By KAREN RICE
About 30 people addressed the board with their concerns as several others who jammed into the Lawrence Middle School auditorium cheered them on.
Several students from the Number Five School addressed the board, asking the members to consider keeping their school open. The children spoke mostly about a desire to graduate from the same school as their brothers and sisters and their fondness for the school's teachers and classrooms. All the children's comments were met with vigorous applause from the audience.
I am a fifth-grade student at Number Five School, my brother graduated three years ago from Number Five School, and my sister will hopefully be coming to Number Five School in three years, one student said. Please give my sister the same opportunity to have an amazing education that my brother and I have had. Children are the heart of the community and Number Five School keeps the community alive with our students and with our faculty.
One third-grader said she came down so the board could see her face. I came here tonight because all everyone keeps talking about are the changes in number in the schools, and I wanted you to realize that I am not a number but a person, she said. Maybe if you see our faces you will think twice about closing down my school. Please do not close down my school.
Another fifth-grader said that she thought closing the Number Five School would be wrong. The quality of our education would decrease, she said. To think our board of education is running against us to close down our school and our dignity. I just know one thing: If you shut down our school, you shut down our minds and pride. Save the knowledge of many students Ñ save us.
Many PTA members also voiced their concerns to the board, and handed over a list of questions that they feel should be answered, including whether the elementary school principals' advice not to close a school was carefully considered and whether there would be a policy in place that would keep the class sizes from becoming too large. The PTA members urged the board not to make any decisions until all the questions have been answered, and asked that an outside expert be brought in for additional input.
Many parents also spoke in praise of the Number Five School's teachers and programs and criticized the report for being biased and politically motivated.
Parent Giovanna DiFiore felt that the members of the redistricting committee were not impartial and thus gave a biased report. If the purpose of this subcommittee was to be a fact-finding group, then impartial people should have conducted this study, with no hidden agendas. She added that educators should have been included on the committee.
Parent Barbara Trento presented the school board with a petition, signed by 1,000 people, asking the board not to rush into any decisions which we believe may be extremely harmful to our children and our community at large. We vehemently oppose any consideration of a school closing without a long-term study and input of a new superintendent.
Ari Brown, trustee for the Village of Cedarhurst, also addressed the board, offering the village's opinion of the possibility of closing the Number Five School, which is in Cedarhurst. He read a statement prepared and signed by Mayor Andrew Parise and the village board's trustees.
The tone of this report sounds like a plan to justify closing the Number Five School, the statement read. We believe that this is ill-conceived and not in the best interests of the school district or the residents of our village. Therefore, we stand strongly opposed to this imprudent prospect.
A teacher from the Number Five School said she felt compelled to speak because the redistricting committee said that nothing in the report would compromise the students' education, and because no educator's opinion was sought for the report.
You hired me [and the other district teachers] because you believed we were the best of the best, but you did not ask for our input for closing one of our buildings, she said. Closing a school will compromise and jeopardize and adversely affect [the students'] education.
Members of the redistricting committee told the school board and the community that when they were creating the report, education and the betterment of the community were always foremost in their minds.
Penny Schuster, council PTA co-president and a member of the redistricting committee, said the redistricting seemed to her to always keep education first. It seemed that the priority at every meeting was the education of every child in our public schools. It was restated over and over by many members of the committee that any consolidation that might take place must not jeopardize our children's education.
She added that because the report is a work in progress, there are many questions that still need to be answered and many details that need to be worked out, but, she said, These are difficult times for our district. We have many financial problems and it is naive to ignore them. We looked at consolidation of elementary schools because it was one way of maintaining educational excellence while saving programs.
Redistricting committee member Marguerite Engelman cited cuts in state aid, significant county tax increases and the economy as the reasons for the district's poor economic state, and said that possibly closing a school would ensure that the quality of education would not be compromised and cuts in curriculum and staff would be avoided.
Robert Douglas, also a member of the committee, agreed the education of each student was foremost in the committee's considerations. But, he explained, a state-of-the-art library is needed in the community, and closing a school would help the district remain fiscally responsible and provide the community with a better library. This was met with hissing from the audience. School Board President Frank Parise added there would be a meeting on March 18 at 9 p.m. at the middle school to answer questions about any possibility of closing a school.
