Educators and parents protest the state's actions

Car horns blared and traffic slowed on Merrick Road near Arthur J. Hendrickson Park on the afternoon of March 27, but not due to the weekend rush hour. The commotion was a group of Valley Stream residents, public school teachers and administrators who took to the street to protest Governor Andrew Cuomo’s education reforms.

“We’re here, trying to get our message out that the Governor’s and the state’s attempts to reform or change education policies in a way that will work for the entire state are causing real problems for schools here in Valley Stream,” said Patrick Naglieri, president of the Valley Stream Teachers Association. “What he’s trying to do, is destroy locally controlled public education and replace it with state-run education, by taking away the decision-making power from local school leaders and elected officials.”

More than one hundred protestors turned out as part of an island-wide effort to demonstrate against the governor’s reforms, including the implementation of the Common Core curriculum and an increased emphasis on standardized testing when evaluating the performance of schools and teachers. Similar demonstrations occurred along Merrick Road and Montauk Highway in communities from Lynbrook and Rockville Centre to Babylon and Islip.

“I decided to come down to let everyone know about what’s going on and talk to people about the tactics that are being used to confuse or scare people,” said Maribel Padin, a mother of two who brought her 3-year-old son, Julian. “Parents who want their students to opt out of testing have been told there could be a penalty to the school if enough students opt out, but that’s simply not true.”

Donna La Rocco, president of the District 24 Board of Education, said the scope of issues the protest was meant to address was wide.

“We’re here to protest everything the governor is doing, which has been really unfair to school districts,” she said. “The testing is difficult and often an unfair measure of how our students and teachers are doing, and not letting districts know what their state aid funding would be really made things difficult. I’m here to let the governor and everyone else know that we support our teachers and our students in Valley Stream and that we don’t care for what he’s doing.”

Janine Ferranti, a teacher at South High School, said she hoped the protest would raise awareness among residents about the problems schools are facing.

“We want people to know, that whether or not you have kids or they are in the public schools, this is a serious issue,” she said. “It’s so important to support our public school teachers and students. That’s where the future of our community is being shaped, every day in our classrooms. Our education system is in danger and we need to do everything we can to preserve it.”