The survey results are in: Valley Central High School students like the new salad bar and sandwich bar, but find the lines too long for the hot lunches.

Lilly Ellison, Dylan Nasser and Elizabeth Zefi, student representatives to the Valley Central Board of Education, delivered their survey findings and recommendations at last week’s meeting. Ellison said she did a preference survey and found that 76 percent of the respondents prefer the hot lunches, of which there are two lines. There’s also a line for the salad bar and another for the sandwich bar.

“So this is creating very long lines for hot lunch, with them taking around 20 minutes just to get through,” Ellison said. “And this is a problem for students especially that don’t have lunch periods as they can’t get hot lunch before their class. So my proposed solution is to consolidate the sandwich bar and the salad bar into one lunch line. 
They’re essentially made of the same things, deli, lettuce, and the same sides. I would keep the salad bar where it is and just bring over the wraps and the different condiments needed for the wraps. And then we then have three hot lunch lines which would alleviate how much time students are spending in the hot lunch lines, as that seems to be the preference from the data I collected.”

Surveys also indicated problems with athletic facilities.

“The baseball fields have sprinklers and so do the practice fields, but surprisingly not the soccer playing field,” Ellison said. “The grass is too long, which prohibits the ball from moving fast enough."

Other problems include the weight room, which is shared with the middle school. Ellison said it is small and lacks ventilation.

“And I used to play volleyball. The nets are not equipped. They are old and they billow in the middle, which the refs won’t allow you to start a game if it’s not tight enough,” Ellison said. “And if you don’t have the right net, it just can become a whole problem. So that would be nice if those are replaced.”

In other business, the board welcomed Mara Costagliola as Director of Pupil Services and Special Programs. Costagliola has been a teacher at the Alternative Learning Center at Maybrook.

Board member Sarah Messing reported on a meeting on Artificial Intelligence for Educational Leaders, led by Cameron Fadjo, Assistant Superintendent for the Pleasantville School District. The focus at this stage is empowering teachers with the knowledge on how to use AI sites. School use of AI sites is inconsistent, with some sites blocked although material may be needed for projects. Some teachers require students to use AI sites to produce better assignments.

The district continues to increase community involvement, through VC21, providing tours of facilities and surveys to gain input. The board has, in the past, discussed the need for major capital improvements to the Walden Elementary School.

“So this is a large effort that we’re going to undertake. It’s going to be the entire community It’s going to need to be involved so everybody’s voice is important and we’re going to be organizing school tours to provide firsthand insight into the current state of the school,” said Board President Joseph Bond, “and I can tell you before I was on the board I had never stepped foot in Walden Elementary school, and I’m sure there’s a lot of people in the community who haven’t. We’ll be doing that, we’re going to be distributing surveys to gather feedback from everybody on the project; and so I just want to mention it’s very important and please take advantage of the opportunity, stay tuned for announcements on additional dates and tours coming up.”

The presentation on Walden Elementary is scheduled for January 31.