The North Babylon School District is looking to revamp how it provides educational services to students who receive multiple day out-of-school suspension with a proposal that calls for the formation of a new suspension school.

Presented publicly for the first time at a Board of Education workshop held Tuesday, January 9, at North Babylon High School, district officials said the proposed suspension school would dramatically improve how the district provides legally required educational services to students who receive out-of-school suspension.

But questions remain as to if and when the suspension school will be implemented by the district. While the proposal, presented by Sean Feeney, assistant principal at North Babylon High School, was favorably received by members of the school board, trustees raised a number of questions about the program.

These questions included providing ample security for students attending suspension school, how transportation would be provided and administrative oversight of the programs. District officials said they would address these and other questions in the coming weeks.

At the meeting, Dr. Randy Bos, district superintendent, requested to school board members that the suspension school be put to a vote by the board’s meeting on Thursday, January 26, with the hope of starting testing the program during the final two semesters of the school years. Semester three starts January 30. At the January 26 meeting, however, many of the board members remained concerned about “secuirty concerns and liability issues,” and tabled the resolution.

While a final decision on the suspension school lies in the hands of the school board, district officials said the need to improve how the district provides education alternatives to suspended students, while also achieving a cost savings, are the key drivers behind the proposal.

The proposed suspension school is aimed at all secondary level suspended students and would be offered Monday through Thursday at the high school from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. It would be held in two classrooms located on the north side of the high school next to an entrance and rest rooms.

Educational oversight of the suspension school would include two teachers per night, one of which would be a teacher/coordinat or one paraprofessional, one supervisory aide, one physical education teacher twice per month) and one special education teacher

as needed).

School subjects will be broken out by day: Monday, social studies and English; Tuesday, math and science; Wednesday, social studies and language other than English; Thursday, math and science. Physical education will be offered every other week and special education services will be provided as needed.

All school work for suspended students will be provided by his/her classroom teachers and will be awaiting upon their arrival at suspension school.

The proposal also calls for providing bus transportation for students. Two buses, each making two pickups and drop-offs would be used. What is unclear is the locations of the pick-ups and drop-offs.

Total cost of the proposed suspension school, according to district officials, would be $96,413 annually with transportation and $62,228 without transportation. By means of comparison, the school district’s current system for providing educational services for suspended students for the 2004-05 school year costs slightly less than $200,000.

In addition, district officials feel the suspension school will bring the district into compliance with state guidelines that call for educational services to be provided to all students who receive out-of-school suspension. According to the proposal presented by Feeney, education services were provided in only 14% of total suspension incidents in the 04-05 school year.

New York State Education Law requires school districts to furnish alternative education for students under the age of 16 who have been suspended. The program offered is not required to match in every respect of what was previously offered to the student, but it must be sufficient so that the student can complete complete the required course work.