Mother after mother complained, at the last Herricks School Board meeting, about the inappropriate dress of students. However, the complaint was targeted mainly at the female students. According to the moms, it seems that "anything" goes including tank tops, shirts that don't reach the waist, hip-hugger shorts, and navel exposing jeans not to mention the huge high heels on clumpy clogs.

They further complained about the dress of many of the students who perform at concerts when, according to the moms at the meeting, dress should be more conservative and not so revealing when the students are performing.

One mother said she brought the topic up with Music Chairman John McNeur and he said he has always told the students to dress appropriately for concerts but it is the students and the parents who make the decision as to what should be worn.

Herricks Board President Peter Grisafi said that there is a dress code policy for the school, but that it is very general. Assistant Superintendent for Personnel Dr. Ronald Barnes said that the dress code was updated a few years ago but the update, too, is very general.

Grisafi said, "I know that if someone comes to school with writing on a shirt that is offensive then they are told to turn the shirt inside out so that the writing cannot be read."

The discussion, which was very long, went back and forth between the board and the mothers in the audience and at the end it was agreed that the board would assess the current dress code and discuss how it could be revised.

Grisafi said to the many moms who are also PTA leaders, "You folks will have to go back to your PTAs and see how receptive they are to any changes we make."

Dr. Bierwirth suggested rather than trying to just revise the policy without warning either the students or their parents, the course he would like to take is to make an announcement in dateline that the board is planning on revising the policy and to warn both the parents and the students if they do not dress properly they will be asked to return home to change their attire.

The current Student Dress Code Policy is as follows:

The Board of Education of the Herricks Union Free School District (the Board) believes the responsibility for student dress and general appearance rests with individual students and parents. However, the board requires students to attend school in appropriate dress that meets health and safety standards and does not interfere with the learning process. The Board also requires that students wear appropriate protective gear in certain classes (i.e. Home and Careers, Technology, Physical Education.)

Hats, clothing and attire which have an expression or insignia which is obscene or libelous, which advocates racial or religious prejudice or is disruptive, is forbidden.

The superintendent of schools and other designated administrative personnel shall have the authority to require a student to change his/her attire should it be deemed inappropriate according to the above guidelines.

The discussion on the Student Dress Code will be further addressed at a future school board meeting.

Student Representatives Installed

The two high school representatives to the school board were installed by school board president Peter Grisafi. They are Ishuar Bridgelal and Neel Chugh.

Unsafe Walking Conditions on I.U. Willets Road

Another issue that was discussed was introduced by Mrs. Pollack. She was complaining about the unsafe conditions at the I. U. Willets Road entrance of the high school especially for students who walk to school. She said, "The worst time is from 7 to 7:30 a.m. when many of the students, most of them new drivers, come speeding on I.U. Willets, make the turn into the driveway and then speed up the driveway. There is a crossing guard on the corner of Ursula and I.U. Willets but her only job is to cross the children not to direct traffic and it is unsafe to walk on that road or to walk up the driveway to school."

Mrs. Pollack went on to say that she had contacted the Third Precinct and they said in order to address the situation they would need a letter from the superintendent of schools requesting that there be a study of that crossing. When that is done she said that a traffic assessment will be done and then the police will handle the situation based on the assessment.

Dr. Bierwirth said that he would very much like to know who she spoke to at the Third Precinct because there are many, many letters on file that register just such complaints and not just about the crossing at I.U. Willets, but about other crossings. He said that the bottom line is they are not going to assign an officer to that entrance to direct traffic and if they place a school crossing guard there they will remove one from another area.

Mrs. Pollack wanted to know if it would be possible for the Assistant Principal to be in that location for just that half-hour which she said is so dangerous. Another parent said the only person to contact about this kind of traffic problem is Police Officer Jaskot who is based in Mineola because he is the only one who can do anything about this type of traffic problem.

Balance of Herricks Scores-Superb

As promised Assistant Superintendent for Instruction submitted the rest of the scores:

School District Report Card

Herricks 556-National (SAT) 507-New York 496

Mean Scores-Mathematics

Herricks 612-National 519-New York 510

Eighth Grade Mathematics

Total Population (In Percentages)

2003-4-26%; 3-58%; 4&3-84% ; 2-14%;1-2 %

General Education (In Percentages)

2003-4-44%; 3-51%; 4&3-95%; 2-6%; 1-0%

Disabilities(In Percentages)

2003-4-9%; 3-22%; 4&3-31%; 2-58%: 1-11%

District Results-Fourth Grade Mathematics

Total Population (Percentages)

2003-4-65%; 3-25%; 4&3-96%; 2-3%: 1-1%

What Herricks Does with the New York

State Test Results for Grades 4 and 8:

1. Individual Attention

A-Item Analysis for all students.

B-Academic Intervention Services (AIS) for

Students scoring 1's and 2's.

2. Aggregate Analysis

A. Review by appropriate staff

Review Item Analysis-Herricks student

Review Gap Comparision Analysis-Nassau students.

Star Tech-Small group discussions

Tri-State-Goal setting, instruction

B Longitudinal Study-Grade 4 to 8

3. Follow up:

a. Student focus

b. Instruction

c. Curriculum

4. Issues:

a. One test

b. Test reliability/scoring

The school board then launched into a very long and very drawn out discussion about the liaison policy. In previous years the trustees were assigned to attend the various meetings of the PTAs, the Athletic Booster Club, the Music Club, etc. However, it was determined that policy required that trustees would be at meetings at almost every night of the week, not to mention the school board meetings. Last year the board voted to have a "floating" policy. Anytime a trustee was free and there was a meeting, he or she would attend. That method didn't work because either there were two trustees at a meeting or no trustees at a meeting.

No exact policy was decided upon at the end of the lengthy discussion, except the trustees did agree to cover the meetings of the individual schools in the district. The representatives for those schools are as follows: Searingtown-Ed Kennedy; Center Street-Rich Buckley; Middle School-Karin Filippi; Denton Avenue School-Chris Turner and High School-Peter Grisafi.

In other matters Superintendent Dr. Jack Bierwirth reported on the school openings. He said, "It was one of the smoothest openings I have ever seen."

Dr. Bierwirth also addressed questions that had been asked of him at the last meeting. One question was how many students were there in the graduating class of June 2003. He said that there were 292 students in the senior class and 282 graduated with the class. The 10 who did not graduate took whatever course they needed during the summer and of those 10 eight passed and graduated, which resulted in a 99.3 percent of students who graduated. Of the two students who didn't pass one is still in the Herricks system and one has left the country. There were 36 Special Education students and 34 graduated with the class and the remaining two received additional instruction and passed the test to graduate in August.

At the last meeting another resident wanted to know what happened to the new tennis nets. Dr. Bierwirth explained that they were delivered but it was decided not to install them until the season begins so they will be installed shortly.

Another resident wanted to know about the fence to protect any prospective tenants of the administration building from any soccer balls that might go astray. Dr. Bierwirth explained that a permanent fence is going to be built as soon as possible and it will be positioned to protect everyone from any soccer balls.

School board trustee Christine Turner said that during the tour of the buildings she was very impressed with the improvements at the middle school. She said that the new auditorium seats were wonderful, the new science lab was outstanding and the renovation of the music room was wonderful.

The meeting ended with President Grisafi calling for the board to adjourn into executive session. The next Herricks School Board meeting will be held at the Middle School, 7 Hilldale Road, Albertson on Sept. 18 at 6:30 p.m. then at 7:15 p.m. the board will meet with the PTA Council.