Although teachers are still working without contracts, the Sag Harbor school district has managed to triple the worldwide average for certain college-based courses for its school students.
At the Sag Harbor school board meeting Monday night, Pierson High School Principal Jeff Nichols gave a PowerPoint presentation to the board, community members and faculty on how the students in the high school compare with those in surrounding districts and other high schools with similar curriculums worldwide.
Currently, Pierson offers a variety of Advanced Placement (AP) courses for students in subjects such as world history, English, chemistry, calculus, art and so on. Nichols compared recent test results to those collected from previous years. In 2005, according to the data, there were 48 students enrolled in at least one AP course at Pierson and in 2008 there were 79 students. Nichols said that there was a 16 percent achievement rate for AP courses in 2002, but that results from 2007-08 show that there was a 74 percent achievement rate, even though the amount of students enrolled in AP courses has increased dramatically.
Nichols’ presentation also showed a comparison of the average exam results in AP classes in Sag Harbor and how they compared to other schools worldwide.
“We are doing very well against the global mean,” Nichols said on Monday.
The information presented was taken from the College Board and the results show that Sag Harbor doubles the physics and biology worldwide average and nearly triples the worldwide average for English literature and composition.
Nichols’ presentation also showed a comparison to local districts such as Bridgehampton, Southampton, Westhampton, Greenport, Mattituck and Eastport among others. Pierson typically scored higher in most state regents mandated exams such as English and math for eighth graders. Sag Harbor Regents test results showed Sag Harbor leading in five out of seven courses.
“Regents are tests mandated by the state and AP is not mandated,” Nichols told the crowd on Monday. “But the AP courses are the courses that help prepare for higher education and I see it as a necessity.”

Extracurricular Trips
After Nichols’ presentation, superintendent Dr. John Gratto explained that he and Nichols have worked on a revision of a new policy which outlines restrictions and allowances for extracurricular trips.
The new policy requires an outline for trips, those that will be curriculum-based and those not particularly tied to a curriculum. The new policy indicates students would not be allowed to miss more than two school days.
Board president Walter Wilcoxen said there is great concern for the quality of the education for the children that are left behind. He said they are trying to do a better job of finding a substitute or design activities relative to the subject for the children that remain in school.
Board member Sue Kinsella said on Monday that she is not in favor of taking the teachers out of the classroom for more than two days at a time and said that extensive field trips should be taken during vacation time.
Resident Elena Loreto, who also spoke at Monday’s meeting, said that she believes the only real impact a teacher has on a student is during traditional classroom instructional time. Loreto also expressed concern for those students that would be left behind.
This was the first reading of the policy, there will be a second reading and a chance for more input at the next meeting.

More Cost-Saving Measures
On Monday night, Gratto talked about additional plans that the district is investigating to try to save more money. Gratto said that there could be a mid-year state aid reduction, and that he and business manager Len Bernard are working diligently to try to come up with creative ways to cut costs. At the moment, Gratto said there are 16 ideas in the works for ways to try to reduce costs, including the South Shore Purchasing Consortium, a reduction in special education contracts and a freeze in the budget on some supplies. The district is now adding to that list an analysis of a different dental insurance company and requesting that computers are turned off when not in use, which Gratto said has shown a tremendous reduction in energy use in other municipalities. The district is also looking at a Medicaid reimbursement for services.
“We are in for a difficult year this year and possibly next year,” Gratto said.
Wilcoxen said, according to a publicized report from New York Governor David Paterson, the state has a two billion dollar deficit in education.
“I believe there will be no state money coming our way in the foreseeable future,” he said.
In response to the possible aid reduction, the school is considering buying a school bus and shuttle for field trips and trips for daily sporting activities. Bernard explained that the current bus company charges $85 per hour for a minimum of three hours.
“We had a field trip to Shelter Island, it cost three hours to bring the kids to the ferry and three hours to pick the kids up,” Bernard said. If the school had its own bus, the district could easily save money on trips such as this, according to Bernard.
Bernard said that the school might be able to examine shared services with Southampton or East Hampton and ask if those districts could pick up additional students. At the moment, Bernard said the district pays $22,000 to pick up Stella Maris students.

