Huntington parents: Swap school building with Town Hall

A group of Huntington parents tried Thursday to keep pressure on the school district and town to move all students out of Jack Abrams Intermediate School in Huntington Station, despite a decision by the board this week to make it a districtwide sixth-grade center.

About 20 self-described "motivated" parents from Abrams - including a handful from Woodhull Intermediate, which would house fourth- and fifth-graders under the plan - rallied in front of Town Hall to demand town officials swap Town Hall with Abrams because of safety concerns.

"We got two grades out, now we have one grade to go," said Meryl Otis Kessler, mother of a Jack Abrams student. "We want to pressure them to not only clean up the community. It's a dual thing: to ensure continued focus on that sixth-grade center."

The school board Monday voted 4-3 to create a sixth-grade center at Abrams, something school board president Bill Dwyer said he hoped would unify the district.

Dwyer said Thursday a swap of Abrams and the Town Hall building, which used to be a school, in September is not likely.

"That would be a real challenge," he said. "Just because the amount of work . . . and the approvals that need to be had from the state Education Department to allow us in there as a school."

He said there were no "showstoppers" to prevent such a move in a preliminary assessment of Town Hall presented to the board Monday night by the district architect.

But he acknowledged some problems, such as insufficient land attached to the property. "So we would be looking for a variance," Dwyer said.

Another obstacle, he said, is the size of the gym, which is in the basement.

"But other than that it appears it could be a viable building to house a school," Dwyer said. "In the long term."

Otis Kessler asked what that meant. "Are we talking a year? A decade?" she asked. "It makes the other person feel, 'Oh, this is still on the agenda,' but that's just an opportunity for them to ignore it."

Dwyer said the district does not have firm numbers for the cost, a construction timetable for transforming Town Hall into a school, or an answer to who would pay to transform Jack Abrams into Town Hall.