By Joseph D’Andrea

Mineola School District’s budget was approved on May 16, and Mineola Board of Education President Margaret Ballantyne-Mannion and Vice President Patrick Talty were re-elected running unopposed.

Ballantyne and Talty received 612 and 602 total votes, respectively, and a majority 637 of the 795 total votes, or 80.13%, allowed for the budget to be passed. 

Prior to the election voting results, Talty said, “I want to thank everybody that has come out to vote… I’d like to thank our district clerk, Linda Spagnola, for putting together a very smooth, easy-to-vote [system], and all of the hardworking poll workers here in [the Synergy Building] at Mineola High School. I’d also like to thank the District Council PTAs for putting together the Meet the Candidates night. It was a privilege for Dr. Ballantyne and I to meet with a very well-attended turnout, and to share our thoughts on where we’d like to go in the next three years here in the district.”

In addition to the passing of the budget, Andrew Casale, assistant superintendent for business and operation, mentioned that the board’s spending plan was already approved at the state level. Their title grant is usually approved in the late summer to early fall, he noted.

Casale discussed the proposed title plan for next year, including foundation aid that Mineola is getting from the state, and some grant monies.

“Two years ago, the state started fully funding the districts with foundation aid in any district that received more than 10% increase each year,” Casale said. “I was asked to develop a plan and ask for stakeholder feedback, and we’ve done that over the last several years.”

“The district is receiving a little over 20% in foundation aid, $2.8 million, which has been really helpful with our budget, but also helping with different initiatives that we continue to tackle,” Casale added. “Each one of these goals and target areas is directly related to the state target areas.”

Casale spoke on the hiring of additional teachers and support staff to maintain small class sizes, which “are well below the class size policy, and they have been and will continue to be. Since we are continuing to hire more teachers in addition to replacing teachers upon retirement, we will continue that next year.”

The board is also planning to continue increasing attention on special education programs and services.

“We’ll be adding a new RISE (Resources, Information, Support & Engagement) class for next year, one more self-contained class at Jackson Avenue, and in adding these classes, we also then, in turn, have to add special ed teacher aides and related services, speech services,” Casale said.

In reference to increasing support for students, the board mentioned that they’ve added a new administrator this year to aid English as a New Language learners, and coursework is also planned to be added for students.

Part of Mineola’s foundation aid money is planned to be used towards continuing their Northwell Health School Mental Health Partnership, a program which sees the healthcare network working “closely with the school counselors, psychologists, and social workers to help determine the needs of students in the district.”

Casale also mentioned that the district will continue to fund full-time equivalent social workers and other related additions the board has added since the pandemic.

The board is earmarked to receive $1.4 million from the American Rescue Plan Act.

The federal relief plan has certain parameters when it comes to education, including 20% to be spent on learning loss, roughly amounting to $292,540. Casale mentioned that the funds expire in 2024, but the district is on track to spend all the money it’s been granted.

“In 2021-22, we were still in the middle of COVID, and we did use some funds to purchase PPE equipment for faculty, staff and students,” Casale said. “We also hired nurse aids to assist with symptom checkers, Covid protocols… [We] offered evening and after-school virtual sessions to assist identify achievement gaps during the 2021-22 school year.”

Casale continued on the topic of putting an emphasis on all-around support, saying, “[During the 2022-23 school year], we also did some leadership training and Professional Development for district administrators and all of our teacher leaders in the district. We also continued some of those extra support sessions at the high school after school to help with achievement gaps. And then we also did the summer literacy support, providing targeted literacy support mostly to our ENL population.” 

The resolutions voted on during the meeting were all unanimously approved.

Among them was the board’s decision to enter into a five-year contract with Nassau BOCES, for the Regional Information Centers “to furnish certain services to the district pursuant to education law.”

The contract is not to exceed $466,949.77, which is inclusive of related estimated borrowing fees plus yearly regional Information Center support.

Nagler also made a point to mention that the state government’s funding resources go into the board’s budget, with some exceptions, while federal monies are separated apart from the budget and audited separately as well.

Looking ahead, the board is looking to improve the high school building ventilation by upgrading all the unit ventilators in the high school and all classrooms, of which a large portion of their ARPA aid —  $915,000 — is going towards.

“The bid came back very favorable with that,” Nagler said, “so we actually are able to do all the classrooms with this money, which we’re very happy with.”