By Kate E. Salute
This means that there will be increased in-house special education offerings, a new curriculum writing program to address various unfunded mandates and no cut in programming.
With the 992 votes Marguerite O'Connor received in the uncontested election for her position on the Malverne Board of Education, she will have served the board for near 30 years at the end of her upcoming four year term.
H: West Hempstead Budgets 2006-07
In the West Hempstead School District there was what some would say, a surprising outcome. Although the library budget had met with dissatisfaction from community members in recent weeks, that budget passed with 1,090 votes. There were 1,056 votes to fail the library budget.
Meanwhile, the School District's Proposed Budget of nearly $48 million, which met with little to no opposition during public hearings and board of education meetings, failed by 203 votes (1,004 yes votes, 1,207 no votes).
Superintendent of West Hempstead Schools Carol D. Eisenberg said, " I'm despondent -- very disappointed and dismayed. This should not have happened. Our budget to budget increase was only 5.3 percent and the rest was the library bond."
In order to decide what happens from this point on, the Board of Education will meet tomorrow night, May 18, to decide on one of three possible courses of action: go immediately to a contingency budget, which means cutting people, programs and services; making changes to the proposed budget; or putting up the same proposed budget again to be voted on.
Eisenberg continued, "This is very disheartening and a detriment to the homeowners and the community. We've had many budget meetings, we have an open board with open dialogue -- this should not have happened."
Additionally, a proposition for busing presented to the district by PTA members, failed 1,163 votes to 913 votes. The proposition was for uniformity in the mileage in West Hempstead for grades K-5. Currently, the district's policy provides busing for students in grades K-3 outside of 3/4 mile, outside a mile for students in grades 4 and 5 and outside of 1 1/2 miles for students in grades 8-12. The petition proposed that mileage be rolled back to 3/4 a mile across the board, K-5.
Uncontested elections for the Board of Education saw 1,186 votes for Carole Rilling and 1,202 for James Mariano. Both have been on the board for 12 years.
