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Fog/Mist A new home for the Gersh Academy?
Marion Delaney’s uncertain future prompts search for new location
For the past several years, the West Hempstead School District had been discussing the demolition of the Marion M. Delaney School, which houses the Gersh Academy, a school for children on the autism spectrum. The building is in dire need of repairs, and the thinking among district officials was that athletic fields could be built in its place.
Now that the hamlet has passed a $35 million bond that does not include any work on the Delaney School, the Gersh Academy can rest easy, since the building is no longer threatened. Or can it?
“This is actually a very timely question,” Kevin Gersh, a founder of the academy, said last week. “I asked the school district if I could buy the building or do repairs on the building in exchange for a long-term lease, and they got back to me today and said they’re not willing to do a long-term lease,” he added, referring to a conversation he had with Schools Superintendent John Hogan. “They would only consider giving us one more year at this time.”
According to Gersh, Hogan told him that the school district wanted to review its options, including selling the building or possibly demolishing it in the future. “He was very nice, but they aren’t motivated by the same things we are,” Gersh said. “They want their money. It’s different for them.”
“At this point, the [school] board is moving cautiously,” Hogan said, “because they know it’s an important issue and they want to do what’s right for the school district. It’s fair to say that there are a couple of interested people in the property.”
Now Gersh is working on finding a new home for the 115 autistic children who attend the academy, and who come from a number of districts. “I can’t live on a year-to-year basis like this,” he said. “I want to be part of a community.”
The fact that the building is in need of key infrastructure renovations is also a problem. According to Gersh, the plumbing is bad, the electricity needs to be “amped up” and there’s a boiler in the basement the “size of a bus.”
Trying to find a new building, however, is proving challenging. “It’s hard to find a 50,000-square-foot building that’s affordable,” he said. “I have to find a permanent home for my children. I can’t have one more year, and then at the end of the year they say, ‘You gotta go.’ I have responsibility.” Gersh also said that the academy is not using about 20,000 square feet of the building’s available space, but he wants the extra room for future growth.
Roughly 75 percent of the school’s students, he added, are contracted by their school districts to attend the academy 12 months a year.
