School district creates committee to address language access, community concerns: Aug. 20 school board meeting wrap-up

A new committee created by the Riverhead school board will to advise the district on community concerns and language access issues. 

The district’s new Community Involvement and Language Access Advisory Committee will consist of 20 parents of students enrolled in district schools, along with three school board members and two administrators. The committee will meet at least four times a year and make “solution-oriented” recommendations for consideration by the school board, according to the charter adopted by the board last week.

“Amongst the concerns that the Committee will address includes, but is not limited to, access to student services and co-curricular programs and language access issues students and parents whose primary language is other than English are experiencing in school, and to develop recommendations to the Board to address such issues,” the charter states.

“While parents, students, and community members are always welcome to attend [Board of Education] meetings or email [the board] with questions or concerns, the formation of this committee allows for greater and more efficient communication, opportunities for collaboration, and a deeper understanding of student and family needs,” Superintendent Robert Hagan said in an email.

The application for committee membership will be published on the district’s website by the end of next week, Hagan said. Applicants must live within the school district, have at least one child attending district schools, and must have resided in the district for at least one year. Applications will be available in English and Spanish and translated into other languages upon request.

According to state enrollment statistics for the 2023-24 school year, 38% of Riverhead’s students are English language learners, and 64% are Hispanic or Latino.

Also during its Aug. 20 meeting, the school board: 

• Appointed Andrea Lopez as assistant principal of Roanoke Avenue Elementary School, with an annual salary of $146,399. She replaced Gary Karlson, who was hired as principal of Riley Avenue Elementary School.

• Appointed Hans Wiedekehr as interim director of physical education, health and athletics at a salary of $950 per day. Wiedekher, a former NFL player, is a former teacher, football coach and physical education director who served most of his career at the Babylon Union Free School District, according to his profile on the Suffolk County Sports Hall of Fame, to which he was inducted in 2018. Wiedekehr is replacing former athletics director Brian Sacks until the school district finds a permanent replacement. Sacks resigned from his position this summer to take a job in Plainedge.

• Appointed “department coordinators” for the high school and middle school. These coordinators will oversee the faculty of core subject areas — mathematics, science, social studies, world languages and English — and will receive an additional stipend of $6,631.

• Approved $2.7 million in budget transfers to cover BOCES special education services.

• Approved a memorandum of agreement with the Riverhead Central Faculty Association to allow certain teachers to serve as emergency substitute teachers.

• Designated itself lead agency for the environmental review of the school district’s kitchen repair and energy performance contract capital projects. It determined the projects are Type II actions that do not require further environmental review.

• Accepted a mini grant of an unspecified amount from USA Lacrosse to provide students at Riley Avenue Elementary School with lacrosse equipment and other resources to encourage participation in lacrosse.

• Approved several donations: 500 backpacks full of supplies from Supplies for Success; 40 backpacks with supplies from Lowes Home Improvement of Riverhead; backpacks and supplies with an approximate value of $400 from the Camellia K. Turpin Foundation; and 75 hand-made dolls from Giving Dolls of New York.

• Held the annual public hearing on the school district’s safety plan.