On Monday, June 6, Scarsdale High School hosted its annual Senior Transition Day. Most of the seniors had been gone for a month pursuing projects for Senior Options, so the day allowed the class a time to get reacquainted before graduation. The day began with presentations from a panel of SHS graduates who had just completed their first year in college. Deans questioned the college students about their college experience, from making friends at school, to effective time management, and making the most out of their college careers. Senior Shelby Rokito found the questions “thoughtful” and “successful in guiding the conversation.” After the panel, the seniors broke up into different rooms with their respective deans to reflect on the high school experience and share memories.  Finally, seniors gathered in the gym to receive their long-awaited yearbooks. Many students sat on the bleachers to sign each other’s yearbooks. Not only could they see their current pictures, but students were also delighted to find their elementary school class photos hanging on the wall. Looking back at pictures from each school year they grew sentimental and wondred what next year would bring. There were sandwiches for all and the parents committee provided an assortment of cakes and cookies including a cake with the class picture. Rokito summed up the day saying, “I thought it was a good way to allow our grade to come together and bond while moving on to the next step in our education.”

It was a perfect night for a prom as the heat and humidity broke and yielded a cool, dry, breezy afternoon to begin the festivities. The Scarsdale senior class had been planning this event for years and the big day finally arrived on June 2. In the Scarsdale tradition, parents hosted a red carpet celebration at the high school, where everyone could show off their attire and walk the red carpet to the buses which would carry the students to the Surf Club in New Rochelle.

Boys in tuxedos and girls in gowns gathered at pre-prom parties at private homes for picture taking and toasts, before moving on to the high school for the big send-off. Continuing another tradition, senior girls wore long dresses, while girls from other grades attended in shorter cocktail-length dresses. Colors were especially vibrant this year – with many in blues, purples, reds, and orange – making for splendid photo opps. Black was out, and some looked stunning in dazzling white floor length dresses.

Heel were high, and girls wobbled on platforms and spiked heels -- sure to be kicked off as the night progressed. Many of the girls sported elaborate up-do’s or had their long hair styled into curls.

Take a look at these photos of Scarsdale students – who could easily be mistaken for Hollywood stars.

It’s being called a game-changer in New York politics. Governor Andrew Cuomo has worked out a deal with Democrat and Republican state senators to cap property tax growth at 2% throughout the state. The deal still needs to be worked out in the State Assembly. There are many people in Scarsdale, as well as across the state, who say that this is bad for our schools. They took their case to Albany earlier this week.

At a press conference on Wednesday in Albany, Arthur Rublin, Chair of the Coalition for Scarsdale Schools along with Jill Spieler, President Board of Education, resident Miriam Popp Seely, as well as members of Chappaqua, Ossining, Edgemont, Eastchester, Bedford and Mt. Vernon schools laid out why they adamantly opposed this bill.

In a statement the joint coalition calls this proposal “…is a punitive, misguided approach to public concerns about property taxes. Rather than provide meaningful relief from State-imposed spending requirements… this bill continues to obligate school districts to fund top-down requirements while impairing local ability to raise revenue for essential education programs. The Cuomo/Skelos/Silver Tax cap proposal is a direct assault on the quality of your schools, the quality of our communities, our ability to decide how we spend our property tax dollars and on our property values.”

Property taxes are prohibitively high in many towns in New York State with Scarsdale ranking among the highest. Cuomo says the tax cap would offer relief to homeowners who are feeling forced out of their homes due to skyrocketing taxes. Businesses applaud the move as well saying it will provide jobs to the state.

The argument that the coalition made on Wednesday is that a state controlled cap on what can be spent locally is fundamentally wrong. The district already votes up and down its own budget and the state should not mandate how one town spends its monies. This bill has been compared to one in the state of California which has had a chilling effect on its public schools.

The proposal in its current form would require a 60% majority vote in a town to override the tax cap.

The Scarsdale Board of Education issued a paper opposing the bill earlier this year. The Board says that the tax cap takes away local decision making and has the potential to devastate education. The Scarsdale Board of Ed along with many other school boards in Westchester say that the 2% tax cap is barely enough to cover mandates.

“On the face of it, everyone wants lower taxes, but if you look into the mechanism of this bill you can see that this is no easy fix,” explains Nan Berke, President of the Scarsdale High School PTA. “ This would force school boards to make big cuts to curriculum and staff and cut to the quick of what makes Scarsdale schools excellent. This is pennywise and pound foolish.”

From the day in Albany as well as countless phone calls and emails, Rublin says he gets the sense the tax cap legislation may not be a done deal, at least in its current form. One issue that could stop the bill from progressing has nothing to do with schools, but with rent control guidelines.

