NY educators want to revive the local diploma

By TOM KANE

LAKE HUNTINGTON, NY — A group of educators will soon propose that the local diploma be revived for those students who cannot meet the new standards demanding that students pass five Regents courses in order to graduate.

Sullivan West school board member Regina Wagner detailed the issue at the school board meeting on October 2.

The proposal will be presented at the next New York School Board Association Convention, she said. The convention will be held in Syracuse, NY from October 23 to 26.

“The drop-out rate in a lot of schools is rising drastically around the state,” she said. “Thankfully, our school is not one of them.”

Part of this group’s proposal, she said, was that a school could revive the local diploma if a certain percentage of students passed the Regents. She did not know what the percentage would be.

In other board matters, a parent who has his own construction business complained at the meeting of the Sullivan West School Board on October 2 that the floor tile in the new high school building had multiple cracks.

“The school is open a month and those cracks haven’t been fixed,” the parent complained. “Who’s responsible for that?”

“We are aware of the numerous cracks but hesitate to fix them until the students have walked over the floor surface many times,” said Scott Bridie of the Turner Company, construction consultants to the school board. “It makes no sense fixing them only to have to fix them again.”

Bridie assured the audience that a “punch list” existed in which all problems are listed that will eventually be fixed.

“We promise you that this will happen,” Bridie said.