Hackensack Public Schools

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Hello, my name is Joe Abate. I am the Interim Superintendent of Schools here in Hackensack. The goal of this talk is to provide you with some information related to our successes this past school year, the year 2012 2013, and also to talk a little bit about our new initiatives for next school year, 13-14. Two technology initiatives that we're very proud of occurred this year at Hackensack High School. The first one was our iPad initiative this year every freshman entering Hackensack High School was given an iPad. Our teachers were fully trained on how to implement the iPad into the curriculum and our students were also trained on the use of that particular iPad We found it to be very encouraging this year and we look to even approve upon it for next school year. The second initiative that we're quite proud of is the virtual high school. The virtual high school will now provide every one of our students with the opportunity to expand their curriculum. They will have an opportunity to take courses that we simply don't provide. The virtual high school is not intended as a makeup course however - so it is to enhance our curriculum and we have students taking a wider array of courses through the virtual high school. Secondly we've taken a strong look at how we actually do our purchasing in this district and as a result we've given you the taxpayer a greater bang for your buck. We started using various purchasing consortia to purchase items and what that means is we now purchase in bulk related to many of the items. One of the consortium's has over 150 school districts in it We have now also taken advantage of New Jersey State contracts as well as using three quotes for just about everything we purchase. Our goal in the end, as I said, was to give you the taxpayer a better bang for your buck. We also implemented a number of additional activities at Hackensack Middle School. We were able to bring back a number of activities that were eliminated a couple years ago when we had our budget cuts. We had such activities as soccer, basketball, etc. at the middle school where we hadn't had them for a number of years. Two other initiatives that we're proud of include the districts Security Initiative When I first came to this district I noticed that our district was wide open and when I mean wide open I mean doors et cetera Hackensack is at a crossroads. We are bordered by highways the rails and various local streets and at that point in time it was easy for anyone to approach, enter and gain access to our buildings what we did first I've always provide additional cameras and our hallways stairwells et cetera to provide for the safety and security of our students we also implemented a policy I've having students enter and leave in a limited number of entrances and exits. Therefore allowing us to control which students and when they come and go. In addition to that, we also implemented for the first time our single point of entry. What that simply did was required any individual, non-student, from entering our building they would need to approach us from the single point of entry. They would be on camera, they would be stopped by a member of our personnel and ultimately admitted into the building with a security pass In addition to the various initiatives we had related to curriculum and safety, we also added a number of staff members last year we consolidated our paraprofessionals into a total of 31 full-time paraprofessionals and a cohesive working uni. The Parker elementary school received an additional school interventionist and we also added one additional phys ed teacher for the district halftime hackensack high school, halftime hackensack middle school. One of the honors that we're extremely proud of this past year has been that hackensack high school has been ranked in the top fifteen hundred schools up the entire United States of America and this was done by US News & World Report. Technically that puts hackensack high school in the top eight-percent all the schools in the United States of America moving into our new year we need to take a look at some additional initiatives that we have prepared for you folks. First of all we're gonna continue our iPad initiative and that is going to it be expanded next year to our new incoming freshman class which will mean that in the year 13-14 every freshman and every sophomore will have an iPad to use in their classes. We've also implemented a new summer school at Hackensack high school. We've titled it the Joe DeFalco Summer School. So for the first time we're going to have a full-blown summer school for our students this summer. One of the greatest gains that that the District had was too certify a contract with the Archdiocese of Newark for the Padre Pio school. Padre Pio has closed its doors as of this June 30th and we have now facilitated a five-year lease to use that building to handle our growing enrollment. Next year Padre Pio, or what we're going to call our Early Childhood Developmental Center, will house our entire Pre-K program, our entire Pre-K Handicap program, and either two or three Special Ed Kindergarten classes. What this will do would be to free the burden of overcrowding in our various elementary schools by having these children in our brand new structure. Speaking of summer schools, we've also entertained a summer school for our Kindergarten students. We've noticed that we do have a number of children who come to us in Kindergarten who have not had the opportunity to be in Preschool these children find themselves behind right away to correct that problem will have a program for them this summer. A very exciting initiative for the new year will be our Chromebook Technology Initiative. A Chromebook is a piece of technology similar to an iPad. It's a little smaller, it's significantly cheaper. We're going to implement that in our Middle School as well as grade 2. This year our teachers are going to be trained in its use and in September when our students walk in the door they'll be trained in its use as well. Another program that we're very much excited about is the expand of our Gifted and Talented Program. In the past the Gifted and Talented program was restricted to two teachers traveling with work on a cart. The new year we're going to have a program in every school for any number of children who qualify with an expanded curriculum. We expect the program to be bigger and better than ever we also aim to continue our FOSS F-O-S-S Science Program. When I got here to the district I found that we had many of the Science kits in the classrooms but not being used. I have great experience with this program from the district I came from and as a result of using the FOSS program in Lyndhurst we had some with the best science scores elementary in the entire state of New Jersey. Another thing that we're going to be doing this year based on the new State requirements is an increased professional development program as you know the governor and the State Department of Education has now provided us with a new initiative related to teacher training and evaluation. Our staff has been trained this year and we're going to continue the training through an academy this summer as well as through the course of next school year. We've added some staffing for the new school year as well we've added a math and literacy coach at Jackson Elementary School, a second grade teacher at Parker Elementary School, a first grade Bilingual teacher at Parker Elementary School, a Special Ed teacher at the High School and an additional guidance counselor for Fairmount. We are also pleased to talk about our expanded capital projects program. First of all, if you are only new to Hackensack, you'll find out that we had an exceptional problem at our Hillers Elementary School related to the construction of that building. Simply put, the wall fell down - that section of the building was condemned. As a result, we've already started work on that project and as a this minute in time the project is on time and under budget. We hope to bring our children back into that wing of the building for September 1. We also have great improvements being made right now on the east wing gym in our High School as well as an upgrade to the weight room. We're replacing the roof in the south wing at the High School and we're adding a new ceiling to the Metal Shop at the High School. I hope you agree with me that these initiatives are exciting, that hackensack schools have made great progress in the past and it's our goal to continue that progress. Thank you!