East Rockaway School board say ‘no’ to Princeton Plan

Amid thunderous applause from hundreds of parents and residents, East Rockaway Superintendent of Schools Roseanne Melucci announced that she would not recommend to the Board of Education that the district proceed with the proposed “Princeton Plan,” which potentially would have involved converting the district’s two elementary schools — Centre Avenue and Rhame Avenue — from neighborhood schools to grade-level schools.

Melucci made the announcement on Feb. 15 — a month ahead of schedule — at a packed school board meeting in East Rockaway High School’s Harry Bunting Auditorium.

“It became clear that drastic changes will have to be made in the district to meet the tax levy limit of 2.28 percent,” Melucci said. “As a result, I do not see that it would be possible to deliver on the vision of five sections of classes, grades K through two, a teacher assigned to each grade level, in addition [to] reading resources and an enrichment program for all students grade three through six … [T]he budget will simply not be able to support the institutional vision that I expected to achieve through reorganization of the elementary schools.”

During the first meeting on the subject, on Jan. 19, Dr. Michael J. Dutkowsky, a consultant for AdvisorySolutions, unveiled the findings of a feasibility study that was commissioned by the board to determine whether the Center Avenue and Rhame Avenue schools could be reorganized. The study concluded that the district would be best served if the Centre Avenue School housed kindergarten through second grade and Rhame Avenue was used for grades three through six. This de-emphasis of neighborhood schools, often called the Princeton Plan, has been implemented in other small districts in Nassau County, including East Williston, Oyster Bay, Carle Place and, more recently, Malverne and Levittown.