Students earn top honors in law contest

Local elementary school students Shawn Balgobind and Eliana Bouet recently won the top prize in State Sen. Kemp Hannon’s 2015 “There Ought To Be A Law” competition. The contest honors ideas for new laws, as conceived by local fifth and sixth grade students from schools in Hannon’s district.

Shawn, who attends Barnum Woods Elementary School, proposed a law calling for greater punishment for people who leave young children in cars without supervision. “People who leave infants and toddlers in cars unattended should be given heaver fines or even jail time,” Shawn wrote. “Statistics show an average of 37 children have died of heat stroke every year since 1998. Thirty states, including New York, do not have laws addressing this matter.”

Eliana, of Bowling Green Elementary School, suggested that advertising on television and the Internet should be more closely monitored. “There ought to be a law about age-appropriate ads or commercials,” she wrote. “On video sites, the ads are either inappropriate or creepy for young children. Some of the things the kids are learning from videos and television is not good.”

The first place winners from each school were presented with a citation from Hannon at Levittown Hall in Hicksville.