
Community Update
December 2, 2023

Dear Syosset Community:
Last week, I was treated to three Thanksgiving meals – two in the District and one with my in-laws. The family feast is always delicious (I won the in-law lottery with Mom’s cooking), but the District celebrations are special for different reasons.
At Village, I was thrilled to see the gym packed with kids, parents and staff, celebrating both the holiday and Village’s close-knit sense of community. At South Grove, I joined the tradition of honoring our first responders and veterans, the “feast” finally renewed after a pandemic pause. Meanwhile, across town, the Walt Whitman family treated 80 senior citizens to a special Thanksgiving meal, a parade, and a performance by some of our student musicians. Each celebration was a beautiful culmination of hard work and contributions from our PTA, faculty, staff, and students. As importantly, it was a reminder to our youngest citizens of the importance of generosity, kindness, and appreciation for those who built this community, who keep it safe, or are new neighbors and friends.
Also giving back to the community through acts of kindness, South Woods and Syosset High School students volunteered at The Nest at Nassau Community College, a free choice food pantry. The volunteers brought food and clothing donations, shelved non-perishables, and created Thanksgiving bags for people in need.
Anti-bias Committee Update
This past Monday, the Board of Education met to appoint the three leaders of Syosset’s Interfaith Council to serve as Co-chairs of the District’s Anti-bias Task Force: Rabbi Jamiee Shalhevet, Pastor Rebecca Sheridan, and Dr. Uzma Syed. The Co-chairs had an organizational meeting yesterday and the next step will be to identify remaining members of the Task Force. The Board of Education has envisioned a small, agile Task Force that would receive comments, suggestions, and feedback from the broadest cross-section of the community, as well as from experts and organizations that work to fight hate and bias.
There will be a monthly Board of Education meeting this coming Monday, December 4th, where I’ll report to the Board on the organizational meeting and plan of work for the Task Force. The meeting begins at 8pm, and will also be streamed at this link.
If you have any questions about the Task Force, or comments and suggestions for its consideration, you can e-mail: antibias@syoschools.org
Monthly Board of Education Meeting
Monday, Dec 4, 2023, 08:00 PM
South Woods Middle School, Pell Lane, Syosset, NY, USA
Universal Prekindergarten
In anticipation that the State will continue its annual grant to underwrite our Universal Prekindergarten (UPK) program, we have started to prepare for the 2024-2025 school year. The program operates at no cost to families (or the District) and seats are allocated by lottery. To be eligible to register for the 2024-25 UPK lottery, a student must establish residency in the District, and be 4 years of age prior to December 1, 2024. Please be on the lookout for email updates in the coming weeks with more details about our program and how to register for the lottery. If you’re interested in joining our UPK e-mail list, please sign up at this link.
Syosset Theater🎭
It’s time to spotlight our theater arts program and performing talent!
Over the course of the past 27 years, Syosset High School’s Theater Arts program has grown from a single acting class to four separate performance classes, four levels of dance, and two technical theater courses. We are so proud of this – and of how many of our graduates have gone on to pursue theater as a career.
In fact, yesterday was Syosset High School’s annual ACT Alumni Day. We hosted eight alumni who returned to share with their former teachers and current students their on- and off-stage experiences ranging from producing Emmy award winning shows, to performing in Broadway productions, to casting for shows, and more. So many of our current students have similar career aspirations, and it was a wonderful opportunity for us to learn how we can continue to shape our programs to help our current students join this rapidly evolving industry. They also met with students to speak about their career paths – and served as quite the inspiration for our high school thespians.
This alumni visit caps off three amazing Fall productions at our High School, and one at each of our Middle Schools.
At Syosset High School, students wowed audiences with their interpretation of Peter and the Starcatcher, which explores the backstory of how a miserable orphan ultimately became Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn’t grow up. The countless hours of hard work that the 40+ students and crew put into this show was evident in the performance. We just learned this morning that the Theatre Association of New York State (TANYS) awarded the show four awards for ensemble work, scenic and costume design, and acting. Wow! Nearly 500 people came to see this show and a portion of the proceeds from ticket sales went to the Long Island charity: Hope for Youth. The High School also donated proceeds from ticket sales for its annual Cabaret Night earlier this month. The theme this year was Dance the Night!, and featured soloists, duets, choral ensembles, and a live band to accompany the students. This year, students chose to donate to the family of Gina Pellettiere, the late Farmingdale High School band director. Everyone wore a green sticker in her honor.
