Voters approve budgets, elect candidates in four Nassau school districts
Long Island schools elections were held Tuesday to decide district budgets and select new board members. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
Voters approved budgets Tuesday in four Nassau school districts where residents held an election a week earlier than most because of the Jewish holiday Shavuot.
Voters approved spending plans and elected candidates in the Great Neck, Hewlett-Woodmere, Lawrence and West Hempstead school districts.
Those four districts received permission from the state to hold the vote before next Tuesday — the statewide election date and also the last day of the holiday.
In Great Neck, voters approved a $252 million budget 2,120-1,372 and elected two board members: Barbara Berkowitz and Grant Toch.
In Hewlett-Woodmere, voters approved a budget of more than $129 million by a vote of 1,589-1,009 and elected five trustees to the board. The trustees are Francois Tenenbaum, Judy Menashe, Jonathan Altus, Shari Amitrano and Debra Sheinin.
West Hempstead residents elected two board members — Andrea Shinsato and Kurt Rockensies — and approved the roughly $68 million budget by a tally of 1,003-865.
Lawrence voters approved a budget of more than $102.4 million by a tally of 1,097-308 and elected board members Heshy Blachorsky and Abel Feldhamer.
Voters there also approved propositions on the ballot, including a proposal to establish a building capital reserve fund for renovations and upgrades throughout the district that will not exceed $5 million. That proposition passed 919-411.
Voters passed another proposition, 917-416, to establish a building capital reserve fund, not to exceed $5 million, for future reconstruction throughout the district and a third proposition to enlarge a playground at Lawrence Primary School. That proposition passed 915-365.
Shavuot, known as the Feast of Weeks, begins May 16 and ends the night of May 18. No work is permitted for observers of the holiday. The Feast of Weeks is celebrated in May or June, depending on the year. Originally, it was a spring harvest celebration, but later a commemoration of the revelation of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai.
The Long Island districts joined three other systems statewide in early voting.
Joie Tyrrell is a Long Island native and covers education for Newsday, where she has worked since 1998.
