From The Desk Of The Superintendent: Doing good … and doing better

A few observations on a frigid February afternoon. School means many things to different students. For some, it is their safe place, the most “normal” part of their lives at this time. For others, school is a place to showcase their talents: musical, artistic, athletic. For others, the high point of the school day may be a non-academic class in technology, computers, home/career skills or business/finance.

Also of considerable importance is that students learn to live together; learn to balance independent work and cooperative work; learn how to assert and challenge themselves within reasonable boundaries. They learn to share their growing pains and their successes; to cope with frustrations and to manage anger.

Schools have teachers as the primary contacts for students each day but we also have support staff to help students manage the “crises”: our school psychologist, our guidance counselor, our school nurse. We also have many community resources for students and parents to lean on in the difficult time we all have raising kids.

Of course, the primary focus of school is academics. We expect all of our students to learn to read (and to enjoy reading) and learn enough about math, science, social studies and foreign language to be reasonably educated young adults.

We have some academic stars who should get more attention than they do. We have some students who struggle mightily to reach state standards in the academic areas and we support those students with remedial reading, speech and language, special education and ESL. We provide “academic intervention services” and SAT prep work. Our guidance counselor coordinates college applications and the teacher reference letters for scholarship competitions.

We don’t have the numbers — the critical mass — to make the good news of early admissions and college scholarship offers the same news-worthy headlines as multiple basketball wins against Southold (congratulations to our girls and boys teams on that!).

We do have our National Honor Society — with 9 members — committed to the concept of using their “leadership, scholarship, character and service” to benefit community service projects on the Island and beyond. We have students active in the Human Understanding Growth Seminar (H.U.G.S.) program, the CTC Buddy program, scouting programs, church groups and the Youth Center programs that extend “education” to real life.

I have come to respect some of the unique qualities of growing up on Shelter Island. As one resident told me recently, it is a very seductive place. On the other hand, I would want my kids to be prepared to compete with the rest of Long Island’s students — academically as well as athletically and musically.

I encourage parents and students to push into more math and science courses; to accept the “new reality” that 85 percent on a Regents exam is the new 65 percent, and that SAT/ACT scores really do mean something as indicators of and predictors of school success.

You can have it all —  academic, non-academic success and Island happiness. All at Shelter Island School.