Superintendent's Page

On Superintendent’s Conference Day, September 3, 2019, during the introduction to NHP-GCP’s Portrait of  a Learner , approximately 170 of us (teachers and staff) played a game of Kahoot, and agreed that empathy was an important skill for our learners to acquire while they are here with us at NHP-GCP. I subscribe to AJ Juliani’s blog. He claims that empathy is the most important 21 st Century Skill. See below for more information and if  you like, follow him on Twitter @ajjuliani . Empathy: The Most Important 21st Century Skill Read the article on Ajjuliani.com Many confuse empathy (feeling with someone) with sympathy (feeling sorry for someone), and even researchers who study it have muddied the waters with many definitions. But the author of The Empathy Effect, Dr. Helen Riess does a good job of untangling that and explaining the many dimensions of empathy. Empathy, she writes, involves an ability to perceive others’ feelings (and to recognize our own emoti

Portrait of a Learner There was a great energy in the air as New Hyde Park-Garden City Park began the new school year! At our opening meeting, I shared the district’s goals for 2019-20 with the group: Develop a shared, systematic approach to explicitly teach, integrate, and encourage positive behaviors. Ensure that all staff actively participate in professional development focused on inclusive and culturally proficient practices that improve learning and school cultures. Implement and ensure high-quality, consistent curriculum and learning experiences within each grade span and across the district with an emphasis on communication, empathy, learner’s mindset, technology and media literacy, collaboration, and innovation. Last school year, our Innovation and Transformational Network Committee created NHP-GCP’s Portrait of a Learner (based on Portrait of a Graduate ) featuring the traits in District Goal 3. Follow this link to see the interactive result: https://www.thinglink

1950 Hillside Avenue, New Hyde Park, NY 11040 ∙ www.nhp-gcp.org ∙ (516) 434-2305 ∙ Fax: (516) 352-6282 August 2019 Dear NHP-GCP Families, Welcome back to school! I hope you had a great summer filled with time to relax, reboot, and reflect!  I spent some time this summer looking back on last school year at all of the progress that we made in so many different areas, such as: Coding, Project Lead the Way, Digital Citizenship, Social/Emotional Learning, Universal Prekindergarten, our new classroom science curriculum, and the infusion of Chromebooks and Ipads into learning. We owe that progress to the extraordinary administrators, teachers, and support staff that are committed to ensuring that we provide an education that will empower our students with the knowledge and skills they need to live productive and happy lives.  I also spent some time looking to the future with our Board of Education. Please visit our website at the following URL or QR Code to learn abou

You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there. -Yogi Berra We do have to know where we are going, and most importantly, we have to know why we are going there.  I had been introduced to Simon Sinek's Ted Talk at a conference last year. You can find it here: https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action?language=en I immediately bought the audio book version of   Sinek's "Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Action". I  listened to it on my ride to and from work. T his summer, the administrative team also read the book. And, as part of our professional development this year, we are engaging in our own book talk.  Sinek's words resonated with me: "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it."  So, where are we going? And why? What is the purpose of education? Why am I involved in this profession? What promise do we make to our learners when they wal