Great Neck expands news media literacy across grades with Stony Brook partnership

Assistant Superintendent Steven Landau presented a progress report on the district’s news media literacy initiative at the Great Neck Union Free School District Board of Education meeting on Jan. 14.

Landau said the initiative aims to teach students “the ability to determine the reliability and credibility of news and information regardless of the source and to apply that skill in our professional and personal lives.”

The presentation, developed with the Stony Brook University Center for News Literacy, maps instruction across grade levels and content areas. Landau said elementary lessons introduce students to source credibility, fact versus opinion and digital citizenship; middle schools are piloting a course called Media Literacy for the Digital Age; and high school pilots focus on transferring literary and research skills to news evaluation and civic readiness.

Landau described classroom examples: Pre‑K and kindergarten lessons on online safety and balancing screen time; grades 3–5 anchor charts that probe author intent and missing context; and middle‑school modules that dissect propaganda techniques such as bandwagon appeals, repetition and loaded language. He also demonstrated practical verification tools used in classrooms, including reverse image search and AI‑image detection, and summarized five quick checks for spotting unreliable stories: inspect URLs, examine layout and grammar, identify authorship and funding, cross‑check reporting, and run reverse image searches.

Landau credited collaboration with faculty who attended a news‑literacy academy and with the district’s parent and teacher organizations for sponsoring community events. He said lessons are adapted for students with high needs and that parents are provided resources such as Common Sense Education materials. He identified Howard (Howie) Schneider of Stony Brook as a principal partner in teacher training and noted the district sent nearly two dozen faculty to a summer academy.

Board members praised the curriculum work during the meeting; no formal board action was taken on the initiative at this session. Landau said the program will continue to expand and that the district plans additional faculty training next summer.

The presentation provides a district roadmap for classroom practice and verification tools intended to build students’ ability to evaluate and produce credible information in a media‑rich environment.