'It's always been a black-and-white issue'

“The only black person up there is your secretary,” said a tall woman, slapping her papers on the desk for emphasis.

The comment was directed at members of the Malverne Board of Education, who were berated at their April 12 meeting by a number of residents who claimed that cultural diversity is absent from Malverne Union Free District schools.

To an outsider, the residents’ shouting would seem out of place in what is usually a sedate setting. But to board trustees and district administrators, it’s familiar. “It’s always been a black-and-white issue,” said Trustee Danielle Hopkins, the board’s only African-American. “It’s always been a Malverne-Lakeview issue. It’s always been like this — I’ve lived here all my life.”

Hopkins, a Lakeview resident who was elected to the board in 2005, did not attend the meeting, but she wasn’t surprised to hear about what took place there. According to her and to schools Superintendent Dr. James Hunderfund, similar eruptions occur every few months, despite repeated attempts to address the issue.

“I keep hearing the same thing from when Jim Tully was superintendent in the ’70s here,” Hunderfund said. “It was the same issue, over and over, that the district doesn’t do anything or doesn’t do enough, and the truth is that everybody is doing everything we say. Nobody wants to hear it or believe it, but we are doing it.”

What these residents — primarily black residents who live in Lakeview — claim the district fails to do or doesn’t do enough is diversify its staff. Bea Bayley, president of the Lakeview NAACP, is among those who question the district’s equity in hiring.