Hempstead Public Schools: Board of Education Meeting Livestream February 13th, 2020

Due to the quarantine for COVID-19 and many schools being closed to slow the outbreak, scheduled board of education meetings were cancelled for the month of March. Luckily, the Hempstead School District has live streamed previous meetings and has posted them along with the meeting’s minutes. Using these resources, I was able to observe their regular meeting from February 13th, 2020 through livestream. 

This Hempstead Board of Education meeting began with the pledge of allegiance and then a moment of silence. Following that they gave a brief breakdown of the order of the meeting. The first to speak was a senior from Hempstead High School. He discussed the events that have been occurring with the student government. The Student Government put together a regents survival kit for the students. A lot of what he discussed were events that support the students such as spirit week, regents prep, and club events. They also had seminars for the students informing them about financial aid and college applications. The student even mentioned Molloy College coming to speak to their school. Finally, he announced the sports rankings and stats. The board members commended all of their hard work and began to ask some questions for the students to supply some data for the district clerk about the finances that they would need for their senior events. 

Next, a contractor presented the progress that is being made on the new elementary school building within the district. It will be completed in September 2021. The presentation was complete with commentary and a slideshow of photos for the members to visualize the progress. A teacher named Mr. Perez then presented awards for All County to the students. They were awarded for their accomplishments in music, which included vocalists, saxophonists, clarinetists, and trumpetists. The awarded students shook the hands of the trustees and received a standing ovation. 

In the main part of the meeting, the Trustees went through each page of their personal itinerary and decided what topics needed to be discussed or voted on. There were twenty five pages for them to go through. They first voted on an independent action item for a budget transfer. The motion failed due to unequal votes. For the remainder of the meeting, it didn't feel like it was meant for the public because although it was read aloud by the secretary, I was very confused. Due to this, I decided to look through the meeting minutes myself. In the meeting minutes there were a lot of finance related topics such as the approval of maternity leave and different salaries for substitute teachers and lunch aides. Also on the agenda were motions that were passed or failed based on the votes by the Trustees. 

The main takeaway that I had from this experience was that the Hempstead School District board has a strong emphasis on the arts and student achievement. Seeing this reminded me of Chapter 9 of the textbook describing the purpose of schools. One of the first reasons listed was artistic creativity. It is important for schools to promote students to be unique and develop their skills and talents. Through the encouragement that was displayed during the board of education meeting, I could see that the school system was built on these principles. The district has students that are extremely high achieving musically and vocally. 

Overall, this board of education meeting was interesting to watch and I will keep in mind the values of the Hempstead School District when deciding where to apply as a future teacher in the work field. 

Source: brittedwards.com

References:

https://www.hempsteadschools.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=3832&dataid=4214&FileName=2-13-2020%20minutes.pdf

Sadker, D. M., Zittleman, K. R., & Sadker, D. M. (2018). Teachers, schools, and society: a brief introduction to education. NY, NY: McGraw-Hill Education Create.