South Woods Drama Club performed I Hate Shakespeare. The story takes place during a performance of Hamlet when an angry audience member heckles an actor on stage because she "hates" Shakespeare and can't understand his plays. The audience member is invited on the stage to learn why Shakespeare's plays are actually pretty great! The performance featured 47 student actors. More than 20 participants in the South Woods Theater Technology Club also painted sets, created props, and worked backstage and controlled the lights for the performances.
HBT’s Fall production was a One Act comedy titled The Cast List. All of the scenes take place around a school theater department, and the plot characterizes the "drama" that abounds in the theater world. There are script cuts, actor trade agreements, difficult actors, and even the show’s Assistant Director trying to incorporate songs from Grease into Romeo & Juliet without a lawsuit. Hilarious! The cast and crew consisted of more than 60 students and we had a packed house both nights.
Congratulations to these hardworking and dedicated students on these outstanding performances! We can’t wait until the Spring to see what you'll do next.
Syosset High School performance
South Woods Cast and Crew
HBT Crew
Spotlight on Instruction 🔦
After a COVID-induced pause, South Woods has been able to bring back its “21st Century CTE” elective this year. This 8th grade course brings together the Career and Technical Education disciplines of Business Education, and Family and Consumer Sciences skills, to create a course that challenges students to work collaboratively to create solutions to real-world problems. Students enrolled will participate in the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship’s “World Series of Innovation.” This international competition, which is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, inspires students to build an entrepreneurial mindset while researching and collaborating to create innovative solutions to problems facing our planet. These students are currently using research, problem solving, collaboration, presentation, technology and English language arts skills to develop proposals that they will submit later this month.
Current projects in progress are:
A gift card/rewards program for recycling bottles;
A boat attachment that will use sonar to warn whales about marine traffic;
A SCUBA drone to pick up plastic from the sea’s depths.
I’m always amazed at the creativity and ingenuity of our student entrepreneurs (wait until a future update on the Virtual Enterprise program!). Just when I think there’s nothing left to invent, their agile imaginations prove me wrong! I suspect our kids’ ocean-saving ideas will make an even bigger splash at this competition.
They’re not the only ones expanding on CTE. Syosset High School has had three new CTE Pathways approved by the State Education Department: Pre-Engineering, Business Management, and Accounting/Finance. Our Business Advisory Council and our (who else?) Marketing students are now working on succinctly explaining the advantages of these pathways – an additional diploma endorsement and an industry certification or credential, for example.
Keep your eyes peeled for more detail (and maybe a new name) in a future update.
#SyoStars⭐
Before the Thanksgiving break, I wrote about a student performing in the Macy’s Day Parade. It turns out, she had company! Freshman Olivia Palaganas joined eighth grader Samantha Bell alongside 400 other girls selected by Spirit of America. These young women are company and competition members of North Shore Dance Studio in Huntington. While watching the parade at my in-law’s house, I gathered the family around the TV when I saw that sea of pink fill the screen – and was proud to tell them that we had Syosset students marching among the pom-poms! Congratulations, Olivia and Samantha!
Bright Spot
Our District Girl Scouts have been hard at work helping our school community and beyond.
Village Scout Troop 3399 is small but mighty. The group of seven fourth graders held a fundraiser last year to plant a school garden. This year, they got to see the fruits (and vegetables) of their labor! There are tomatoes, sunflowers, and squash thriving in the Village courtyard. Plus, their peers are benefitting from the garden, too. The Village Nature Club studies, explores, and celebrates our environment – and members are able to use the supplies provided by the scout troop to plan, plant, and maintain the garden. What an amazing collaboration!
Walt Whitman Troop 3499 hosted a bear-y fun event in the school gym. About 30 girl scouts from Syosset and Jericho teamed up to stuff stuffed animals and write cards for care packages, which were donated to Jericho Cares, a local non-profit that assists families in need. The event was a great opportunity for students to meet their peers from neighboring schools who share their interest in helping others.
#Light&Love
Tom Rogers