Outdoor classrooms are proving to be a breath of fresh air across Long Island.
Dozens of schools have been using outside spaces for instructional purposes to merge learning and social distancing — while also allowing for “mask breaks” — during the COVID-19 pandemic.
At Smithtown Elementary School, an outdoor learning space was recently created to provide students and staff with an open-air classroom on a rotating basis. The classroom features items including a chalkboard, picnic tables and umbrellas — the last of which contributed by the school’s PTA.
“With the onset of COVID and the challenges it brought to us, we’ve been bringing the children out regularly,” Smithtown Principal Janine Lavery said. “Last year, we moved forward with plans to purchase picnic tables so that teachers and staff could eat outside. But also, outside of lunch hours, it could be used as an outdoor classroom.”
In Rocky Point, the middle school held a ribbon-cutting ceremony last month to unveil a new outdoor classroom that contains work surfaces that can be grouped together to form 15 tabletops or that can be turned into benches seating 30 students in a socially distant manner. Teachers reserve the space through the school’s Google calendar.
In Malverne, an outdoor garden classroom was created in the spring that has a custom platform deck, tables with benches, and free-standing paint and chalkboards at Maurice W. Downing Primary School. Leland cypress trees were also planted for privacy.
In Island Park, the district has added outdoor classrooms to create opportunities for children to explore nature and study local ecology as it relates to various subjects at Francis X. Hegarty Elementary School and Lincoln Orens Middle School.
GARDEN CITY
New principals
Eileen Vota and Christopher Hartigan are the new principals of Locust Elementary School and Stratford Avenue Elementary School, respectively.
Vota had been principal of Stratford Avenue since 2010 and replaced Jim Curran, who held the position on an interim basis. Hartigan had been Stratford Avenue’s assistant principal since 2017 and spent five years teaching at PS 253Q in Far Rockaway, Queens.
“Elementary school is a time for students to become creative, independent thinkers and problem solvers,” Hartigan said. “I look forward to working with Stratford Avenue students on developing their curiosity for learning while cultivating their individual passions, creativity and strengths.”
HICKSVILLE
New principal
Margot Owen is the new principal of Nassau BOCES Willet Avenue School.
Owen had been assistant principal at The Riverview School D75 in Queens since 2017. She has also been a teaching assistant in Seaford and a teaching assistant, special-education teacher and school-based coach in New York City.
“I am honored and excited to bring my passion and enthusiasm to my students and the Nassau BOCES family,” Owen said. “I know that through building relationships and partnering with students, their families and my school community that I will be able to support all students to be successful in reaching their maximum potential.”
BELLMORE
Broadcom MASTERS semifinalist
Tristan Bissoondial, an eighth-grader at Grand Avenue Middle School, was one of 300 semifinalists nationwide in this year’s Broadcom MASTERS, a middle school science competition coordinated by the Broadcom Foundation at the Society for Science & the Public.
Bissoondial was invited to participate in the competition for his research project “Glycine Betaine Improves Tolerance to Cadmium in Lemna minor,” for which he placed first in the environmental science category at the 2021 Tri-County Science & Technology Fair.
He was the sole semifinalist from Long Island.
— MICHAEL R. EBERT
Michael Ebert is an education researcher and has worked for Newsday in various capacities since 2003. He was part of an 11-person team named 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalists for investigative coverage of the LIRR’s platform safety issues.