President of the Sag Harbor Board of Education, Walter Wilcoxen has been on vacation and missed the last school board meeting where nearly 50 teachers showed up in black shirts and buttons asking for new teacher contracts. In his place sat Theresa Samot who faced the upset teachers with fellow board members and superintendent, Dr. John Gratto.
The teachers contracts expired in June, and Gratto said on Tuesday that school attorney Tom Volz has been collecting data on surrounding districts and is expected to make a presentation to the superintendent and the school board on October 23.
The teacher contracts developed in 2004 expired on June 30. The teachers and school board were not able to come to an agreement on certain issues pertaining to the contracts so the Teachers Association of Sag Harbor (TASH) declared impasse in June, which required that a mediator come in to help negotiate.
TASH President Eileen Kochanasz, said that her group is not invited to the October 23 meeting and she believes it may be a while after that meeting before TASH can meet with the board and superintendent to go over the contracts.
“I don’t know what to anticipate,” said Kochanasz who explained that after the school board met with Gratto and Volz last time, she was left in the dark about the next meeting date.
“I hope we will hear something at the end of this October 23 meeting,” Kochanasz said, “but I can’t be sure.”
Kochanasz said the data being collected by Volz has to do with salaries in other nearby districts, but Wilcoxen said the district is also looking at other issues involved, like post retirement data, which is also a concern.
“Tom Volz is compiling a review of our bargaining position – but it’s more than that,” Wilcoxen said.
Business Manager Len Bernard explained that an actuarial study is being performed by Milliman Inc., a global consulting and actuarial firm, regarding post retirement issues including health benefits, which he expected to have received on Tuesday. This is a new requirement that will determine post retirement issues for the next 20 to 25 years.
“It would be irresponsible to go ahead now, for the community,” Wilcoxen said on Friday, “We are asking ourselves, are we going to have this great school 10 years from now? Well that all depends on what we do now.”
“We want to make a recommendation about everything that is known so we can do our due-diligence,” Wilcoxen said, “We would back ourselves into a corner if we didn’t.”
Wilcoxen also added that he believes the old contract is not a bad contract, and the board is trying to do the best thing for the district.
“Hopefully we will be signing in the next few weeks,” Wilcoxen said, “We’re moving forward not backward, so that is positive.”

The  Teachers Association of Sag Harbor may have traded in black shirts for more subtle buttons,but the message is still the same: they want a new contract.  

Members of the Teachers Association of Sag Harbor (TASH) are in the middle of negotiating their contracts with the Sag Harbor school district’s board of education and superintendent. The negotiating began in February of this year and many of the district’s teachers are wearing buttons on their shirts to stress the fact that they have yet to come to an agreement on certain pieces of the contract. The bargaining began between TASH and the board of education along with the former superintendent, Kathryn Holden. When they could not come to agreements on certain issues, they declared impasse.

 “Since TASH declared impasse in June we had a mediator come in.” superintendent Dr. John Gratto said on Monday. “She came in two days in August but we haven’t scheduled another session with her at this point.”

The mediator, Karen Kenney, was chosen by the Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) to work with the board of education, the superintendent, the school’s attorney, Tom Volz, and the Labor Relations Specalist who works for New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), Rich D’Esposito.

On June 30, the previous contract, which was developed in 2004, expired, although is in effect until a new contract is developed. The teacher’s contract covers sick leave, vacation time, health insurance, benefits and salary among other items.

“Negotiations will continue,” Gratto said, “The board is working hard to propose terms of the contract that are fair to employees and the taxpayers.”

The Teachers Association’s Team, which consists of Eileen Kochanasz, math teacher Jim Kinnier, home economics teacher Donna Mannino, and third grade teacher Maria Semkus, were hoping for a new contract before the previous one expired.

According to Kochanasz, TASH president, TASH is made up of 119 teachers, substitutes and support service teachers.

In a recent Newsday poll, Kochanasz points out that the English test scores for Sag Harbor’s eighth grade are second out of 137 schools on Long Island. She said what the teachers are asking for is not a lot for a school with such a high rating.

“Why are we arguing over this?” she said, “We have a great school, let it be — it’s beautiful.”

Kochanasz said she is unsure when the next meeting on contract negotiations will take place because nothing is scheduled right now.

