Allenby Lyson, longtime Board of Education trustee, steps down

One of the ways Allenby Lyson evaluates his 18 years as a school board trustee is through comparison. When the other districts start following your lead, he says, you know you’re doing a good job.

Lyson, 75, has seen it happen a number of times throughout his time on the Oceanside School District’s Board of Education. Not long after Oceanside implemented a full-day kindergarten, other districts picked up on the idea. Oceanside schools began teaching students social and emotional literacy three years ago, and now all New York schools are required to follow suit under the Dignity For All Students Act.

But the program that resonates most with Lyson, and that he is most proud of, is the teaching of foreign languages to students in all grades, from kindergartners to high school seniors.

Now he is preparing to step down from the school board at the end of the academic year.

Though he had long had an interest in education, Lyson politely declined invitations from board members and retired teachers to run for a trustee seat until all four of his children were out of the school system, or at least very close to it. “I firmly believe that board members shouldn’t have kids in school because you can run into conflicts,” he said. “I was on the board one year when my son was a senior in high school, so I kind of broke my own rule there.”

Lyson has served on the board since 1992, except for one year — 1995-96 — when he was voted off for supporting what turned out to be a controversial issue among residents. “The board wanted to do paired schools, where one school would have grades one through three and another would take four through six,” he recalled. “There were 800 residents at one meeting, and probably 799 opposed it. The idea of losing your neighbor at school — no way it was going to happen.”

The year off didn’t deter Lyson, who knew his experience and financial background were a boon to the district. He was re-elected to the board the following year and has been there ever since, serving as president six times, including this year.

Prior to joining the board, Lyson worked in brokerage and banking, retiring from CitiBank in 1997.

“There’s no way we survive if we don’t have a good school system and educate our kids, and the only way you can do that is to spend money and spend it wisely,” he said. “Since my background is financial, I thought I could do things in that line.”

Lyson lauded the board, along with Superintendent Dr. Herb Brown and the administration, for keeping the Oceanside district’s budget among the lowest in Nassau County without hurting the academic or extracurricular programs. “We had a board constantly throughout my time that was very fiscally cheap without harming the education,” he said. “You have a superintendent and administration that is very fiscally good. They want to make sure we have the best education but also have our dollars’ worth.”

The financial soundness of the district was by no means Lyson’s only interest on the board. On a business trip to Europe in the late 1980s, he was shocked to discover that his partners across the Atlantic could speak French, German or Spanish in addition to their native languages, whereas most Americans could only speak English. A decade later, Ocean- side introduced a program in which students were taught Spanish beginning in kindergarten and continued it every year through middle school, at which point they could choose any foreign language to study.

“That was a huge change in the educational philosophy for us,” said Lyson, adding that he regrets not being bilingual himself. “You’re better at speaking English if you learn another language, because it makes you think of your own language.”

The administrators and trustees who worked with Lyson say they will miss his personality, along with his educational and fiscal expertise. “Typically, he likes to say no initially, to make me explain why I’m doing something and then, at the end of the day, he’ll agree as long as it makes sense,” Brown said. “He’s been an excellent board member, and he understands the financial and academic sides of education and he’s been able to meld the two together.”

“Al gave to the community during his retirement and has given the board sound financial advice,” said fellow Trustee Bob Transom. “The board will survive; it has the right mix of people that work well together and understand the issues and get involved.”

Lyson decided to retire to allow for someone with a fresh, creative perspective to join the board. After 18 years, he said, he felt he had become a part of the system instead of fighting and questioning everything.

“It was time. It’s time to get new blood on the board,” he said. “I probably held on a little longer than I should have, but I was having so much fun.”

The Herald attempted to reach Island Park Trustee Steve Foster, who is retiring from the Board of Education after nearly 30 years, but had not received a response by the time the paper went to press on Monday.