Contrary to what many people might think, summer is a very important time for school districts. It's during the summer that districts spruce up, repair, hire, plan and prepare for the coming year. At the same time, summer programs for children can also keep a district bustling.

This summer was a particularly hectic one in the New Hyde Park/Garden City Park District. We made some very significant staffing decisions, worked hard to improve our buildings and grounds, finished some important educational projects and ran two summer programs for children.

As always, the most important changes in an organization involve people. This summer, Lydia Begley, who has been principal of Manor Oaks for two years, became the principal of Hillside Grade School. Stephen Scarallo was hired as the new principal of Manor Oaks and Rachel Bono, who was with the district two years ago, returned as the supervisor for Instructional Technology.

In addition, we hired quite a few classroom teachers, a resource room teacher, two reading support teachers, a math support teacher, a music teacher, a psychologist and a part-time social worker. Most of these people replaced staff who retired or requested leaves. However, some were hired for entirely new positions.

Our building and grounds are also ready for opening day. This summer we replaced one of the roofs at Hillside Grade and a significant portion of a roof at Manor Oaks. We also started replacing a boiler at Hillside Grade and it will be completed shortly.

Further, we renovated buildings to add classroom or support personnel space at three schools: New Hyde Park Road School, Hillside Grade School and Garden City Park School. We upgraded the fields at Manor Oaks and we arranged for a new playground to be built at Garden City Park School at the end of September. Where necessary, the electricity was upgraded in each building in order to accommodate the two Power Mac computers that will be in each second grade classroom. We've also done the usual painting, cleaning and repairing and the buildings are clean, ready and safe for the children.

This summer we also completed an important curriculum project that teachers, administrators worked on much of last year. As a result of their efforts, this fall parent guides will be available for every grade level from pre-kindergarten to sixth grade. These guides will offer parents a succinct overview of the entire curriculum offered to children in the New Hyde Park/Garden City Park School District.

Finally, while all the above was going on, we ran two summer programs for children which were quite successful. The Summer Recreation Program and the Summer Primary Reading Program served more than 300 students in the district.

All in all, a lot happened this summer. Now, we're ready and eager to start the new school year!

This year we will be devoting attention to a number of important projects. Let me mention two:

First, we will be continuing to address the issue of higher standards. Two years ago we began the task of reviewing our curriculum in light of New York State's new learning standards. Teachers and administrators made recommendations that we will continue to address this coming year. For example, last year we prepared Language Arts Skills Inventory Checklists for use in the first and second grades. This year we will expand that concept into the third and fourth grades. We will offer staff development to teachers as they prepare students for the state's new English Language Arts Test. We will expand our use of the new reading series, Literacy Place, and we will introduce the use of The Write Source Language Arts Resource materials in the upper grades.

Second, we will focus on Character Education. Each month a character-related theme such as respect or honesty will be highlighted throughout the district in each school and each classroom.

We are inviting everyone to join us in making 1998/1999 a year in which the importance of good character is discussed, reinforced, modeled throughout the classrooms, schools and homes of our district. I am looking forward to an exciting and eventful year.