At the last Herricks School Board meeting the district was presented with the Presidential Citation Award of Excellence in Music Education from the New York State Music Association (NYSMA). Herricks was the only district in Nassau County and New York to receive this award and the only school to have 32 students named to receive NYSMA All State awards.

On hand to present the award was President of New York State Music Association James Cassara who said, "This prestigious award is presented to the only school district to receive both the presidential award and school of excellence award in music. This award is a testament to the board, the community and to the administration and to McNeur and his outstanding music staff for its excellence."

Assistant Superintendent for Instruction Deirdre Hayes announced more good news; she said that everyone of the Herricks High varsity fall sports teams including girls and boys cross-country, golf, girls and boys soccer, girls tennis and girls volleyball all received New York State Scholar Athlete awards. The board then issued their congratulations to the various teams.

Herricks Board President Peter Grisafi then opened the meeting to the public and a resident said she had several comments.

The first was she wanted to know the status of the gym lockers for the Herricks High senior boys. Herricks Superintendent Dr. Jack Bierwirth said that since the district has been able to pickup free lockers they have installed as many as they can. He added, "Unless we can find other free ones, that's it."

The resident then said that none of the senior boys had been given gym lockers at the beginning of the year. Bierwirth said that they shared lockers and she said, "No they weren't even sharing lockers." The bottom line was the resident wanted to know if now every senior boy had access to a locker either to share or not and Bierwirth said he believed that was the case.

The next comment from the same resident was, "This is kind of difficult to explain, but because of the way in which the GPAs are figured out, my son missed getting an additional $2500 from one of the colleges to which he applied by nine-hundredths of a point. When he got his grade this quarter, he only has three grades because he goes to BOCES in the afternoon; it was obvious from his three letter grades that he should have had an A average. However, the way GPAs are figured, he was assigned a 3.55 GPA. So I called his guidance counselor and said I don't understand, if you take his three letters, it's obviously an A."

She continued, "His guidance counselor said from a 70 to a 74.99 you get assigned the same GPA and from 75 to a 79 you get the same GPA. Obviously, that helps the kids who have the 70s and 71s and 76s, but it may hurt the kids at the top-end of each level. They are lumped in with the kids at the bottom of each level. I asked the counselor if I could get my son's number grades for each quarter to see if really he did have nine-hundredths of a point off, which would give him more money each year and the counselor said he couldn't do it. Luckily, the guidance counselor, in my case, was wonderful and he called the college and explained how Herricks figures the GPA and they gave my son the additional $2500."

The resident said, "I think this is something that should be looked at, because the students are not only affected financially, but it can all determine whether or not they are accepted into a particular school. My son could have been at the bottom of every level, I don't know and I'll never know, but he could have been at the top. It seems to me that taking number grades that the teachers assign at the end of every quarter and translating them into letter grades and then translating them back into number grades for the GPA is not necessarily the best way to do things. To me it's going from apples to oranges back to apples. I just wanted to bring that up to the board."

School Board Trustee Richard Buckley said, "I totally agree with you. I have always been in favor of the numerical system. For example if a student gets an 89 in a course they receive a B+; they don't get an A because an A is 90, but if a student receives an 86 they still get a B+ so the question is what happens to those three points? We need a numerical system and I agree with your point."

The resident countered, "If I hadn't spoken to the guidance counselor and if he hadn't suggested he call the school we would have lost $2,500 a year and that's not peanuts to anybody. In my case we were lucky the counselor did make the call, and we did get the money, but how many people don't do that. So I think it would have to be more fair if you looked at the numbers."

President Grisafi said, "This is something that we will have to look at. We want to do what is best for the students and luckily we have the guidance counselors and teachers in place who will advocate for the students. We will take a look at it."

The resident ended her comments by saying, "Well, the guidance counselor did say it is the board policy."

Grisafi said, "We're not saying that it's not".Trustee Christine Turner added, "It could be the board policy, but from what board, and that doesn't mean it can't be changed."

Superintendent Bierwirth said, "There are some real pros and cons to letter grades vs. numerical grades. One of the advantages of a letter grade is that it covers a broader range of scores and defining the difference between a 77 and 78 on a history paper is probably not real."

The board debated back and forth on the topic and Grisafi said, "What this discussion proves is that to discuss the topic further we need to do more research and have more facts and we could bring it back as a basis for a further and more detailed academic discussion."

Bierwirth added, "The best way to discuss this further would be at the high school level with the teachers and the parents. The board does not actually have a board policy that states the grading is this way but it has been my experience that most boards change their grading system about every ten years. I will talk to the teachers and the administrators and it will probably be many, many weeks before they come back with a recommendation."

Board President Grisafi then read a letter from the Herricks Association of Administrators and Supervisors (HAAS) who were supposed to meet with the board at the meeting. The letter, signed by HAAS President Joseph Leccese, explained that the reason the group wasn't meeting with the board, as previously announced, was that HAAS does not have any "pressing issues" and they added, "we are confident that the infrastructure concerns are being addressed by the school board."

Grisafi said it was very nice to receive such a letter and he added, "Yes, we have formally heard their concerns in the past, and we will continue to do everything we can to improve the district's infrastructure needs."

During the routine business portion of the meeting the board approved a trip to Spain for high school students in Spanish classes. The trip will take place from March 20 to Apr. 8 at an estimated cost not to exceed $3, 243 per student.

The board approved an agreement with Educational Data Services, Inc., for cooperative bidding services at a cost of $8,900. The savings generated by participating in this service is guaranteed to exceed the cost and more than 400 schools districts in New York State are members.

The board tabled the request for a high school course entitled Philosophical and Experimental Investigation of Yoga for the 2007-'08 school year.

The board approved an agreement with Nassau County to provide $12,700 to the Herricks School District towards the purchase of materials and services for the installation of fencing and gates at the Center Street School, and the board approved another agreement with Nassau County to provide $12,300 for the installation of fencing and dugouts at Herricks High School.

The board approved an agreement with Debra Gerner to use a telephone message system to retrieve messages from elementary school teachers regarding their absences and to fill teacher absences by contacting and coordinating substitute teachers. Ms Gerner makes the calls from her home phone and is considered a part-time employee of the district.

Finally, the board also approved a number of reviewed policies including: board of education liaisons, media for communication with the public, public's right of access to the records of the Herricks district, complaints about school personnel and use of school buildings and grounds for activities other than those initiated by the school system.

Since there was no further business, the board voted to adjourn into executive session. The next meeting will be held on Jan. 11 at 7:15 p.m. at the Community Center, 999 Herricks Road, New Hyde Park. At that meeting technology plans will be discussed by Don Barton.