Island Park to stop sending kids to West Hempstead High School

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Island Park school officials announced in a July 11 letter to parents that starting with the 2019-20 school year, they will stop offering Island Park’s middle school graduates the option of attending West Hempstead High School, ending a nearly 50-year tradition.

The decision came as enrollment by freshmen in the high school had declined to the single digits in the 10 years since parents were given another choice for their children: Long Beach High School.

“We are proud of the academic, athletic, extra-curricular and social opportunities we have provided and the legacy of success they have achieved,” said West Hempstead School District Superintendent Daniel Rehman in a statement. “Regrettably, the Island Park Board of Education and administration have decided that it is no longer financially feasible to offer students and parents the option to choose which high school to attend. We will certainly miss the unique blending of our two communities. However, we will continue to educate those students already enrolled through June 2022. The relationship we have with the Island Park School District continues to be one built on mutual respect.”

“Ten years ago, when we first gave the choice to go to Long Beach, there was a lot of acrimony, and a lot of it stemmed from the fact that everyone in Island Park that was of parental age had gone to West Hempstead High School and thought their kids would benefit from going there also,” Jack Vobis, president of the Island Park Board of Education, told the Herald. “West Hempstead is a great school, but I think what happened over the past 10 years is that Long Beach is just a natural neighbor. It’s so much closer.”

Busing to West Hempstead, he said, took up to an hour for some students, adding unnecessary hardship as well as fiscal stress for the district, which provides transportation for them. “If you have one kid that continues to go there,” Vobis explained, “and you run a bus, the cost for that kid is the same as if you had a full bus . . . It comes to the point where it’s just not fiscally responsible.”

The enrollment of Island Park students at West Hempstead High had dropped drastically over the past four years, with a projected total of just 31 for the 2018-19 school year. The enrollment was 104 in 2015-16, according to budget documents.

Conversely, enrollment at Long Beach High School has seen sharp increases, with 276 students projected to attend the school in the coming year. That would be up from 209 in 2015-16.

“I don’t think it has anything to do with an inferior product, or education,” Vobis said. “I think it has more to do with logistics.”

The decision represents a watershed moment for Island Park residents who for generations had been sending their high school-aged kids to West Hempstead High. The arrangement had been in place since 1969, when a dispute between Oceanside and Island Park schools over tax revenues from the E.F. Barrett power plant resulted in the expulsion of Island Park students from Oceanside High School, according to historical records.

In the letter to Island Park district parents, Superintendent Dr. Rosmarie Bovino said that in addition to the rising costs of transportation and plummeting enrollment at West Hempstead High, the district was anticipating additional costs from the Long Island Power Authority’s ongoing tax certiorari proceedings on the Barrett plant, where LIPA is looking to appreciably lower tax payments, which account for roughly 40 percent of the Island Park district budget.

“It has been an upsetting, emotional decision for us given the goodwill our two communities have shared, the wonderful memories we retain and the heartfelt generosity West Hempstead showed our families throughout the year and especially following Superstorm Sandy,” Bovino wrote. “Our intention is not to close any door between us, but to act responsibly based on the decision made to date by our parents and the economic factors that limit our financial flexibility.”

Vobis said that the decision to remove the option, while difficult, was ultimately made by the community at large. “It’s really not a choice the board made — it’s a choice the community made,” he said. “And that’s really our job: We do as much as we can to try and reflect what the community wants.”