The Herricks School Board held its final meeting last week to approve the Herricks School District Budget it has been working on since January. The final numbers on the approved budget is an estimated tax increase of $2.057 or a rate of 3.77 percent over last year's budget. The estimated impact on Class I Home Assessments is as follows: Home assessed at $5,000-$102.85 per year-$8.57 per month; $7.500-$154.26 per year-$12.86 per month; $10,000-$205.70 per year-$17.15 per month. Average assessment is $7,500.

For those interested, a detailed and very concise budget summary booklet may be obtained at the Herricks School Administration Building, opposite the high school.

The board also announced that petitions have been received from four candidates for position of Board Trustee on the Herricks Board of Education. Christine Turner and Neil Hershberg are running for the seat currently held by Mrs. Turner. Peter Grisafi and Deborah Beer are running for the seat currently held by Mr. Grisafi.

According to New York State Education law, there will be a separate proposition included on the ballot for a bond to finance the reduction of mileage for eligibility for bus transportation. That bond resolution will require a separate resolution over and above the vote for the school budget and the vote for the trustees. The proposition will read as follows:

Shall the Herricks Union Free School District reduce its mileage limitation for transportation of 6th grade students from one and a half miles to one mile and for 7th and 8th grade students from one and a half miles to one and a quarter miles at a cost of $130,781. For a home assessed at the average $7,500, the additional cost of this transportation is $6.75 per year or $.56 per month.

High School Principal William Sigelakis reported on the findings of the Shared Decision Making Committee regarding the use of 17 minutes left from the revision of periods. He said, "The thought was to encourage teachers to use a variety of methodology in learning to make sure the students were further motivated to learn, but it appears that the 17 minutes is unevenly applied. Some teachers just keep on teaching their classes and it has not been a crucial factor in changing the way teachers are teaching."

He continued, "My own observation is that the kind of teaching you see in the classroom is actually changing year by year and the students are becoming more and more involved in the instructional process, but not necessarily because of the 17 minutes and that is just my opinion."

Sigelakis went on, "The other members of the committee felt that the time is not being optimally being spent and there is a strong feeling that the time would be better spent if distributed over the entire day so that the average period would be extended to 44 minutes. The feeling is the time would be spent on the curriculum itself. This would break down to an average of 220 minutes instruction over a five day week, which is actually 40 minutes more than required by the state. So, it is the strong consensus of the committee that the 17 minutes be used over the day to extend each period."

Sigelakis said that the Shared Decision Making Committee is still looking into other options, but right now this is the consensus on the 17 minutes and that is the recommendation to extend each over period.

The board was in full agreement and approved the committee's findings.

The Half Hollow Hills School District is seeking support from Nassau County school districts of a resolution advocating that the Board of Regents offer an alternative vocational diploma to those students who are skilled and excel in occupational areas, but may not be able to achieve a high school diploma under the new Regents requirements.

Superintendent Dr. Sidney Freund explained that Herricks is not equipped at this time to implement this kind of change.

Dr. Ronald Barnes said that he would like to look into the program to see if the BOCES center is equipped to administer this kind of a project. He said he would like to have more time to research the proposal.

The other trustees, in turn, felt that the proposal had merit, but not enough facts had been given to make a decision at this time.

The Herricks School Board will hold its school board trustee, budget and transportation election on May 18, from 6 a.m to 10 p.m. at each of its elementary schools.

The board reminds all residents that the location of the election results have been changed to Searingtown School after the polls close at 10 p.m.