Central District Appoints New Assistant Principals, Parents Speak On Snack Choices and Athletic Fields

Calhoun and Mepham high schools will both welcome new assistant principals next year as Superintendent Henry Kiernan announced the appointments Wednesday night at the monthly meeting of the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District's School Board. 

Nicole Hollings, currently a biology teacher at Mepham, will head to Calhoun to takeover the post being vacated by the retiring Gerard Swier.  Christopher Safina, a guidance counselor at Mepham, will become an assistant principal at that school. 

"We look forward and welcome Nicole," Kiernan said of Hollings. "We do expect wonderful things from her."

Hollings, who attended Swarthmore College and then received a master's degree in science teaching from SUNY-Stony Brook, began her career at Mepham in 1994.  She has served as the Senior Experience internship coordinator at the school and also helped to implement a mentor program for new teachers.  

Safina holds two master's degrees and came to Mepham in 2002 to serve in the guidance department.  Since then, he has been an active member of the scholarship committee, served as a freshman class and yearbook advisor and initiated research on counselor positions for summer school programs, Kiernan said. 

"Chris has become a central member of the Mepham community and we look forward to his leadership as assistant principal," Kiernan said. 

During the main portion of the school board meeting at Brookside School, parents spoke up about the snack choices in school vending machines and the condition of the district's athletic fields. 

Phyllis Guittilla, of Merrick, told the board that she believed more needed to be done to eliminate chemical additives in the foods offered to students. 

"I'm concerned with the vending machines in the schools," said Guittilla, who is also a member of the Bellmore-Merrick Council of PTA's. "We need to make an effort to add better choices to snack machines."

Butch Yamali, president of the Merrick Little League, came to the meeting to ask the board if the league could put together funds to donate to the district to help improve the field at Merrick Avenue Middle School, where Yamali's son plays on the baseball team. 

But Yamali, whose company Dover Gourmet holds the vending machine contract with the district, had much more to say on the snack issue. 

When Yamali volunteered to switch everything in the district's vending machines over to healthy organic snacks for the 2009-10 school year, things didn't work out so well, he said. 

"The problem is sales of the machines went down so low that we were throwing away more products than people were buying," said Yamali, adding that since moving back to more standard vending machine offerings this year, the district's commission from sales has climbed to $125,000 from $65,000 last year. 

"Money shouldn't be an issue, but it is an issue," said Yamali, who also serves on the Merrick School Board.

Kiernan said the district would look into reconstituting a wellness committee, and board president Diane Seaman said she was hopeful the district could find a "happy medium" in its vending machine offerings. 

Another Merrick parent, Dawn Kinsley, attended the meeting to speak out about what she said were the deplorable conditions of the Kennedy High School athletic field.  Kinsley's son, Will Diana, plays on the Cougars lacrosse team. 

"The field at Kennedy is a lawsuit waiting to happen and it's a disgrace," Kinsley said.  "The smoke that comes up from the field scratches their eyes and fills up their lungs."

Residents will vote on a proposed $127 million 2010/11 central district school budget on May 18.