A final graduation?

“Last year we were sidetracked but survived Hurricane Irene. This year we’ve had to survive a political hurricane. Never underestimate the power of my students.”

Those were the words of Harriet Eisman Community School Program Director Juli-Anne Sabino at the school’s 39th graduation ceremony last Sunday, spoken in the hope that this graduation wouldn’t be its last.

After nearly four decades of similar ceremonies and about 1,600 graduates, the Eisman School, an alternative high school for at-risk youth that opened in 1972, lost its funding on July 5 after Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano informed dozens of private youth agencies and mental-health and addiction-treatment facilities that their county funding would be eliminated — the result of a political impasse between Democratic and Republican members of the County Legislature. The school lost $300,000 in funding.

“It was a very warm and moving experience,” Long Beach Reach Executive Director Dr. Joseph Smith said of the graduation, though he acknowledged the 800-pound gorilla in the room. “It was an incredible graduation, as it always is, but this year was bittersweet because this could very well be the last graduation.”

More than 200 people filled the Long Beach Public Library for the ceremony, which Sabino described as one of the school’s most memorable. “It was probably the best graduation that I’ve been a part of, and I’ve been there for 13 years,” she said.

City Council President Len Torres was the keynote speaker, and other council members, as well as State Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg, also attended.

“Every time a challenge comes around the corner, it’s another opportunity to build and to grow,” Torres told the graduates. “The Community School has been that kind of a place.”

A documentary shown during the ceremony included footage of the school from 1972 to the present, as well as recent video of students and staff protesting the county’s cuts.