THE WORLD READS WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER — 8,324,077 VISITS IN ONE YEAR | 2,905,611 VISITORS VISIT 8,324,077 TIMES 3 TIMES EVERY DAY IN ONE YEAR. HIGHEST ACTIVITY IN WPCNR HISTORY.White PlainsCitizeNetReporter lifted its worldwide visits from unique visitors to wpcnr.com to 8,324,077,a 1,306,419 increase in visits in one year from 7,017,658 visits to the site last year which covers White Plains and Westchester County. The 8,324,077 visits were made by 2,005,611 unique visitors who visited wpcnr an average of 3 visits a day. ON JULY 20- -2026 visitors have accessed wpcnr and made 3,072 visits an average of 1.6 visits. In the last week 33,495 individual vistors made 54,458 visits, averaging 1.6 visits. In the last month, 152,940 visitors recorded 229,338 visits (1.5 visits)

Buchwalds Welcome Anna Rose Buchwald

Posted on April 15, 2015 by John Bailey

WPCNR MILESTONES. April 15, 2015:

New York State Assemblyman David Buchwald and Lara Buchwald of White Plains are proud to announce the birth of their first child, Anna Rose Buchwald.

Anna was due on April 15, 2015, but she had other ideas and arrived on March 16, 2015, weighing 6 pounds, 2 ounces. Anna stayed in the neonatal intensive care unit at White Plains Hospital for just over five days. “The professionalism of the nurses and doctors at White Plains Hospital’s NICU could not have been better,” said Assemblyman Buchwald.

Mother and daughter are both doing well, and the whole family is enjoying the start of spring. “The birth of our beautiful, precious daughter makes me even more optimistic about the future,” said David. “When I look at Anna, I can’t help but redouble my efforts on behalf of the environment, education, and women’s equality.”

For the first time in his Assembly career, David missed votes while at the hospital with his wife and daughter. One of those votes was on his own bill to improve New York’s Freedom of Information Law. Nonetheless, the bill passed the State Assembly 147 to 0.

Assemblyman David Buchwald represents the 93rd Assembly District in Westchester County, which includes the towns of Bedford, Harrison, Lewisboro, Mt. Kisco, New Castle, North Castle, North Salem and Pound Ridge as well as half of the City of White Plains.

Lara Samet Buchwald is a litigation associate at the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP.

Standard Amusements County Exec Choice to Run Playland. County Board Given 60 Days to Approve it. Deal Virtually Matches Sustainable Playland Plan

Posted on April 14, 2015 by John Bailey

WPCNR PLAYLAND GO ROUND. By John F. Bailey April 14, 2015;

County Executive Robert P. Astorino announced that last night his administration had signed an agreement with Standard Amusements to run Playland beginning in 2016.

Standard has agreed to invest $25 Million in new rides, restaurants and attractions within 5 years of taking over the park (with Westchester County still retaining ownership). Standard will pay the county $2.5 Million upon signing of the agreement which the Board of Legislators has 60 days to approve. Chair of the Board, Michael Kaplowitz told WPCNR it was the first he had heard of the surprise signing and said the Board would begin its due diligence on the proposal.

In addition, when Standard would pay the County $300,000 a year the first five years, and when Standard has recouped its investment, it would give the county 7.5% of the profits.

The deal was endorsed by county consultant Dan Biederman of Biederman Redevelopment Ventures, who was the consultant to Sustainable Playland, Mr. Astorino’s first choice of operator of the park, which had also considered Standard Amusements as its operator. The deal is essentially the same with the exception that no permanent field house or fields would be built .

However, the County Executive said there would be “temporary (open air) fields” put in place with artificial turf on the parking lots or other areas during the spring and fall. The City of Rye had vehemently protested the Field House concept, how they will react to this piece of the proposal is not known since the Mayor of Rye was not at the news conference for comment.

More to come.

County Executive Opts His Children Out of ELA Assessments.

Posted on April 14, 2015 by John Bailey

WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. Statement From County Executive Robert P. Astorino. April 14, 2015:

Today, Sheila and I join over 100,000 parents across New York in opting our children out of the Common Core tests, as is our right.

Our kids deserve better than Common Core, an experiment conceived in secrecy with no public hearings or testing. There are no consequences for opting out. The scores will not affect student records.

We support higher standards for our kids, but that’s not Common Core, despite what we’ve often been told.

The standards are of “poor quality.” Those aren’t my words; those are the words of the Math and English Language Arts content experts on the validation committee. But their concerns were expunged from the final record.

Also ignored are experts’ concerns that:

The standards are developmentally inappropriate in the early grades
No K-12 teachers were involved in writing the standards
High-stakes testing as the sole assessment for both student and teacher performance is both unfair and wrong

I share these concerns, as well as the concern that this is education policy guided at the federal level and not the local level as historically has been the case.

As parental concerns and frustrations continue to fall on deaf ears, the numbers opting out of the tests will continue to grow.

The Governor, Legislature, Education Commissioner, and Board of Regents must restore local control of our schools. Common Core needs to be replaced with better standards developed with input from teachers and parents and vetted and tested in a fully transparent process.

11% of Children Held Out of ELA Tests today. (347 of 3,150 eligible held out) Parents are Assured Their Children will be Cared for at their schools if Parents Prefer them not to take the ELA tests Beginning Tuesday AM

Posted on April 14, 2015 by John Bailey

WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. By John F. Bailey. April 13, 2015 UPDATED 4:05 P.M.:

Superintendent of Schools said on a recording of the White Plains TV People to Be Heard program with John Bailey today that as of 3 P.M. 347 students across grades 3 through 8, representing 11% of an estimated 3,150 students in White Plains elementary and middle schools eligible to take the ELA test today, were held back by parents from taking the test.

(The program in which Mr. Connors discusses the test controversy and the school budget may be seen Thursday evening at 8 PM on WPTV Cablevision Channel 76 in White Plains or Verizon FIOS Channel 45.)

Three parents speaking during the Public Comment session at the Board of Education meeting last night raised strong concerns that parents should opt out of the English Language Arts Assessments being given district-wide Tuesday morning in Grades 3 through 8.

One parent from George Washington cited there was confusion as to whether children should not go to school if they were opting out which she had heard, and said this was creating an inconvenience for parents.

Interim Superintendent of Schools Timothy Connors said that parents could keep the children home, but if they sent them to school with instructions the children were not to take the assessment test, that the respective schools would supervise the children while other students took the test.

Superintend of Schools Connors in an impassioned speech implored district parents to write letters to the State Education Department calling for change in the way assessments were administered. He said the tests were important, but felt there should be less tests, given every other year. He also sought to dispell fears that the district would lose school aid if less than 95% of students did not take the test. He said he expected that statewide less than 95% of students would take the tests, which could result in New York loss of federal aid dollars.