For those who missed the December 11, 2018 meeting, the agenda can be viewed by clicking the link below:
https://www.nmerrickschools.org/…/handle…/filedownload.ashx…
To view the video of the Board meeting, click below:
The last 20 minutes of the Board meeting is posted on our you tube channel and link below:
The Board held their Policy Meeting before the Board Meeting. You can also view the Policy meeting here.
The Minutes of the Policy Meeting and Agenda can be viewed by clicking below:
The Board had the Student Counsel participate at the meeting and the Camp Avenue Chorus preformed. The Chorus was phenomenal and our Student Counsel was nothing short of impressive. The children were supposed to stay until their presentations (agenda item #8) and leave before the Superintendent’s report (agenda item #9). To everyone's surprise, the Board and Superintendent had the children stay thru agenda item #17. With the children sitting at the Board meeting, to respect their privacy, CRONM only has audio footage of the first parts of the meeting (in the process of being posted). Our video camera also ended up with no battery power 10 minutes into the meeting so we may have missed a few minutes. We promise we are better at reporting on Board activities than technology!
The fantastic news is that the Board and Superintendent listened to Residents’ public comments at the October meeting and have looked into videotaping Board meetings and posting on the District website using BoardDOCs. They announced this at the December meeting and plan to give further details about implementation dates in the future.
Main highlights from the Board meeting include:
The teacher contract was finally approved on December 11, 2018. It is posted on the district website and can be viewed by clicking the link below:
https://www.nmerrickschools.org/…/handle…/filedownload.ashx…
We will be posting more on the teacher contract and all district contracts in the future so stay tuned.
Despite objections from the residents, the Board rolled out the "comment cards" during the December 11, 2018 meeting. The residents have been asked to write their name and question on the comment cards. Cards are then collected before each public session, given the to the Board, who then, depending on the amount of the cards, picks and chooses which card to address and the order they address them in. During the second public session portion of the meeting, (after our student council students had gone home), CRONM expressed to the Board that their use of comment cards was unnecessary. Yes, comment cards are used at the high school level. However, the high school board includes residents with students from MAMS, Grand Avenue, Calhoun, Kennedy, Mepham and MAP. It’s three times the size our our small three elementary school district. CRONM wants to know what you think about the use of comment cards?
EID holiday update: Other districts on Long Island and the NYC public schools, (the largest school district in NY state) have adopted and recognized Eid as a school holiday over the past few years. Residents of our community have actively lobbied our district to recognize Eid as a school holiday so their children can observe the holiest day in the Muslim religion. Next year the holiday falls during the summer months, so the Board has plenty of time to implement the day off for the 2020-2021 holiday. Despite this, our District and School Board still need more time to decide whether to adopt it as a permanent school holiday vs. deciding on an annual basis if the District will recognize Eid. Could you imagine if the Board voted annually to decide if students will have Christmas off? CRONM supports our residents in getting the Board and District to recognize Eid as a holiday. We encourage our Board to be leaders on the Eid holiday and recognize our diverse community as a strength of our schools.
Remember the next board meeting is January 8, 2019 at 8:00 p.m. Enjoy the break!