An Elmont Schools employee is suing the district, alleging sex-discrination for a series of e-mails that made the rounds in the district office earlier this year. The case, which was filed in federal court, could take as long as a year to be resolved as both the district and their accuser try and work their way through the federal system. more

About 50 high school students came to the Nov. 3 Valley Stream school board committee meeting to try to persuade the board to continue letting them leave campus in their cars during lunch periods. more

It's a safe bet that any dust settling on the blackboard in Lisa Drewes's classroom at Fayette Elementary School in North Merrick is a byproduct of abandonment rather than chalk. The fourth-grade room is outfitted with one of 15 SMART Boards in the North Merrick School District, a new tool that teachers are crediting with revolutionizing teaching methods and making conventional blackboards obsolete. "I put my schedule on it every day, aside from that I don't write on my blackboard at all," Drewes said. more

The construction of an elevator to serve the Valley Stream Central High School District offices at Memorial Junior High School is currently under way, and some teachers at the school say that noise from the work has disrupted their classrooms. more

Out of about 1,500 students in the 10th and 11th grades in the Valley Stream Central High School District, nearly 100 had yet to re-register by the end of last week. more

For the second straight year, school districts are facing the possibility of a midyear aid cut as Gov. Paterson seeks to plug New York state’s deficit. more

Rockville Centre's five school board trustees voted unanimously to accept a State Environmental Quality Review Act study that concluded that the proposed renovations of South Side High School would have “no significant adverse environmental impact.” The vote paved the way for the board to authorize, also unanimously, a special district meeting on Thursday, Dec. 17, for the public to vote on the proposed $31.8 million bond issue referendum. Ballots will be cast that day, in the South Side High School gym, between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. more

The Rockville Centre school district learned last week that it has successfully challenged a lawsuit filed over the winter by Nassau County Legislator Roger Corbin to shift the payment of real estate tax refunds from Nassau County to school districts and other local entities. more

On the board more

As they have at recent Central District Board of Education sessions, roughly a half-dozen parents and members of a recently formed, ad hoc community group, Time for Turf, spoke again at the Oct. 7 board meeting, reiterating their desire to see artificial-turf football fields at Calhoun, Kennedy and Mepham high schools. And, they said, they're not going away. In two recent meetings at which Time for Turf members spoke, they were unchallenged in their calls for synthetic-turf fields, with Central District officials primarily listening to their concerns and, most recently, forming a district committee to examine ways to improve all of Central's 31 athletic fields at its three high schools and two middle schools. This time, the calls for artificial turf were met by vocal opposition from Fred Kleiman, a local resident. Repeatedly noting the per-field cost for synthetic turf of more than $1 million, Kleiman said it would be "fiscally irresponsible" of the Central District to consider such a proposal, given that it would likely mean a property-tax increase amid a deep recession. more