Board of Education Meets to Discuss Upcoming Budget

The Sayville Board of Education met on May 5 and discussed the upcoming budget votes and elections.

Voter registration is ongoing. Residents must register by May 12 to be eligible to vote in the May 17 election. A voter registration night is scheduled for May 10 from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the administration building. Registration will continue on May 11 and May 12 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The budget information meeting will be held on May 10 at 7:30 p.m.

Both Deborah Van Essendelft and Tom Cooley are both running unopposed for re-election on the board. The budget and election voting will take place on May 17 from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the . The reorganization meeting will take place on July 7 at 6 p.m. followed by the regularly scheduled board meeting.

In recent happenings, the Sayville High School hosted a senior citizen dance on May 3. Seventy-four seniors from the community attended the dinner/dance, which featured music by the high school jazz ensemble. Funded by club activities throughout the year, the dinner was cooked by Linda Horrigan and featured chicken marsala, sausage and peppers, pasta primavera, bread and salad. The high school students were servers and they did a phenomenal job, according to , superintendent.  The event was such a success it will be turned into an annual tradition on the first Tuesday of every May.

Schartner also gave the board a brief summary of the prior night’s meeting of the West Sayville/Sayville businesses and the school district. The two are looking to cooperate to help foster relationships and keep business in the town. “We all use local resources; we should make the parents aware of all these local resources as well,” Schartner said. “We would like to create a business directory online, and Patch.com is a good, free source for that. Home-based businesses would also like the opportunity to advertise through the school district so we talked about advertising on some of the programs at school functions, which would help offset some of the printing costs.” Other suggestions included internships, mentorships and job postings with the district and businesses.

Albany recently capped the STAR increase at 2 percent, which will mean $179 less from the STAR rebate program for the average household in Sayville. Albany also announced further mandates to be implemented via Race to the Top money. The mandate includes the SIRS (Student Information Repository System) where each student, teacher, administrator and course would have to be coded with its own unique number and linked.

According to Deputy Superintendent Dr. Gerry Sullivan Keck, the reason for the system is to link teacher evaluations to student achievements. There are still many details that need to be worked out, and more information will be provided at the next board meeting.