“From what I understand from Dr. Gratto is that the district attorney has compared current salaries from surrounding districts and presented them last week at the executive session on September 23,” Kochanasz said on Wednesday. “But they [the board] decided that their attorney did not get enough data for the next four years.”

Teahcer contracts are for four years, and Kochanasz explained that the school board has asked their attorney, Tom Volz, to get more information but she believes he would not be able to present this information before the middle of October.

“I don’t understand why the board had four years to consider the issues for this new contract and they are just starting to collect the data now,” Kochanasz said.

Gratto said that the contract negotiations are not something that can be rushed.

“This is simply a process that takes time,” Gratto said, “There are terms of the contract that the board is trying to take a ballot on.”

But Kochanasz says that even after the contract is agreed upon, TASH members still have to pick a date for a ratification vote. She explained that even if TASH meets by October 31, the group might not be able enact the new contract until the middle of November.

“This is just showing the disregard,” Kochanasz said, “We are what makes this school.”

But Gratto says that progress is being mae and notes that he and the board are also currently working on the custodial and secretarial union contracts.

“We are looking at three negotiations simultaneously,” Gratto said. “Both sides look at the issues differently and it takes time to get to an agreement. It’s a meeting of the minds.”

Gratto also said on Monday that it is incumbent upon the teachers and the board of education to reach a fair agreement.

“Wearing buttons won’t hurt or injure that process,” he said.

Barbara Cohen, representative for the secretarial union, said on Monday that contracts are still being discussed.

“We are not even sharing this information with our secretaries at this point,” Cohen said, but added, “We are making slow steady progress.”

Representative for the custodial department, Matt McAree, said his group is moving ahead at a steady pace.

“We have made a lot of progress on our contracts and hopefully they will be finalized soon,” McAree said on Monday. “Two more weeks and we should know. But even after we negotiate and it goes to the board, it will take a few weeks to go into effect after that.”

 

When new Sag Harbor school superintendent Dr. John Gratto was handed a list of board of education sponsored committees, 16 in total, he scratched his head. Never had he seen a list of so many committees in his career as a superintendent.
“I thought that it must have been a very involved board of education,” he said on Wednesday. “I think that if the board and the public believe they are getting thorough information about issues, then there may be less of a need to have all of those committees. I think it’s prudent of the board to take a look at those committees and decide which are essential and which are nonessential.”
The board began to do just that last Monday at a work session. The majority of the committees are mandated, such as shared-decision committees, a health and wellness committee and an audit committee. But there are also a number of non-mandated committees and on Monday the board voted unanimously to dissolve two and discussed narrowing the scope, or charge, of another. The district will no longer have an athletics advisory committee or a personnel committee. As for the other, the budget advisory committee (BAC), discussion ensued over whether to eliminate it.
“I think there’s a universal agreement that [last year the BAC] did not work very well],” said board president Walter Wilcoxen.
Board member Sue Kinsella disagreed, “Because you had more representatives of different segments of the school district it in the community, you didn’t have four people with like minds forming all the decisions.”
Until last year the BAC consisted of a small number of community members with different backgrounds. Their charge was to evaluate and analyze the budget as presented and make recommendations. At the last budget meeting of the year they advised the board on the budget based on their analysis of the numbers.
But last year the board made the decision to expand the BAC and include more members from different parts of the community. One of those members was newly elected board member Mary Anne Miller. The BAC was also given a new charge of gathering data and meeting with administrators.
“I made every meeting but one,” began Miller. “After we made our recommendations early on, we continued to talk about what the board could do with contract negations, which we had no say on. But that’s all we talked about.”
Miller said they didn’t receive the information the board had intended to provide them, such as benchmarking, until the budget process was nearly over, and that the administrators never attended the meetings because they were apprised of them.
“They were apprised of them, just couldn’t make them,” said Kinsella.
Board member Ed Haye pointed out the BAC had been successful in the past because their analysis included administrator’s input. Haye said the biggest accomplishment of the BAC over the past three years was getting the district to move to zero-based-budgeting and the question arose whether the BAC was even needed anymore.
Haye said the recommendations from last year’s BAC were helpful
“We made them early on and then after that all we did was argue,” said Miller
The idea arose that perhaps the BAC’s new charge should be simply to attend the budget workshops and ask questions and then report back to the community as liaisons. Gratto asked why that would be any different from a regular community member doing the same thing.
Wilcoxen suggested the BAC had perhaps outgrown its charge and Gratto brought up the idea of eliminating the committee all together.
Wilcoxen mentioned the difficulty in giving such a group a specifically defined charge.
“It’s very hard to define that group of people,” he said “Some people want to limit everything, others want to open everything up.”
Board members Dan Hartnett and Theresa Samot both agreed that the BAC should remain in some fashion. Hartnett suggested they should perhaps meet less frequently but focus on one issue such as benchmarking. Samot pointed out the successful passing of the last budget and attributed it to the BAC.
“I’m a little bit leery of taking that away,” said Samot. “It will end up being interpreted as we don’t need their input.”

