This year, I asked teachers, parents and administrators from the building level teams to join together in the District Advisory Council to develop a mission statement for our school district, which says:

"The New Hyde Park-Garden City Park School District is committed to developing the academic, social and emotional skills necessary to become lifelong learners and contributory members in a diverse community."

Our first task, as educators, is to teach children how to read. When a child is successful in learning how to read, a world opens up and self-esteem is ignited. Reading is the lynchpin to all else.

Twenty-three teachers took on the tremendous responsibility, including much time, and piloted the English language arts text materials for our school district to consider for adoption. Through the efforts of these teachers, we will have new materials for next year to include as part of our English language arts instruction.

Research tells us, then, that in the middle school years of schooling, math becomes the gatekeeper for student advancement. We started to accelerate students with the introduction of a Math Enrichment program. This recognizes that we have many students who have high-level mathematical abilities to be tapped, which, this year, culminated with winning students in a countywide math competition.

For the first time, our sixth-grade students were involved in an out-of-district science fair competition and one of our student teams won, competing against students in grades six, seven and eight. Our art teachers organized an amazing district-wide art fair for our community.

Some of our teachers were invited to share their knowledge with other teachers at professional conferences, bringing great pride to our district through their conference presentations.

NYSSMA - New York State School Music Association - sponsors an opportunity for students to demonstrate their musical ability for a judge. This year, we hosted a NYSSMA Festival and 265 of our elementary school students participated.

We explored new options for the identification of our gifted students, resulting in a new philosophy, set of goals and criteria for the program that was adopted by our board of education.

Helping our students to understand how they can live a healthy life was the focus of a pilot program for health materials in some fourth-grade classes this year, to be expanded into grades two and five next year.

A phonics-oriented program for kindergarten reading instruction was introduced this year, and will continue into grade one next year.

Some of our teachers have ventured into the world of professional organization contests and grant opportunities, resulting in winning programs for several of our teachers.

We introduced a hot lunch program into our district filling an important need in our district, which many parents have supported and which we plan to continue next year.

It has certainly been a pleasure to finish my second year in the school district working with so many talented teachers and administrators, with a support staff for the schools and district that believes in our purpose, with students who are eager to learn, parents who are supportive of their children, a community that values education and, above all, a board of education that allows us all to move our school district forward. Our planning for the 2007-2008 school year has promise for the continuation of our fine initiatives.