The Carle Place Board of Education’s final meeting of the 2024-2025 academic year on Wednesday, June 18 was highlighted by middle and high school students receiving awards ranging from the National Junior Honor Society to sports.
“Tonight is a celebration of our incredible middle school-high school students and their academic achievements,” said an administrator.
Simone Giacalone recognized the first student of the night, Daniel Green, as the PTA Reflections State Qualifier.
“For as long as I can tell, for the first time ever, one of our students was selected to, and kept moving up,” said Giacalone before honoring Green with the award. “First it’s local, then it’s Long Island, to regional, and now it’s up to the states.”
Melissa Mehling presented the AP Capstone Program to three students: Isabella Buscemi, Stratos Mehalakes, and Marufa Mashud.
The National Junior Honor Society recognized Renee Klicpera and Alyssa Ceccoli with outstanding achievement awards from Cristyn D’Amico. Recipients are chosen for their work supporting the five pillars of NJHS: scholarship, service, leadership, character, and citizenship.
Leslie Rubenstein presented the Seals of Bilteracy and Civic Readiness. The Seal of Bilteracy honored 13 students, while the Seal of Civic Readiness, for the first time, recognized 27 students.
“The seal [of Bilteracy] reflects dedication, perseverance, and a commitment to connecting across cultures,” said Rubenstein. “It’s a powerful reminder that language is both a tool for communication and a bridge to understanding mothers.”
“These students know how to make their voices heard and how to actively contribute to their communities,” Rubenstein said when speaking on the Seal of Civic Readiness.
Science Olympiad, DECA awards, and the First in Math honors rounded out the academic portion of the awards ceremony recognizing 13 more students.
The middle school sports awards were then recognized, with crowning achievements in boys’ tennis, baseball, softball, girls’ and boys’ lacrosse, and co-ed track and field. Justin Block, the Director of Health, Physical Education, Family and Consumer Services, and Athletics, talked about the success of the sports season.
“Thank you to everyone here that has made this sports season, what I believe to be, a tremendous success, from the program, the kids, and the performance,” said Block. “We had some major success on the varsity level, but just remember, for every Marissa Nosovitch and Brian Lee, they started in a room just like this in middle school, saying, ‘one day, we’ll get that opportunity to play on the big stage.”
Following that, Ted Cannone, superintendent of Carle Place schools, gave out PTA Volunteer and Community Member Volunteer awards, while also recognizing the audit committee of John DiFrisco, Nancy Kingston, and Lawrence F. Zaino Jr, as well as the Board of Education.
The audi committee showcased their “Portrait of a Graduate” presentation for the public.
While handing out awards took the majority of the meeting’s time, Joseph LoCurto and Lisa D’Arpino made some public comments at the end. They had similar concerns about course-level classes and their difficulty and how it has been viewed as becoming harder for students to move up in their academic standing.
There were also concerns about how many families are taking their students to private schools instead. LoCurto explained further.
“If you have to cut off at say 90% to move into the upper echelon studies, you’re cutting out a large portion of students that before were not cut out,” said LoCurto. “The way we did it before, was we had a conference with the teachers, we looked at their grades and we placed students appropriately, but we weren’t as restrictive as this memo sounds.”
In response, Cannone spoke on the school’s process.
“All of our students matter, whoever you are,” Cannone said. “We are not trying to move up back into some sort of tracking situation. It has become apparent all over Long Island that it’s not always beneficial for students to start Regents exams in eighth grade. Some kids are a hundred % ready to go in eighth grade, some kids are better starting in the ninth grade.”
The Board of Education will have their reorganization and business meeting on Tuesday, July 8, before the next school year begins.
