Hanan Desouky, an ESL tutor at Hofstra, has been living in Long Island, NY, for about half of her life. She was born and raised in Egypt until her mid twenties. Desouky attended Cairo University and graduated in 1999 with a bachelor’s degree in English Literature and Foreign Language. Later she earned her master’s in elementary education from C.W Post. In May 2009, she won a Teacher’s Profolio and also graduated the same year from C.W Post. Desouky decided that later on she would go for the Post Masters Certificate for teaching a second language at Hofstra University. She will be graduating from Hofstra in fall of 2011.
Desouky has much teaching experience in her life. She is a substitute teacher from kindergarten up to twelfth grade in Huntington. At Hofstra, she tutors ESL (English as a Second Language) to graduate students to help improve their speaking and reading. She is also a translator and an interpreter for Arabic at a Nassau BOCES school and in South Huntington. She also tutors Chinese students in business.
Since Desouky is a teacher, she is familiar with the recent tax cap and how it is affecting the schools and the people. The tax cap means schools in New York state are not allowed to raise property taxes more than two percent per academic year. When asked what she thought about the tax cap, she replied with a big N-O. She said she “hates it.” Desouky said that there should be no tax cap and that it’s unfortunate for many people. She says that people already pay enough taxes during the year to obtain a good education in the districts. Desouky said that even though people are paying the taxes, where is all of the money going? “Even in wealthier schools,” she says, “Changes are still not OK. In a good district, we pay a lot of taxes but in the schools, there has been no or very little change in the education system.”
