At a May 4 Special Public Meeting at 8 p.m. in the Mineola Middle School, the Mineola Board of Education will present a bond to the public for improvements to the school district. The $25.7 million bond will focus on impovements in the areas of technology, building repairs and space issues.

Each of the initiatives, according to the district, will address specific long-term needs. The bond also calls for a solution to the Willis Avenue property to help solve some of the space problems the district faces.

The bond calls for the existing Willis Avenue building to be torn down and a modern two-story structure to be erected, according to the district. The administrative offices, currently located in the middle school, will be relocated to the new structure as will all pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classes. The movement of the offices will create space in the middle school while approximately two classrooms worth of space will be made in each of the elementary schools by moving the kindergarten and and pre-kindergarten classes to the new building.

"We just can't put it off any more. We've really reached a point where it's critical," said Board of Education President Roseanne Buglione, adding that the community no longer wants to look at an empty and decaying building. The property, she said, is the only space left in Mineola for the district to use. "We should use it for our schools," she said.

Buglione also said that the board and the district is thinking of eventually implementing an all day kindergarten program.

If the bond passes and kindergarten and pre-kindergarten move to the new stucture, a nurse would probably have to be hired but the school may not necessarily need a principal because the central administration that would be moved from the middle school could oversee the programs, according to Buglione.

Another portion of the bond supports the district's Technology Plan and Essential Curriculum project by supplying adequate and appropriate technology, according to the district. The bond calls for the purchase of new classroom multi-media computers in each building and will create video, voice and date networks within and between school buildings to allow for more efficient communications and connection with the Internet, the district said. In addition, the bond allows for modern software upgrades and comprehensive staff development.

"In the last few years we've made a lot of strides [in the area of technology]. We were in pretty bad shape certainly two and three years ago. There was very little money going toward equipment and we were falling further behind and we've been sort of running to catch up. While we've done a lot, we're still incredibly far behind," said Dr. Ari-Zev Anolic, assistant to the superintendent for reseach, evaluation, planning and technology, citing that there are only 15 or 16 percent of the classrooms in the district have computers.

Also, if the district wanted to put computers into the classrooms, very few of the buildings in the district have enough electrical service to support it, Anolic said.

In addition, according to Anolic, none of the district's buildings are completely wired so that resources can be shared. "We're not in a great position right now," he said, noting that the Mineola School District is in the bottom third of districts in Nassau County when it comes to the use of computers and is in the bottom 10 percent when it comes to teachers' use of computers.

Anolic said it is important the district make more strides in the area of technology because computers have become an extremely important learning tool. "It's something that really matters on a whole lot of levels," he said. "The New York State standards have built into them technology competencies. Our curriculum that we wrote has built into it technology competencies and we can't deliver those competencies because we don't have the equipment or the wiring."

Although the bond calls for equipment and wiring so that each computer in the district will be linked to each other, Anolic is most excited about the fact that the bond calls for staff development. "What we're saying is that we've developed a curriculum. We've lined it up with state standards. We want our kids to meet the standards. Technology is a critical component to it. We're prepared to train our teachers as part of it," he said.

The building repairs to be included in the bond call for new roofs on the Meadow Drive and high school buildings as well as new boilers in Meadow Drive, Cross Street and the middle school. Also, the bond will include the expansion of the middle school cafeteria as well as the renovations associated with removing the administrative offices from the middle school and asbestos abatement at the Willis Avenue and Meadow Drive buildings as well as the middle school.

Despite the fact that a $37.7 million bond referendum failed last year, Buglione is hopeful the community will vote to pass this one.

"I think the community realizes that there are things that we need to do and will be supportive of the fact that we really made an effort to contain the costs," said Buglione. "Is the community ever happy about paying more taxes? I guess not. But I'm hoping that the community will recognize that we need technology; we need more space and we need to do the roofs and the boilers. We've been talking about this for the last ten years and the need doesn't go away. It just keeps growing and we've tried to contain costs as much as we possibly can."

Said Superintendent of Schools Dr. Harry Jaroslaw in a statement, "We have not been able to achieve everything we hoped to do, but, at $25.7 million, this bond represents the best solution we could develop after years of working on these problems."

The district's chief financial officer, John Jackson, said in a statement that the cost will be significantly lower than the $96 yearly average when one factors in the STAR programs.