Retired NBA star John Starks was in Nyack yesterday, but he wasn’t shooting hoops.

He was there to encourage reading at the Nyack Public Library’s book fair. I snapped a shot of the 6’5’’ former New York Knicks player (right) chatting with a somewhat starstruck Amir Laguerre, 11, of Spring Valley. Another big name present at the fair was Deborah Gregory, the author of the popular Cheetah Girls book series.

Liya Li is an associate professor at Rockland Community College, where she teaches Mandarin. She’s also a survivor of Mao Zedong’s 10-year “ideological cleansing” of China.

You can read Christina Jeng’s story on Li’s heart-wrenching experience here. For a lighter look at Li’s life today, check out the podcast in this post on the Inside Rockland blog.

(Photo by Vincent DiSalvio.)

In today’s paper, we write about the Black Father/Black Men Back To School Night where community leaders encouraged a small group of black men to become more involved in their children’s education. (Read the story here).

But experts say it’s a problem that involves all men. Most fathers leave homework, school visits and after-school activities to mothers even though studies show that children with two involved parents perform much better in school.

So, the question begs: How do you get fathers to become more active in their kids’ schooling? Well, the U.S. Dept. of Education has some tips and also offers advice on how schools and communities can make schools more father-friendly. Among the tips for fathers:

• Attend parent-teacher conferences. Learn about school curriculum and class events.
• Join the Parent Teacher Association or other parent groups. Volunteer as a tutor or field trip chaperone and pitch in during functions.
• Help with homework. If you have trouble reading, stimulate the child’s imagination by telling stories.

Continue on to read the entire (rather long) tipsheet and drop us a line with your ideas for getting fathers involved in local schools. Read more of this entry »

IMPUTE: to relate to a particular cause or source, ascribe.

Maria Vergez travelled to Brazil last month but for the Chestnut Ridge Middle School principal, it was no summer vacation. As I note in a story today, Vergez toured schools in two different Brazilian states, meeting with principals, teachers and students.

Here are a few tidbits I didn’t have room to included in the published article:

• * In Brazillian science classes, some students bring their own lab-worthy materials—like cow testicles. Seriously.


• * Brazillian students young and old were excited to meet Americans like Vergez—very excited. “They wanted our autographs. They wanted to stand next to us and take pictures,” Vergez said. “It was very exciting for them.”


• * Vergez brought back a number of souvenirs from her trip, including a wooden owl sculpture, a bottle of sand art and a package of cashew candies. Vergez also brought back silver owl necklaces for some of her colleagues. Owls, she said, are the symbols of education in Brazil.

Here’s some insight we’ve all been waiting for!

Written by former Board of Education member and president Mark Slivka, this letter claims that the “precipitating event” behind Superintendent Debra Jackson’s resignation was the incident at Bedford Hills Elementary School, where staff members failed to report the suspected sexual abuse of a student and were arrested, reassigned and/or resigned.

If you recall, the school board and Jackson refused to comment on the resignation when it became public in June, citing a confidentiality clause in the agreement.

But a copy of the agreement obtained by my colleague Sean Gorman found that Jackson will get a lump-sum payment of $650,000 and free lifetime health-care coverage for her and her family when she steps down.

Jackson’s resignation does not become effective until June 30, 2008, but that’s still three years before her contract was set to end in 2011. The $650,000 payment will be in addition to the $243,461 Jackson will be paid this school year.

I’ll let Slivka’s letter do the rest of the talking…

A press kit came in this morning from the National Vocabulary Championship.

It included several items such as a daily calendar, a book called “Win with Words” and a backpack.

High school students interested in competing can go to winwithwords.com.

This is for everyone else.

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cordiform: shaped like a heart

Putnam/Northern Westchester BOCES’ Center for Educational Leadership invited former state commissioner of education Dr. Thomas Sobol to provide words of advice to public school superintendents who are new in their careers, my colleague Brian J. Howard reports today on the Yorktown page.

The center, whose goal is to develop and support school leaders by offering practical learning opportunities to support them in their roles, has been hosting an “Early Career Superintendent Seminar Series,� in collaboration with Bank Street College and New York State Council of School Superintendents. The program brings second- through fifth-year superintendents together with BOCES and Bank Street teachers and seasoned superintendents to discuss leadership development and school district improvement.

