Superintendent of the East Williston School District, Dr. Elaine Kanas
Jan. 29 was midterm week at Wheatley, but it was also so much more. In addition to students taking their midterm exams, there were many opportunities for students to see that what they are learning in school has real life application and importance to their lives and the world.
While they took midterms in their other subjects, 9th and 10th graders, instead of taking a paper and pencil for their English midterm, participated in a “Midterm Experience.” Special thanks to Secondary ELA Chair, Steve Collier and Library Media Specialist Jo Beth Roberts and all of the members of the English department, for putting together such a great opportunity for our students. The experience allowed our Wheatley students to interact with some important and talented folks from the professional world of literacy. Some examples of the workshops were:
• Thinking Like A Writer with Wheatley grad and author Todd Strasser. Mr. Strasser is a well-known and popular Young Adult (YA) writer.
• We All Have A Story To Tell with award winning performer and storyteller April Armstrong. Ms. Armstrong is the winner of the 2015 Bronx BRIO award. Students examined the art of storytelling as a vibrant and essential form of communication.
• Celebrity Interviewing led by Jen Calonita, author of I’m With the Band and Secrets of My Hollywood Life .
Students learned what it takes to conduct a celebrity interview from research to published article. During this workshop, students, in fact, interviewed a celebrity through skype.
In addition to our celebrity guests, our very own Wheatley English staff celebrities contributed to the great array of experiences available to our students. Dan Burke led Star Wars and The Hero’s Journey where students’ explored George Lucas’ classic saga Star Wars within the archetypal model of the Hero who goes out and achieves great deeds on behalf of others in Joseph Campbell’s mythology model. Colin McKenna gave a workshop on writing television sitcoms and Jen Fatone conducted a journalism workshop that prepared our budding Wheatley journalists to go out and document this year’s midterm experience.
Finally, a real treat for me was my workshop, Enter Stage Right! The Fundamentals of Theatre Direction. I had the students acting roles, blocking scenes and learning all the essential contributions a theatre director makes to a production! They were terrific.
At the February BOE Monthly Business Meeting, on Feb. 22, Wheatley staff and students will share some of the exciting experiences and insight gained during yet another example of what makes Wheatley unique.
New York State Fiscal Stress Monitoring System
The New York State Office of the State Comptroller initiated a fiscal stress monitoring system for local governments and school districts. NYS Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, in a government fact sheet, explained that the fiscal stress monitoring system was intended to provide an “early warning of fiscal stress in local governments and school districts by examining their financial information and aspects of their external environment” and to provide “feedback to local leaders, State officials and taxpayers …” The monitoring system assigns an entity to one of three categories of stress: significant fiscal stress, moderate fiscal stress, susceptible fiscal stress or to the “no designation” category if its score doesn’t meet the threshold of stress.
Once again East Williston School District’s score was in the most favorable category of “no designation.” Continued thanks to all for their efforts and support in providing our students with an excellent educational program within a fiscally sound economic structure.
As always, please email me at kanase@ewsdonline.org or call me at 333-3758 with any questions, suggestions and/or any topics you would like to see in this newsletter.