Top Photo: Ed Haye, Theresa Samot and Wes Frye at Monday’s board of education meeting.

The upcoming school year could be make-or-break for Pierson’s cafeteria. Based on an audit completed earlier this month which showed a loss of $49,000 and only 11 percent of the students purchasing lunches, the Sag Harbor Board of Education chose to eliminate a position in hopes of breaking even next time around.
Board president Walter Wilcoxen said one of the positions “had to go” and the board did not think a school lunch coordinator was needed. The result was the termination of Paula Brannon who has been a part of the lunch program at the school since 2002 and whose salary with benefits for the 2007-2008 school year was close to the amount the program was in the red. This was the first year that a school lunch coordinator salary was included in the cafeteria budget.
Wilcoxen said the board did not necessarily believe the move would mean the program would make money this year, but that it hopefully would keep it out of the red.
“If we get to this time next year and we have the same problem, then people have to seriously question whether this is a viable option. This is an attempt at getting this thing to work,” said Wilcoxen. “Ultimately the system may fail. Ultimately we may not have a lunch program at the school [in the future].”
Superintendent Dr. John Gratto said on Tuesday that both he and the board believed three, rather than four, people could do the job and said he had no intention to fill Brannon’s position.
“From the consumer standpoint,” said Gratto, “nothing will change. The students will still get good quality food at the same price.”
A full lunch costs $3.25 and last year the program averaged 110 lunches a day.
Prior to last year the district had contracted with a food service provider for the program but last summer the decision was made to attempt to provide the service in-house. In order to do that, two full time positions, a head cook and a prep cook, and one part-time position, a cashier, were added. All of the positions were hourly and did not include benefits. Brannon, who had been the lunchroom manager the previous year when the food service provider, Whitson’s, ran the program, and a cashier before that, took a civil service test in order to fill the school lunch coordinator position which included a salary plus benefits.
“[The position] entailed a lot of the paper work, record keeping, ordering of food and supervising,” said Brannon.
Gratto said the plan was to have the head cook trained in the paperwork aspect of Brannon’s position, as well as the ordering of the food.
“I think the head cook can do those things,” he said. “If a cook prepares the meals, they need to know the inventory.”
Last year, the head cook was Lisa Becker who was hired at $22 an hour. Currently the position is empty because it was only a one-year appointment. Gratto said Becker would be reappointed at the August 11 board meeting. On top of her cooking duties, Becker will now also be in charge of the paperwork relating to the state’s reimbursable lunch program. Brannon said she was a little confused by the board’s actions, particularly because she is the only person on staff who is cross trained in all areas including the paperwork as well as food preparation.
“I think it can be done with three people,” said Brannon. “But they will have to do some pedaling when it comes to learning to do the paperwork. They may be cutting their nose off to spite their face.”
Last summer, as the board was deciding whether or not to re-contract with Whitson’s or create an in-house program, the district missed the opportunity to take advantage of a regional cooperative bidding program for food purchasing. Gratto believes that by taking advantage of that opportunity this year, cost savings could be realized.
As for Brannon, she will continue to be employed by the district as the middle and high school play director. She is also the senior class advisor for next year. However she will not be in the lunchroom on a daily basis.
“I’ve been there for six years and I’ve put blood, sweat and tears into that district,” she said. “It’s going to be very hard to keep in close contact with the students.”

Photo: Sag Harbor Board of Education President Walter Wilcoxen