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Old 01-31-2009, 12:06 PM
 
7,658 posts, read 19,108,009 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by OhBeeHave View Post
That would be a good start. One argument against it would be that people who live in underperforming districts are near other underperformers -- do we start busing children from one area such as Shirley to Mount Sinai, PJ or 3V -- or vice versa? That would be the bus ride from Heck! According to Mapquest, the distance from Ward Melville to WM Floyd is just shy of 20 miles.

Someone else suggested 7 or 8 districts on Suffolk; I can't see that working by virtue of the size of Suffolk -- Brookhaven alone is the size of Nassau county, with a population in excess of 450,000 people.
The maps have a pretty good logic to it. You wouldnt need to bus to improve
them plus the economy of scale would aid council disrticts prone to lower performance.

http://www.brookhaven.org/DesktopMod...342&PortalId=0
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Old 01-31-2009, 12:19 PM
 
Location: Nassau, Long Island, NY
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Originally Posted by Crookhaven View Post
I do think what we should have is School Districts that align with our Councilmanic Districts. (4-5 towns per etc) with the Councilpeople as the Liason between the Admins and the people.

That way most districts will absorb at least one underperformer and drag it up to par.



crooks
Great Idea!
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Old 01-31-2009, 12:21 PM
 
Location: Nassau, Long Island, NY
16,408 posts, read 33,193,220 times
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Originally Posted by Chrisk327 View Post
I think the consolidation needs to be from the administrative end. How will combining purchasing, maintance, payroll, hiring, etc hurt the kids?

I don't have a problem with school officials earning a decent wage. I'm probably the only person who see that a superintendant's salry isn't far out of line. I just think that they're responsible for too few schools for their pay grade and they have too many assistants.
I agree!
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Old 01-31-2009, 03:54 PM
 
Location: On a Long Island in NY
7,801 posts, read 10,066,734 times
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County school districts (and the idea of a county fire department) would be a total disaster .... look no further then the Suffolk and Nassau County police for a prime example.

I like the idea of school districts based on town council districts or based on the township level ex. Suffolk would have one school district for each of the ten towns and Nassau one for each of the three towns plus Glen Cove and Long Beach.
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Old 01-31-2009, 04:58 PM
 
Location: NY
1,416 posts, read 5,585,764 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexisT View Post
County wide districts would be a disaster. That's too large to administer effectively. I can't think of any school system with 1M+ residents that has an efficient administration. You'd wind up having subdistricts and other levels of admin.
Exactly. Take the Town of Islip as an example. You've got some existing school districts that are very different within the same town. There's a huge difference between, say, the West Islip and East Islip districts (both very expensive taxwise and mostly white) and the Bay Shore and Brentwood districts (far less expensive taxwise and mostly minority). Then you also have the Central Islip district which is moving into th Brentwood category. If they were all lumped together even in one single Islip Township School District the first thing you'd have would be a huge outcry from the first two district's parents against even the merest HINT of changing where their kids would have otherwise gone to school.

You'd need to keep the existing community structure intact in order for any consolidation proposal to have a chance in youknowhere of being accepted. And for that you would need to have the subdistricts. Then on top of that you'd have the "umbrella" Township District. It sounds to me as if it would end up being more expensive, or at least no less expensive, than what LI currently has, because of the added "layer".

Most other areas of the US don't have the community insularity that Long Island has always had, and probably always will have. That's one reason why larger school districts work better elsewhere. The "big melting pot" concept just isn't likely to fly hereabout in our lifetimes though.
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Old 01-31-2009, 08:00 PM
 
9,341 posts, read 29,570,849 times
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Long Island Index Education Study has links to the Long Island Index report, as well as to 3 NEWSDAY articles about this report.
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Old 01-31-2009, 08:15 PM
 
Location: Putnam County, NY
586 posts, read 2,077,283 times
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What I find bizarre about NY is that the school district is a legal entity entirely separate and unrelated from the municipal, town, or village government. I always found that bizaree: including the fact that--for example--Rockville Centre is only about 75 percent in the Rockville Centre School District, while a small part of Hempstead is in the RVC district but part of RVC is int eh Oceanside Dictrict....
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Old 01-31-2009, 09:29 PM
 
852 posts, read 2,011,767 times
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Default No kidding.

Quote:
Originally Posted by longislandmike View Post
Like anything it's about $$$$$$.

Here's something interesting to look through....

www.emsc.nysed.gov/mgtserv/sch_dist_org/REORGANIZATION.ppt
If the soul consideration is money, then advocate getting rid of the school system. Eh? If the only thing to use to gauge success is whether or not you are saving money, then NO school system would be the most efficacious solution.

If you are willing to admit that there are additional considerations, like the quality of education, then you need to establish that the quality of education can be maintained or enhanced why reducing the cost of the system.

I don't think you've done that.
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Old 01-31-2009, 09:37 PM
 
Location: Long Island (chief in S Farmingdale)
22,118 posts, read 19,327,003 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexisT View Post
County wide districts would be a disaster. That's too large to administer effectively. I can't think of any school system with 1M+ residents that has an efficient administration. You'd wind up having subdistricts and other levels of admin.

I do think we need to consolidate. The current system is grossly inefficient and results in huge tax disparities between districts with good tax bases and districts with poor ones (not to mention numbers of students relative to taxable property).

Long Islanders are afraid of change and ceding "local control" which has scuppered reform in the past. That has to change.

Fairfax County Virginia has a countywide school district & the schools down there are generally well regarded as well. Newsday had a whole series on this about a year or so ago.

One thing that could perhaps be done is to have something along the lines of a countywide system, but keep the current borders of the schools the same. This can be done to close the huge disparity between the districts with strong & poor tax disparities and a way to help get more funding into the districts that need it the most, but don't currently have the tax base to support it. With that taken into account you also have the issue of what to do if your in one county, but the school is in another. Such as those in East Massapequa in the Amityville school district, those in East Farmingdale in the Farmingdale district, etc.
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Old 01-31-2009, 11:27 PM
 
Location: On the Great South Bay
9,108 posts, read 13,127,239 times
Reputation: 10070
Quote:
Originally Posted by WIHS2006 View Post
County school districts (and the idea of a county fire department) would be a total disaster .... look no further then the Suffolk and Nassau County police for a prime example.

I like the idea of school districts based on town council districts or based on the township level ex. Suffolk would have one school district for each of the ten towns and Nassau one for each of the three towns plus Glen Cove and Long Beach.
I always thought that making elected officials responsible (including tax hikes) for school matters would make people pay attention to the school $$$ problem alot more. And this would be done better at the town level.

However the main problem with larger school districts is it leads to forced busing, declining schools, middle class flight and blockbusting by real estate agents trying to scare people into selling their homes. We need look no further than the massive school district to our west, New York City and see what happened there.

So until someone can propose a solution that will not to lead to massive long term blockbusting neighborhoods in such towns as Islip, Babylon, Brookhaven & Hempstead, I see no alternative but to oppose school district consolidation.
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