Friday, January 17, 2025
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, local elected officials, superintendents, and school board members gathered inside the Nassau County Executive Building on Nov. 21, to oppose the recent New York State Department of Education Regionalization Plan.
The regionalization plan, introduced as an emergency rule on Sept. 25, mandates school districts to pool resources, programs, and services, which critics say is threatening independence to local districts. State Senator Jack Martins, one of the main opponents of the bill, talked about fighting to preserve local control.
“Long Island Schools are regularly ranked among the very best in New York State. That fact is in large part to our local control and educational structure, which prioritizes our students’ success,” Martins said. “We join our local communities in opposing any effort to force regionalization and fight to preserve local control.”
Blakeman emphasized Martins’ points, saying this was an attack on suburban school districts, and that they will continue to fight to keep power in the hands of the districts.
“Isn’t it interesting that cities such as Yonkers, Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester and New York City are all excluded from there plan,” Blakeman added. “This is just another attack on the suburbs by state government, which is completely controlled by left-wing politicians, and we will not stand by and let the Department of Education gut our school districts.”
Many opponents of the plan are questioning the decision to declare it an emergency. State Senator Steve Rhoads called it a rushed regionalization plan adding that the language of the proposed plan can lead to the complete usurpation of local districts.
“The State Education Department’s self-created emergency regionalization mandate is vague and can lead to a complete usurpation of local control of schools budgets, tax dollars, and educational opportunities and resources vested in local Boards of Education,” Rhoads said. “Long Islanders pay some of the highest school taxes in the state and their local and state officials should and must have a voice in where those dollars are being spent, and that voice is being jeopardized with the SED’s rushed top-down regionalization plan.”
School districts across Nassau and Suffolk County filed to challenge the state’s regionalization plan. Meryl Waxman, president of the Roslyn Board of Education, disputes the wording of the plan and encouraged other districts to join the fight.
“Superintendents including mine have been told that this is a great big nothing, but what one says and what one does, have to align. If you take the time to read the regulations and see what they say, they should be self-explanatory,” Waxman said. “These are emergency regulations, but what was the emergency? Roslyn wasn’t having an emergency until they created one.”
Among the districts opposing this plan, Oyster Bay, Locust Valley and Cold Spring Harbor were the first to file for an article 78, which challenges actions of a state agency. Margaret Marchand, a trustee on the Locust Valley Board of Education, highlighted the importance of filing a claim and joining the fight against this plan.
“Oyster Bay and Cold Spring Harbor led the charge, and the districts that followed were Locust Valley, Hewlett-Woodmere, East Meadow, Mount Sinai, Massapequa, Island Trees and Plainedge,” Marchand said. “There are a lot of strong-arming powers that are putting fear into a lot of the boards, and these boards stood up, and I am asking for every district to put their politics aside and to help us in this fight.”
There are many who believe that this plan can be beneficial for school districts across Long Island. Assemblyman Chuck Lavine, in response to a rally against the plan on Oct. 31, at the Locust Valley High School, said that districts can voluntarily participate in shared services, and this is nothing more than political theater.
“The State Education Department website makes it perfectly explicit that any district desiring to engage in shared services with any other district can do so completely voluntarily,” Levine said. “Held on Halloween, the Oct. 31, rally was nothing more and nothing less than political theater designed to frighten the public.”
Under the plan, local school districts are required to submit a survey to the state by Dec. 6, identifying areas for collaboration. There will also be a comment period before the plan becomes final in January.
