinella, Isabella D’Iorio, Caroline Dickson, Michael Doherty, Leah Dwyer, Jonathan Fisher, Jacob Freund, Allison Giller, Jack Giunta, Benjamin Goldbaum, Mannat Kamboj, Zachary Koch, Samantha LaPera, Andrew Lubov, Christine Mathew, Brandon Novel, Jessica Perry, Lauren Perry, John Poblador, Gabrielle Pollack, Sanjana Reddy, Lauren Reshef, Samantha Siegler, Thomas Stroud, Lydia Varghese, Matthew Wolff, Chelsea Wolgel and Kuan Yu

• AP Scholar Award: 43 students completed three or more AP Exams with grades of three or higher: Matthew Bernot, Corey Bloomberg, Heather Chau, Justin Chau, Christopher Che, Elani Cohen, Chelsea D’Ambrosio, Bryan Dennis, Jacob Dinetz, Brandon Drucker, Xavier Fallarino, David Fraser, Thomas Gillette, Matthew Huhn, Dex Iannone, Daniel Jorge, Joanne Joshua, Jamie Karol, Brandon Kim, Gary Kim, Zachary Klar, Jeong Lee, Morgan Littman, Ziv Lotzky (10th Grade), Simon Lukose, Lauren Miceli, Hedeya Mizrahi, Megan Murphy, Arlena Olsten, Alexa Parker, Kevin Polinsky, Elizabeth Quinn, Jamie Sellinger, Fatima Shaikh, Laura Siegel, Sukhveen Soni, Natalie Tabib, Kasey Tanenbaum, Kristina Tarnok, Nicole Tomei, Tiffany Wu, Yaniv Yerushalmi and Jonathan Zuckerman

As always, please e-mail me at kanase@ewsdonline.org or call me at 333-3782 with any questions, suggestions, and or any topics you would like to see for this newsletter.

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