The Roslyn school district’s initial budget presentation for the 2020-21 school year included a litany of programs to be added in the primary and secondary schools, and administrators expect the tax levy to rise by 2.96 percent.
In a presentation to the district’s Board of Trustees on Feb. 6, Superintendent Allison Brown said that the administration had given the budget the theme to “rethink, reset and rebuild.”
“We evolve,” Brown said. “All of our new course offerings are always a rebuild, coming from what we think are right for kids and what kids think is right for them at the middle school and high school.”
Brown also said that the district would add a college advisor and new mental health intervention approaches, and that a mental health consultant would be coming onboard in an advisory capacity.
Karina Baez, assistant superintendent of elementary curriculum and instruction, then spoke on new advances for the younger students in the district, including new approaches to morning meetings and implementations of yoga corners and mindfulness rooms to continue the district’s initiatives on mental health.
Baez was followed by Michael Goldspiel, assistant superintendent of secondary curriculum and instruction, who said that Roslyn Middle School would implement Google Chromebooks in the seventh grade after having success with them in the eighth-grade classrooms.
Goldspiel presented a number of courses to be available for high schoolers next year, chief among them a semester-long elective class entitled “Adulting 101: #Wisdom4Life.” The idea had come from a day of workshops for seniors held last year, where subjects such as financial responsibility and consent on college campuses were addressed.
“It was just so the seniors, when they leave, have an idea of what’s waiting for them,” Goldspiel said. “We’re now bringing that in as a course. Students will learn everything from car maintenance to how to cook in a dorm room to financial literacy.”
Brown added that she herself was passionate about the course.
“I don’t know if we’re going to get students to take it, but it’s not going away,” Brown said. “We will find a way for everyone to take this.”
Among the other courses expected to be added for the year are “Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Beyond – Introduction to Robotics,” which will allow students interested in coding and engineering to continue studying the field; “Responding to Emergencies,” a half-year course to learn emergency procedures such as CPR; “New Media Communications I,” an English elective focusing on journalism; and advanced courses in Chinese.
Assistant Superintendent for Business and Administration Joseph Dragone reported that the initial drafted tax levy for the year came to $97,857,446, increasing by $2,817,618 from the 2019-20 tax levy. The rise of 2.96 percent in levy estimate is below the legal limit of 3.63 percent.
School board President Meryl Waxman Ben-Levy thanked the administrators for their effort, and recognized that the presentation was a starting point.
“Thank you so much for beginning our budget process here, and for all the incredible, obvious, meaningful work you have done to present us with a budget that really is connected to board goals, administrative goals, community values and what we want for our children who are here and for our children who are yet to be born who are coming here,” Ben-Levy said.
The Board of Education will next meet on Thursday, March 12, at 8 p.m.
