Superintendent of Schools Dr. Robert Feirsen and the Garden City Board of Education addressed the concerns of several parents who attended Tuesday evening’s meeting of the Garden City Board of Education. The individual issues differed, but all involved the safety and well-being of students. Working Toward

a Safer CrossinG

The Garden City School Board has reached out to a cadre of elected officials on the local and state levels, and now encourages all parties involved to work together to help make the intersection of Nassau Boulevard and Stratford Avenue safer for the 22 children who cross on their way to and from Stratford School.

“We will continue to follow up on this matter,” School Board President Colleen Foley read from a prepared statement. “It is my sincere hope that all governmental agencies continue to support the safe passage of the children involved by implementing all actions within the control of each governmental agency. We know that both boards, the School District and the Village, hold the safety of children in the highest regard, and we pledge to continue to work together on this matter.”

Susan Walsh, one of four parent representatives from the group called the Nassau Boulevard Safe Passage Initiative, asked that a representative from the school board or administration attend the Nov. 19th meeting of the Village’s Traffic Commission and speak in support of their efforts to secure a crossing guard. Foley said the school board trustees would consider the group’s request during their executive session. (Look in next week’s issue of The Garden City News for an article based on the Traffic Commission meeting.)

“Our hope is that we will get a lot of community support at the Traffic Commission to convince them that we need a crossing guard,” said Susan Sonner, another parent representative.

The district has implemented traffic safety programs given by Automobile Club of New York personnel in both Stratford and Stewart Schools. According to Foley, the programs will continue throughout the school year.

Janice Smith, who lives on Nassau Boulevard, said the program did not teach her son how to safely cross a busy street. “He didn’t learn anything about crossing a street like Nassau Boulevard safely,” she said.

Smith claimed that Detective Richard Pedone from the Garden City Police Department has reneged on a promise to meet with this group of children and teach them traffic safety. “He said that was our responsibility,” she said. “He actually used the example, ‘Well, do you want me to come to your house and teach your children how to eat?’”

Smith said that Pedone should teach her child how to cross a busy four-lane street because he is “more of a professional at traffic safety” than she or other members of the group.

When reached by telephone the next day, Garden City Police Inspector Kenneth Jackson told The Garden City News that the police department does not recommend children under 10 walk to school without adult supervision, which is supported by many safety experts, including the ACNY, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Traffic Safety Administration. “It’s not just about one intersection,” he said. “Children should be bused, driven by car, or walked to school with adult supervision along the entire route.”

Police department staff members do not provide individual training on safety topics such as training children how to cross a street. General safety issues are discussed during scheduled classroom visits and/or assemblies.

He said Detective Pedone spoke with members of the safe passage committee and contacted ACNY to bring their traffic safety program to the schools. “He felt it was in the best interest of all children who walk to school,” he said.

Foley asked Dr. Feirsen to look at the ACNY traffic safety program. She advised Smith to voice her concerns regarding the police department at the next Village Board of Trustees meeting, which was actually scheduled to follow the Traffic Commission meeting on Thursday evening.

Susan Walsh added her thoughts on the program. “AAA did an excellent job,” she said. “It was a wonderful assembly. It was very entertaining for the children, but it pertained much more to car safety than it did to pedestrian safety.”

Walsh estimated that only 10 minutes out of the 45-minute program was focused on pedestrian safety. “It was a great concept, but the bottom line is those 20 kids’ needs were not particularly addressed,” she said.

Monitoring H1N1 Developments

Superintendent of Schools Dr. Robert Feirsen attempted to reassure a worried mother that the school district is following Dept. of Health guidelines concerning the H1N1 virus.

Garden City resident Kathy Wood, who has five children, asked the school board why notices are not sent home alerting parents when a child in a class is diagnosed with a case of Type A influenza. She said she receives notices when children have head lice or strep throat.

Dr. Feirsen said school districts have been told by the county’s Dept. of Health not to issue notifications regarding possible H1N1 cases. One reason is that most of the cases are suspected, since only in the most egregious cases are people actually being tested for H1N1. He also said notifications run the risk of violating a child and parent’s right to confidentiality.

