Editor’s Note: This article was written and submitted by Chris Boyle.
At the November meeting of the North Bellmore Board of Education, Superintendent Arnold Goldstein welcomed back faculty, parents and students after the recent hardships afforded to the school district by Hurricane Sandy.
Amid power outages, flooding, and bitter cold, Goldstein expressed his appreciation for how the residents of North Bellmore pulled together to help one another in the wake of Sandy’s passing.
“I want to thank everyone for their support during the storm,” he said. “I’ve been impressed to see the community, colleagues, and friends raise funds, collect clothes, diapers, food...all kinds of things that are being planned to support those in our own community for those who are in need.”
In addition, Goldstein gave an update on Sandy’s effects upon the North Bellmore school district itself, which were light in comparison to many other districts on Long Island.
“Our buildings are in very good shape,” he said. “We have power. We did lose it, and we had trees come down and so on, but we now have power. We have our computers up, our phones are working and, unlike some districts whose buildings were ruined, our buildings are in good shape.”
However, the loss of almost two weeks of classes caused a great deal of disruption when it comes to scheduling, according to Goldstein, and the district is currently working on how to address that issue.
“We do have to reschedule a lot of things,” he said. “We are working on revising Parent-Teacher conferences, reports cards and writing samples. We will send those new dates to you once they’re finalized. We’re also trying to make up for the loss of instructional time, which is critical. We’ve lost eight days, and there’s the threat of a bad winter, so everyone is committed to making up as much of that instructional time as we can.”
Goldstein mentioned that there may be changes made to the upcoming February break and urged parents not to make any vacation plans until the district makes its decision regarding the possibility of altering it.
The next meeting of the North Bellmore Board of Education is scheduled for Dec. 11 at 8 p.m.
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