SCHOOL BOARD GOES SOUTH ON EAST, TAXES GO NORTH

Spending for the Long Beach School District is too high and must be cut.

This past February, the Board of Education voted 3-2 against the closing of East School following a review of the district’s Facility Study Group.  While the group had focused on the efficient use of eight of the school district’s buildings, in light of financial shortcomings and declining enrollment, sparing East School was the most controversial.

Trustees Mininsky, Tangney and Ryan voted to keep the school open.  Trustees Lester and Gallagher voted against continuing to use East School as an elementary school.

NEWSDAY had actually written an editorial just before the vote opposing the continued use of East School, saying “reducing the actual number of schools rather than just laying off teachers or cutting programs is where real savings come from.”  In the past few months, other school districts have summoned the mettle to make decisions to close inefficient facilities:  Deer Park, Sachem, Half Hollow Hills and Lawrence.  But Long Beach?  Even with a 15% decline in enrollment over the past ten years and a hundred million dollar plus budget hammering us on property taxes, Long Beach could not summon the courage to act responsibly, save Trustees Lester and Gallagher.

Long Beach lacks political guts.  Supporters of East School could summon little more than saccharine recall of “childhood memories in East School” and hock about the inconvenience of having to travel a little farther to get to school.  Trustee Stewart Mininsky epitomized the feckless spirit by saying in presumptive peroration “Leave East School as it is and let’s put this issue, and the angst of the community to rest.”  No leadership is evident in that statement, but merely a capitulation to “angst.”  Now we have the angst of higher taxes.

Long Beach is hamstrung by the “cult” of “Long Beach sand in my shoes,” “famous families,” and the obsession to politicize everything.  This makes for endless short-sighted decisions.  The Long Beach School District has been a sacred cow and a funnel for political patronage.  The school administration labors blindly in the deep shadows of provincial political myopia with the maturity of a Mayberry.  School spending is unsustainable.  And as “reward” for keeping East School open?  A proposed 3.24% rise in our tax levy, the highest proposed rise in Nassau County for 2014.

I encourage Long Beach voters to reject such high spending and to replace the cookie-cutter, erstwhile school district leaders with men and women willing to make responsible decisions.  That might at least distinguish themselves from the children they purport to represent.