Dear Syosset Community:

This Wednesday was Unity Day, which is observed as part of National Bullying Prevention Month. Across our District, students wore orange and attended events designed to raise awareness about bullying, and promote kindness, acceptance, and inclusivity. At Village Elementary, there was a dance party in the gym as part of a larger assembly about how to create a safe and inclusive school community. Meanwhile at Willits, students from each grade participated in a “game show” answering questions about how to treat others (the right answer is always: “KINDLY”).

Over at Walt Whitman, I stopped by Mrs. Rigert’s 4th grade class to see how they were taking themes from the book All are Welcome, by Alexandra Penfold (Author) and Suzanne Kaufman (Illustrator), and using the graphic design platform Canva to create posters welcoming their schoolmates to common areas like the art room, gym, or cafeteria. Students were asked to invent slogans for their spaces and I was blown away by how on-point they were:

Cafeteria: "We all have different taste buds.”
Art room: “You are a bright color!”
Library: “Your story matters here.”
Gym: “We are all on the same team.”

It just goes to show … little people can be a BIG part of building a welcoming community.

Board Meeting Recap

At the Board of Education meeting this past Tuesday, staff members from across the District gave a deep-dive presentation into our bullying prevention programs at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Every building creates intentional programs to teach our students not only how to be kind, but how to spot unkind behavior and properly report it to an adult. You can view that presentation here.

We also heard a progress report from the team tasked with implementing the recommendations put forth by the Anti-Bias Task Force this past spring.

A few highlights:

Over the summer, we evaluated and strengthened our K-12 curriculum, and staff attended Districtwide training on implicit bias and difficult conversations.
Work has begun on making our Code of Conduct more accessible, including through additional translations, and every student experienced an age-appropriate orientation to the Code in September.
We’re partnering with SUNY Stony Brook to give kids more skills to interrogate social media and separate fact from fiction.
We also shared the steps we’ve taken to recruit from as diverse and inclusive a talent pool as possible.
Next up will be strengthening our relationship with community organizations like our PTA Cultural Unity committee and gathering data from students and student organizations.

You can learn more by viewing that presentation here.

The Board of Education also revised parts of its Code of Character, Support and Conduct – and it is now available for public comment on our website. We anticipate making more extensive changes, consistent with the Anti-Bias Task Force recommendations, in the next round of revisions.

Spotlight on Instruction 🔦

It was “tech-free Tuesday” at our Middle Schools this week! We’ve had tech-free days in the past – but this one took place during Common Sense Media’s Digital Citizenship Week, which is an annual event that aims to educate online safety, privacy, digital footprints, and respectful communication.

Ahead of Tuesday, advisory teachers brainstormed with students on ways to enjoy tech-free time while creating a supportive and engaging atmosphere throughout the day. Students were asked to keep their Chromebooks in their lockers, and keep their personal devices off during lunch and recess. In lieu of technology, a variety of activities were planned to foster engagement and conversation: Peer Leaders were present in the cafeterias to encourage healthy discussions and the school’s main lobbies had tables set up to play chess or learn to crochet. There was also table tennis in the gym, lawn games outside, and board games and coloring pages in the cafeterias, and word searches/color and coloring pages were also provided. The next day, students reflected on the experience and discussed what they viewed as the benefits to being tech-free. Did they do something different to break the tech habit? How did friends help each other during this challenge?

Knowing that our students live in a world saturated with technology, this exercise was as much about helping them develop healthy habits around technology use as it was merely filling the vacuum of being briefly device-free. Wednesday evening, I ran into some middle school friends who let me join their volleyball circle while waiting for their rides home and several shared favorable feedback about the day.

#SyoSports

Our Syosset athletes have been moving and shaking this season - on and off the field. Here’s a roundup of what our teams have been up to:

Boys Badminton will compete in the playoffs this coming Monday, October 21st against Herricks – we’ll be hosting in our main gym. Stop by! #SyoHomeCourtAdvantage
Boys Cross Country are division and conference champions! The team now heads to the counties.
Girls Cross Country were undefeated regular season champions – and continued their success to become division and conference champions! The team now heads to the counties.
Varsity Football is currently in fourth place in their division, with three games left in the regular season – including our homecoming game next Friday.
Girls Varsity Tennis finished the regular season 15-1. This Wednesday, they defeated Great Neck South to earn a spot to compete at the Nassau County Championship against Port Washington on October 22nd.
Boys Soccer is the third seed in the class AAA playoff bracket - and will host a quarterfinal game on October 23rd. #SyoHomeFieldAdvantage
Girls Soccer is the second seed in the class AAA playoff bracket. Syosset will be hosting a quarter final matchup on October 24th. #SyoHomeFieldAdvantage! Also, Senior Alexa Baek was named Newsday’s Athlete of the Week last month for her team leadership and dominance on the field.
Girls Swimming and Diving are Conference 1 champions, the highest conference in Nassau County – and are the number one seed going into the postseason!
Boys Volleyball is currently 4th place in their conference and will be hosting the first round playoff game on October 23rd. #SyoHomeCourtAdvantage
Girls Volleyball is currently 6-4 with five matches left heading into the playoffs. Going on right now in the high school main gym - the team is hosting their “Dig Pink Game” to raise money for Pink Aid LI, a nonprofit organization that supports women facing breast cancer. Dig Pink and Spike Cancer!

Many of our teams spend their time off the field sending kindness to our community! The girls soccer team also raised over $1,000 for Pink Aid. The boys soccer team hosted their second annual awareness game last month – raising thousands for the Mary Brennan Inn Soup Kitchen in Hempstead. The team will get hands-on experience at the Inn the week before Thanksgiving, helping to pack boxes of food items for families in need. And, our football team is participating in their annual Wounded Warrior fundraiser with plans to recognize our veterans at the homecoming game next week!

On that note, Syosset High School Spirit Week kicks off Monday at Syosset High School ahead of the varsity football homecoming game next Friday night against Herricks/Wheatley High School. Be sure to come out to support the team at 6:30pm - and stop by the student government’s annual carnival, which runs all weekend long! Better yet, arrive at 3:30pm where the South Woods and HBT football teams will face off in a friendly match up... so Syo is sure to come out on top!

Bright Spot

Freshman Maya Funatomi is a dedicated violinist who completed a NYSSMA Level 6 performance of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” this past year. At her music instructor's recommendation, she volunteered to perform at a local nursing home for extra practice, quickly discovering that this setting was quite different from a school concert. As she played, she noticed audience members swaying to the music and closing their eyes. Maya realized it was therapeutic for them to listen, and that she was creating an experience more important than demonstrating technical proficiency.

Her understanding of music's impact deepened during a family trip to Japan, where she performed traditional folk songs at another nursing home. There, her grandmother and others began singing along, recalling lyrics from years past that had almost been forgotten.

Inspired by these experiences, Maya is taking steps to establish a nonprofit organization in Syosset that will bring musicians to perform significant music for community members. Whether it’s old Japanese folk songs or beloved tunes from the musicians’ childhood, the goal of these performances is to connect the past and present of our community members and thus create new memories to share with the future.

This story brings to mind the famous quote by Hans Christian Andersen: "Where words fail, music speaks." Thank you, Maya, for using your music to create connections in our community that span both generations and continents.