In what made for a festive and exciting event, the Glen Cove School District’s English as a Second Language Saturday Academy culminated with a special celebration in the Finley Middle School Mini-Center, where students received certificates for their hard work in completing the program. Along with the recognition, special group presentations, cultural food and music complemented the finale.

Now in its second year, the ESL Academy was created to help ESL students and students who exited the ESL program within the past two years prepare for New York State assessments in English Language Arts and math. The program welcomes many students for most of whom Spanish is their native language, although not all.
    
Monica Chavez, Coordinator of Foreign Language and ESL for the district and supervisor of the ESL Saturday Academy, welcomed those in attendance to the academy’s closing ceremony. “I’m thankful to the teachers who have sacrificed their Saturdays to come and dedicate their time to working with our children,” she said. “This will be a great benefit for our students.”
    
Ms. Chavez explained that the program is not only geared toward preparing students for the state assessments, but also for providing support for children to become more comfortable with the English language. A variety of writing activities, including essay composition, poetry, reading comprehension and analysis of texts, was conducted in classes to prepare students for the ELA exam, while for mathematics, students worked on problem-solving, computation and other math activities.

Rosita Mallo, Morgan Becht, Amy Mendrinos, Gaetano Vaccaro, Elizabeth Sohanchyk-Nagler, Alexandra Rivera, Briana Fazio, Jennifer Beauchamp, Max Pinsky and Christine Johnson are the teachers who work the academy. “They are the heart and soul of the program,” added Ms. Chavez.  “Without them, there is no program.”

She also explained that this year, the program expanded this year to accept 60 students spanning grades kindergarten through eight, allowing for the younger siblings as well as parents to participate in the Academy, which offered ESL for Adults for the first time.
    
Following presentations from students who discussed their learning experiences at the Academy and how the program helped them develop stronger writing and math skills, certificates for participation were presented to students, parents and teachers of the program, and perfect attendance certificates were distributed to students and parents.
    
“This is a great opportunity for kids to respond to learning,” said Ms. Becht an ESL teacher at Connolly Elementary School who teaches third-grade advanced ELA and math for the ESL Saturday Academy program. “The more exposure they have, the better prepared and confident they’ll be for the assessments. This gives them confidence.”

Ronaldo Velasquez, 15, said that he benefited from taking the eighth-grade math class and an ELA class as part of the ESL Saturday Academy program. “It helped me a lot more with my English,” he said, noting that he speaks Spanish regularly. Of the state assessment in ELA, he said, “It was hard, but the program helped me a little bit more for it.”

Third-grader Katie Arevalo described the program as fun and said she enjoyed learning more about both ELA and math, and being able to go to class with friends. “We did different projects, and this made it easier for me,” she said, referring to the preparation for state assessments. “I would want to do it again next year.”
    
The event concluded with an assortment of delectable treats and drinks, as well as music. Families, friends and teachers gathered to share stories and enjoy the final day of the program.

Promoting the safety of children throughout the community, the Glen Cove Police Department, in partnership with the Office of the Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice, brought Operation Safe Child to Connolly Elementary School on May 8-9. The program enabled students to get photographed and fingerprinted for a special identification card that can be utilized by law enforcement and other emergency organizations to provide relevant and crucial information quickly in an emergency situation.

The New York State Safe Child Identification Card also features other vital information about the child, such as height and weight. The information stays on record with the police department, with an option for parents to include their child’s information with the New York State Department of Criminal Justice. The program will also be heading to other Glen Cove area schools.

“[Parents] could present the card to a law enforcement officer and we have all of the information we need to disseminate an Amber Alert or any other type of bulletin that we produce,” said Lieutenant Christopher Ortiz. “This gives us a really accurate picture of what that child looks like at the time the I.D. was taken so we can get the best possible description out for the child.”

For the third consecutive year, the K-Kids Club at Connolly Elementary School has been named a New York Kiwanis Club of Distinction. The K-Kids club was also recognized as first runner-up in New York State for the Single Service Award for its Valentine’s Day lollipop sale that raised money and awareness for the Children’s Tumor Foundation and received third place for their scrapbook.

Students developed and implemented the Valentine’s Day lollipop sale in honor of student and K-Kids secretary Julia Perfetti, who suffers from neurofibromatosis. In an effort to raise money in order to find treatments and a cure for this rare and complicated disease, they sold a total of 659 lollipops, donating about $500 to the Children’s Tumor Foundation. The NY Club of Distinction honor recognizes all of the club’s hard work and the community service projects in which they are involved.

K-Kids is a branch of Kiwanis International that seeks to involve elementary school students in community service activities. The Connolly club is affiliated with the North Shore Kiwanis Club, and is facilitated by advisors Nancy Cox and Sandra Vigliotti.

Fourth-graders at Connolly Elementary School took a trip back to Colonial times with several hands-on activities that highlighted life during the era. Representatives from the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities visited the school and educated the students on rope and lantern making, as well as quilting. Classes rotated through all of the events, enabling fourth-graders to get a better understanding of the Colonial period through applied learning. All of the activities supported the students’ regular classroom social studies curriculum, currently focused on Colonial times.

“It gives the children hands-on experience in learning about the past,” said Joan McGee, Director of Education for SPLIA, noting that the students were also able to connect the projects with Colonial life, gaining clearer insight on how each item contributed to life during the time period.

Connolly Elementary School fifth-grader Danny DaCosta-Ortiz is the winner of the Glen Cove Boys and Girls Club Tech Digital Arts Festival Award. Danny won in the photo illustration category for his graphic design “An Animation to the Mind,” which showed an animated illustration of himself thinking, with an actual photograph of himself within the thought cloud. Danny won a $50 gift certificate to Best Buy and an opportunity to advance to the national round with a $500 award and trip at stake. Nia Duckett, also from Glen Cove, won for her musical piece titled “A.W.E.S.O.M.E.”