And even if it passes that hurdle, the coalition is hoping for amendments to the bill. Among them, a lower percentage to override the cap, an exclusion of pension contribution growth which is often a huge cost to the districts, health care costs excluded and a change in language allowing adopting the higher figure of CPI growth vs. tax cap growth (right now it is the lower of the two). The coalition is also hoping the bill allows for changes due to enrollment growth or considers budget growth instead of tax levy growth.

If the bill passes in its current form or something similar to it, Rublin admits Scarsdale will have its work cut out for it if the same quality of education is to be maintained.

However, everything he learned in Albany showed that numbers matter and constituent’s count. It can be as simple as clicking on a link sent to you from the PTA.

“People shouldn’t think that their voice doesn’t count on this matter,” Rublin says. “From everything we have heard that its critical that everyone who cares about this issue that people express their views even if it’s just clicking on a link from an email from the PTA. Numbers matter.”

Pictured Above: Representatives from local schools met with Assemblywoman Paulin and Assemblyman Abinanti in Albany.

Jen is a freelance journalist who has covered the economy and markets for over a decade at a major financial news outlet. She lives in Scarsdale with her husband and 2 children. Jen has yet to bake a successful batch of cookies.

Fourteen Scarsdale teachers and two school administrators were granted tenure at the Board of Education meeting on Monday night May 23rd. Dr. Joan Weber announced the appointments which were given after a rigorous process of mentoring, supervision, evaluations and review of the results of parent surveys and public comments.

The entire School Board, administrators and the newly tenured teachers attended the meeting to acknowledge the staff’s accomplishments and congratulate them.

The list of newly tenured staff includes:

Administrators:

• Sue Peppers: Assistant Principal
• Lynn Shaine: Assistant Superintendant for Curriculum

Teachers:

• Lisa Houston -Foreign Language
• Michelle Boyum – Elementary
• Pam Winders Elementary
• Michelle Asch – Art
• John Van Cott – Elementary
• Sima Cass – Guidance
• Cara Hiller – English
• Kristan Martin – Science
• Lauren Barton – Math
• Elizabeth Karambelkar – Math
• Danielle Koenigsberg Special Ed
• Lauren Mooney – Language
• Margaret Siegrist Science
• Lisa Yokana – Art

Also of interest from the meeting: Superintendent of Schools Michael McGill provided an update on the search for a new principal for SHS. McGill expects the search to extend into the 2011-2012 school year and has assigned Fred Goldberg and Kelly Hamm to serve as interim principals with Goldberg handling exterior affairs and Hamm charged with managing the internal doings of the school. Since McGill also expects both Goldberg and Hamm to retire by 2013 the school is also engaged in a search for a new Assistant Principal.

In addition, since Athletic Director Mike Menna is retiring a search is on for a new Athletic Director for the school. In the past this position also encompassed responsibility for Physical Education, however McGill hopes to be able to maintain two positions – one for Athletic Director and the other to head up Physical Education.

McGill also announced that New York State has issued new regulations for teacher evaluations which will base teacher success on their students results on state tests. McGill called the new system “an assembly line approach” that “eliminates human judgment” from the assessment process. McGill believes that no single person can be held accountable for variables beyond their control and said that the new regulations emphasize results on tests that do not improve learning.”

The Board considered three items relating to gifts and financial support:

First: as a result of previous discussions about the creation of an educational foundation for Scarsdale, Jill Spieler announced that there was consensus among Board members to “move forward subject to community support.” She indicated that the foundation would be a separate not-for-profit entity that would solicit tax-deductible contributions. The Board will create a steering committee comprised of a diverse group of community members including community leaders, philanthropists, business leaders, an accountant or a lawyer and district parents and a school administrator to define the mission of the foundation, assess giving levels, explore the relationship between the foundation and the Board of Education, interface with other community organizations, propose a structure for the foundation and create organizational documents.

Spieler asked anyone who is interested in serving on the steering committee to put forth his or her name, biographical information and state why they would like to serve. Requests should be submitted to Lois Rehm or emailed it to the Board of Education email address by June 20th.

Second, the Board passed a resolution to adopt a one-time exception to the district’s gift policy which now caps annual gifts at $10,000. This resolution, drafted by Michael McGill, will permit school PTA’s to give gifts of up to $30,000. These funds can be used to finance capitol improvements, and 80% of the monies will go to the designated school with the remaining 20% to be used for projects at the Middle School or High School or to fund district-wide initiatives. The funds can be contributed anytime over the next two years.