Faculty

         August 21, 2024

Dear North Shore Family,

I hope that you are well and have had a relaxing and reenergizing summer.  I am excited to welcome you back to the North Shore Schools for the 2024-2025 school year!

In true Viking fashion, our buildings were filled with exciting learning and innovation opportunities for both students and our faculty during the “Summer at the Shore ‘24.”  I want to thank all of our summer enrichment (TENS) instructors, ESY special education instructors, curriculum writers, and also our teachers and administrators who led or attended professional learning workshops.   

For the past three summer breaks, our District has also been consumed by construction.  Each building has gone through major makeovers in classrooms, in large spaces and in entrance and exit ways.  I vividly remember walking through the Middle School and High School in the summer of 2022, trying with tremendous effort to envision how this massive project could ever be completed. I am happy to report that we are close to the finish line and for the first time in a while, our buildings will be fully back to normal.   

While this process has been hard on all of us, it is a powerful metaphor for the work we do every day.  Growth, change and improvement can be stressful and at times even painful, but what emerges from the process is amazing and beautiful.  As a full district of innovative and engaging teachers, we work together as one learning community to help our students develop the sophisticated skills and dispositions that they need to navigate an ever-changing world and discover their dreams.

As you’ve often heard me say, as educators, we are experts in the “movement and improvement business.”  At North Shore, we excel in this work because of our daily commitment to  what makes us, us:

A commitment to meaningful learning, academic growth and innovative teaching

A commitment to positive relationships with and for our students 

A commitment to student voice, interests, strengths and independence

A commitment to student well-being and self-improvement

As our students experience this environment throughout their North Shore Journey with consistency from elementary, to middle, to high school, they develop the sophisticated skills and dispositions that they need to navigate an ever-changing world and discover their dreams: collaboration, communication, critical and creative thinking, innovation, problem solving and their own commitment to self and others. This work is more important than ever as we survey the landscape that our students are growing up in and which includes:

the proliferation of and addiction to social media and the exposure to misinformation, distraction and other dangers

the rapidly evolving nature of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

access to live coverage of political and global conflict

rising mental health and relational needs 

an increasingly competitive college admissions process and a rapidly evolving labor market

While school has and always will be a sanctuary for our students, it is clear that the wall between school and the world outside of school is more open than ever.  As a highly talented and reflective group of educators, the children of North Shore are so very fortunate to be entering this complex new world with your guidance and support.  As a learning community, I am confident that we will work together to grow ourselves, innovate, and help our students grow in ways that leverage these new challenges.  

As a District, we will be leading several conversations and innovation opportunities (in line with our North Shore Journey Goals), that connect to the challenges of social media, how our students relate to one another, how learning can be connected to the world outside of school, and the ever increasing specific needs of our students. As always,  it is important that you also continue to attend to what you need for your own North Shore Journey and consider your own meaningful professional learning, your relationships with colleagues, your voice and interests and your wellness.  

I look forward to supporting you in this in the year ahead. I wish you the best that these remaining days of summer can bring and I look forward to seeing you on Thursday, August 29th to continue our North Shore Journey.  Please see the schedule for Superintendent’s Conference Day below..

Go Vikings! Go!

Chris

Superintendent’s Conference Day - Thursday, August 29, 2024

Full Breakfast Available 

8:00 - 8:45: High School Cafeteria

Opening Remarks

Dr. Christopher Zublionis, Superintendent

Dr. Andrea Macari, Board of Education President

8:45 - 9:30: High School Theater

Remarks

Greg Perles, President NSSFE

Chelsea Capstraw, EAP Provider

9:30 - 9:50: High School Theater 

Secondary Teachers

Elementary Teachers

Monitors and Aides

10:00 - 10:45

Building Meetings

(Details Sent by Principals)

10:00 - 10:45

Building Meetings

(Details Sent by Principals

10:00 - 10:45

Building Meetings

(Details Sent by Principals)

11:00 - 11:45

Department Meeting

Location Provided by Director

  11:00 - 11:45

Classroom Teachers

GCN Training*, Planning, and 

IEP Sign Off

Teachers in K-12 Departments

Department Meeting

Location Provided by Director

11:00 - 12:00

Diabetes Training

(GWL Auditorium)

11:45 - 12:15

GCN Training*, Planning, and 

IEP Sign Off

12:00  - 12:45

Heimlich Training

(GWL Auditorium)

11:45 - 1:45

GCN Training*, Planning, and 

IEP Sign Off

12:15 - 1:00

Classroom and Reading     Teachers and Literacy Coaches

Department Meeting (Literacy)

Virtual - Link Sent By J. Ritter

Teachers in K-12 Departments

GCN Training*, Planning, and 

IEP Sign Off

12:45 - 1:45

GCN Training*, Planning, and IEP Sign Off

1:00 - 1:45

GCN Training*, Planning, and 

IEP Sign Off

1:45: Lunch - Not Provided by District

*Please make sure to complete the following GCN modules on August 29th:

Allergy Management/Food Allergies

Mental Health Awareness

Digital Security and Protection

Dignity for All Students Act/Code of Conduct NY (Overview)