By Alyssa Harper
Uniondale Schoos officials reviewed and discussed the district’s strategic plan for the 2025-26 school year at a Feb. 11 Board of Education meeting.
The school board held a strategic planning retreat in early February, at which parents and faculty members learned about the district’s strategic goals. The retreat was hosted by Mathew Ritter, assistant superintendent for planning, assessment, data and accountability, and Rhonda Taylor, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction.
“What we did at the retreat is compare Uniondale’s portrait of a graduate with the New York State Department of Education’s portrait of a graduate to see how aligned we are,” Ritter said. As of 2024, Uniondale High School had a 91% graduation rate, compared with the statewide average of 86%. Eighty percent of Uniondale’s graduates were college bound.
The strategic plan intends to increase the number of advanced courses offered at Uniondale High School and the number of students enrolled in them. The school now offers 24 Advanced Placement courses, and 614 students are enrolled in at least one of them.
There are four goals interlaced within the strategic plan. The first involves encouraging students to continue their education at home by reading over school breaks. The district has a book buddy program for which every district kindergartner is sent home with one book a month to expand their at-home libraries.
Parents and students “love the fact that we provide home libraries to every single kindergartner in our district,” Taylor said.
Goal number two is to provide more emotional and physical support to students districtwide to decrease chronic absenteeism. A wellness center was opened in Uniondale High School to provide support and counseling to students in need, which has helped decrease the number of absences in school.
“They want to be here with us, and we love seeing that chronic absenteeism is on the decrease,” Taylor said.
The third goal was to increase the mastery of content being taught in the classroom. A suggestion for how to achieve this goal was to increase the number of students taking part in New York State exams by better preparing them so they feel confident while testing.
The final goal was to increase the number of students who are classified as college, career and life ready. Uniondale High School offers dual enrollment courses to students, in addition to the AP classes. “We have our AP Is You ambassadors who share with their peers during the lunch break, as they pass them in the hall or as they visit in classrooms all about the importance of increasing AP enrollment,” Taylor said.
The retreat was open to suggestions from faculty members and parents. It was suggested that the district highlight and enforce a cell phone use policy, as well as add digital literacy classes. “They suggested more teaching related to the impact of your digital footprint and some lessons on how if you put something online today, it potentially could follow you forever,” Ritter said.
The district’s strategic plan was implemented two and a half years ago. “We truly appreciate the support of the board who supported the plan all the way back from day one when it was just a plan,” Ritter said.
Following the presentation of the plan, Superintendent Monique Darrisaw-Akil thanked Ritter and Taylor and expressed her appreciation on behalf of the school board. “The board members come to as many of these events as they possibly can just to show their support and also provide their input on how the district is moving academically,” Darrisaw-Akil said.
The strategic plan can be found here.
Rhonda A. Taylor the Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction explains the four
goals in the strategic plan to an audience of parents//Photo by Alyssa Harper
Mattew Ritter and Rhonda Taylor presented statistics about the Uniondale Union Free School
District students alongside the strategic plan for improving the school academically//Photo by
Alyssa Harper