“Do we have flu? Yes, we do. Is it present in all buildings? Yes, it is...Assume that there is flu around and that the child who has been absent in your child’s class had the flu,” Dr. Feirsen said.

Wood asked the school district to do more that what the DOH requires and notify parents. “This flu is different from the other flu,” she said. “It targets the younger population. It’s more life threatening to our children. It’s so new that we really don’t know what the best course of action is.”

The primary prevention method the school district is advocating is vaccination. Parents are encouraged to contact their health care provider to find out when they can get a vaccination for the seasonal flu, as well as H1N1. There is a shortage of H1N1 vaccines, and wait lists are now common. Wood said her pediatrician does not have either vaccine available at the moment.

At the Sept. 10th school board meeting, Dr. Feirsen had said that it was not uncommon for him to receive two to three communications a day from one or more health organizations, which include the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the state and county Health Departments and BOCES health and safety consultants. The district has also participated in conferences, Webinars and phone conferences. District officials now have a weekly phone conference with the county’s department of health.

The district voluntarily reports attendance figures to the DOH on a daily basis. The department is keeping an eye out for absence patterns, and has not notified the district of anything unusual.

Dr. Ronald Feinstein, the district’s physician, said at the September school board meeting that the district will emphasize “respiratory etiquette” to help control the spread of infections. This includes practicing good hygiene by washing your hands, and covering your mouth and nose when sneezing into a tissue.

The district will send home any student who develops a fever of 100 degrees or higher. A child needs to be fever-free for 24 hours, off of any kind of antipyretic, before they return to school.

Patrick Mehr, the district’s director of facilities, said all common areas are being disinfected every evening, including but not limited to computer keyboards, doorknobs, light switches, water fountains, telephones, hand rails, desk tops, bathrooms and locker rooms. The district uses four different disinfectants registered by the Environmental Protection Agency which appear on the state department of education’s list of approved cleaners proven effective against influenza. However, Dr. Feirsen reminded the public that it is impossible to keep a school building sterile.

Keeping Tabs on Class Size

The Garden City Board of Education and Superintendent Dr. Robert Feirsen quashed a rumor and allayed a mother’s concerns about first-grade class sizes at Homestead School.

Janet DeLuca said the first-grade class sizes seem very high at her child’s school, and she would like a teacher aide assigned to the classrooms to assist during transition periods. She said the children now wash their hands upon returning to the classroom from another activity, and she believes an aide would be able to facilitate that effort so the regular classroom teacher can tend to other matters.

DeLuca said she heard one first-grade class has 26 students. School Board President Colleen Foley quickly corrected that information after referring to a list of class sizes school board trustees regularly receive. She said it has been the school board’s practice to keep kindergarten classes at 20 or less students. Class sizes in all of the other grades are permitted to go as high as 25.

According to their list, no first-grade class at any primary school has 26 students; the average class size at Homestead is 24.3. The numbers at the other primary schools are slightly lower: at Hemlock, the average first-grade class size is 19.6, and at Locust the average size is 20.

Dr. Feirsen said he would not recommend an aide for several reasons. First, it would be too costly. He based his next comment on his experience as a classroom observer and a former elementary school principal: “The advantage gained by an aide is minimal. The return on that investment is minimal. Why? Because the aide is not a teacher. The aide, at best, provides additional supervision.”

He said the staff at the primary schools is “well-seasoned” and work in small buildings which make it easier to supervise students. Every classroom in the primary schools has its own bathroom for student use so there is minimal hallway traffic.

“Our teachers are really well-equipped we feel to handle a class of 24 or 25,” he said.

Dr. Feirsen added that research has shown that there is no difference in student achievement in classes that range between 20 and 25. He said the achievement differences are seen in classes of 40 or higher, or in small classes of five or less.

Foley said she would not recommend any additional staff. “It has not been our practice to place aides in classrooms,” she said. “We have done very well without them.”