The 2000-2001 school year ended with great success for Levittown Public Schools' students, a graduating class with a record breaking Regents diploma rate of 75 percent. The district begins the 2001-2002 school year with an expected enrollment of 7,853 students and a continued commitment to academic progress for all students.

It has been an active and productive summer. Our teachers and administrators participated in summer curriculum projects that keep Levittown abreast of changes in state mandates and testing, enabling our students to have the best tools to succeed in school. In addition to our summer curriculum projects, the district continued many of its successful summer programs including a four week summer reading and math tutorial program for fourth, fifth and sixth grade students and a self-sustaining computer and keyboard program for the elementary students. The district offered a ninth grade special education math and science Regents readiness program and a late August Regents-level preparatory course. The summer music program was, again, a great success along with the summer recreation program that served over 750 students and secondary summer school that served over 500 students.

This year, the district begins the implementation of Math A curriculum for all students in ninth grade and those in an advanced status in eighth grade. After an extended pilot program and after previewing many options, the district has chosen to use the TI-83 graphing calculator. This calculator is one of the best tools we can give our students to use in order to succeed in the new Math A curriculum, the upcoming Math B curriculum, the upcoming Math B course, as well as calculus and many science courses.

The 2001-2002 class entering ninth grade will be the first class to graduate under the commissioner's new Regents diploma requirements. All students in grade nine must take and pass a minimum of five regents level examinations to receive a high school diploma.

To help students achieve high standards this fall, the Levittown Nine Period Day Plan is being implemented. This plan allows for additional staff at the high school level to add classes in English, social studies, math and science to decrease class size and allow more student teacher contact. A nine period day is achieved by adding what is called a "zero period" before the start of school each day. This will allow time for students and teachers to review material and provide students with remediation, a major key to school achievement and success. Both MacArthur High School and Division Avenue High School will start a zero period at 7 a.m. The Levittown Public Schools has added buses to help students take advantage of this extra time.

In addition to hiring additional teachers and support staff at the high school level, the plan calls for the addition of class size ratio reduction teachers at the elementary school. These teachers will be placed in the first and second grades to help reduce the student to teacher ratio.

Changes in administrative positions have been made. Lisa Ruiz has become the district director of pupil services. You may know Ms. Ruiz's name, as she was the principal of Abbey Lane Elementary School. Ms. Ruiz is excited about her new position and has a great number of ideas to help the special education needs of Levittown's youth. Replacing Ms. Ruiz at Abbey Lane is Dr. Gary Schorr. Dr. Schorr is formerly of the East Meadow Public Schools and New York City Public Schools. Dr. Schorr received his Ed. D. from Columbia University, and is a welcome addition to the administration of the Levittown Public Schools. The district also welcomes a number of new chairpersons: Nancy Triantafillou will chair the mathematics department at Salk Middle School. Ms. Triantafillou is formerly of the Middle Country School District where she was a mathematics chairperson. In addition to the new faces of Levittown's administration, we welcome some former Levittown teachers to their new administrative posts. Angela Soposato will chair the music department at Salk. We have two new business chairs at the high school level, John Avena at Division and Bill Farney at MacArthur. Steve Costello is the new social studies chair at MacArthur and Lynn Spinnato is the new art/technology/family and consumer science chair at MacArthur. Levittown also welcomes over 60 new teachers, filling vacancies and adding new staff to meet the regents standards.

School opens this year on Sept. 4 with a delayed opening of 1 1/2 hours. We look forward to another exciting and successful year.