Dr. Sobol, now part-time professor at Columbia University, Teachers College, shared truisms related to leadership, such as “You learn as much from your mistakes as from your successes� and “Ethics begins with humility.� He also commented on the previous day’s visit to Columbia by Iran’s president by asking the new superintendents, “What would it be like to have Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on your board of education?�

It’s nice to be with people who are new like myself and hearing their perspectives,�said Yorktown Superintendent Ralph Napolitano, “as well as bouncing ideas off of veterans who are experienced and knowledgeable about the role of a superintendent.�

Video from the Easter Seals Project Explore playground yesterday…

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The state’s new 2007 Middle Class School Tax Relief program will provide homeowners with rebates on their school property taxes. The rebates, part of the state’s STAR program, will range from $172 to $1,572 for households in Westchester, Putnam and Rockland, according to state data. To see how much you can expect to get, peruse the database below.

The catch this year is that homeowners have to apply for the rebates, unlike past years when they automatically received the exemptions on their tax bills. (Senior citizens don’t have to apply; they will receive the new rebates automatically). The deadline to apply is Nov. 30.

The middle class rebates are for households earning up to $250,000 and will be in addition to current STAR exemptions. They will be calculated on a sliding income scale that takes into account school, town and village tax rates.

For more information, call the state’s STAR hotline at 1-877-678-2769 or apply online at http://www.nystax.gov/star/2007/default.htm.

UPDATE: Read a story about the rebates here.

UPDATE: Only seniors who receive the Enhanced STAR exemption will get their middle class STAR rebates automatically. All other seniors must apply to receive them. We apologize for the error in today’s article.

Does your teen have a way with digital video and an opinion on sex education? If so, you might find the following interesting:The “Fresh Focus: Sex-Ed Digital Video Contest” is encouraging young people ages 15 to 30 to submit new digital videos showing how they envision sex ed. (For a fun video promoting the contest, check out this site.) The grand prize is $3,500 through a scholarship or in cash. Video finalists will be featured at the Sex::Tech Conference held in January at San Francisco State University’s Institute for Next Generation Internet. The contest deadline is Dec. 31.

For more information, check out the conference Web site.

Just got back from the Easter Seals Project Explore school in Valhalla, where a new universally accessible playground is already helping to bring kids with developmental disabilities out of their shell.

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The latest results are in for 4th and 8th grade math and English tests in the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as NAEP.

And state Education Commissioner Richard Mills is very happy.

Results for the National Assessment of Educational Progress announced today show that since the late 1990s when the Board of Regents raised standards, New York State has made significant gains in 4th grade reading and math and in 8th grade math, especially among Black and Hispanic students.

“It is encouraging that New York has made progress over the past decade in raising the achievement of students overall, and especially our neediest students,� State Education Commissioner Richard Mills said. “But short-term results are mixed, with substantial gains in fourth grade math but not in other subjects. We must keep working hard to build on the long-term improvements and closethe achievement gap.�

Congratulations to Ardsley Middle School’s Martha Snegroff for winning a Siemens Science Teacher Award last week at the New York Hall of Science! The awards recognize exceptional public and private school educators – elementary through high school – who go the extra mile to motivate and inspire their students in science and math.

The awards this year emphasized “green” living, such as reducing the amount of paper used and encouraging the use of public transportation.

Other winners were:

• Rose V. Bruy, P.S. 4, Queens, NY
• Deborah Crimi, St. Matthias Parish School, Queens, NY
• Maryanne Daley, Huntington Intermediate School, Suffolk, NY
• Elizabeth Koos, P.S. 242, Queens, NY
• Pablo Lopez, P.S. 5, Bronx, NY
• Mike O’Herlihy, Manhattan Comprehensive Night and Day High School,
New York, NY
• Juan G. Rodriguez, St. Leo School, Queens, NY
• Bette Schonzeit, Hillcrest High School, Queens, NY
• Kristin Sherwood, Aquinas High School, Bronx, NY

The Vice President of Enrollment at Manhattanville College, Jose Flores, sat down with me today to discuss the admissions process. He offered some tips for choosing the right college, talked about application disasters and warned that the competition this year is going to be fierce. Please join me in thanking him for his time.

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