Culture wars rage in LI schools

Daily Point

School board election season starts early

This week was quite a week for school boards on Long Island.

Reaction to a lawsuit against the Comsewogue district, where parents accused a teacher of encouraging their child, who they said identified as female, to use male pronouns and a male name without their knowledge, led to a sometimes-raucous two-hour board meeting earlier this week. Members of the Proud Boys, representatives from Moms for Liberty and Long Island Loud Majority, along with leaders from the LGBT Network and parents from both in and outside of the district turned out.

Then the spotlight quickly turned to East Meadow. This time, controversy was spurred by Project Veritas, which posted an undercover video that appears to show Assistant Superintendent Dave Casamento talking about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts and the need to teach about LGBTQ+ issues. During the video, Casamento suggested teaching DEI should be “incremental” and that he encourages some of it “covertly,” and he noted that parents with “conservative” values don’t believe systemic racism exists or understand why LGBTQ+ issues should be taught. And Casamento said he would be able to weed out more conservative candidates in hiring, by creating a rubric that encourages candidates who support DEI and by giving low rankings to candidates who he thought were conservative.

A second video by Project Veritas, a conservative nonprofit that uses hidden camera video to embarrass organizations whose politics it opposes, spotlighted teachers, including one from East Meadow, speaking about how they educate on LGBTQ+ issues and how they reach out to transgender students. The videos, taken during EdCamp Long Island professional development sessions, became the issue at East Meadow’s board meeting on Wednesday. While Casamento wasn’t at the meeting, East Meadow officials promised a “public review” of the district’s hiring practices and a “thorough investigation” into the situation.

But that didn’t stop residents — and nonresidents — from voicing their anger, as one resident called the comments “systematic corruption” and “morally repugnant.” At one point, school board officials sought security assistance during the heated exchanges.

By Friday afternoon, the school board announced that Casamento had been “administratively reassigned” and “will not be in any district buildings.”

Attention, meanwhile, pivoted to Connetquot, which had been the scene of controversial school board decisions last year when a Progress Pride flag was removed from a classroom wall. High school students held a sit-in Friday in school, to protest what some called the “forced removal” of their principal, Michael Moran, who said in an email that he would be taking a leave of absence for the rest of this school year, and would not be back in the fall. “This was, but no longer is, my home,” Moran wrote in the email.

Also on East Meadow’s agenda this week: the school budget. But somehow, that didn’t get much attention, except for when a resident asked whether legal costs would be included to deal with the fallout of Casamento’s comments.

Perhaps that’s predictive of another school board election season on Long Island where culture wars — not budgets — are first on the agenda.

— Randi F. Marshall @RandiMarshall

Pencil Point

Going for broke

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Final Point

New budget bid to brake a narrow rule

Budget time in Albany becomes by habit a varied bazaar of legislative proposals, some of them making an encore. This season marks the return of efforts to scrap or dilute a longtime requirement that certain used car sales prompt a vehicle inspection for insurance purposes. Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed such a bill last year.

So why try again?

The trade group Professional Insurance Agents of New York State is campaigning to allow insurance companies to waive a provision known as Rule 79. Right now, it is reported that about 8% of the used vehicles sold fall under this requirement, purportedly based on which are most likely to be stolen or involved in insurance fraud.

The PIANY argues it’s best to drop the mandate of a photo inspection within 14 days of when personal auto insurance policies that include collision coverage go into effect. The group says this would allow motorists to avoid the “tedious and unnecessary task” of visiting a third-party company to verify a vehicle’s condition. PIANY also argues that changes in technology since the law took effect in the 1980s render it outdated for consumers to have to visit a location where the photos are taken. Those who wish to keep Rule 79 intact argue that it helps law enforcement fight both fraud and theft. In one digital ad, advocates claim consumers have avoided over $2 billion in fraudulent claims — an ad sponsored by CARCO, which performs insurance inspections at locations across Long Island.

Also pushing to maintain the rule are the Long Island Gasoline Retailers Association and the Suffolk County Deputy Sheriffs PBA whose president, John Becker, says in a statement: “If we get rid of this program, fraud and theft will increase — driving up costs for people who play by the rules.”

It’s just one of the daunting array of policy issues that may or may not be resolved in a budget due April 1. Hochul’s executive proposal released last month tips the scales at $227 billion.

— Dan Janison @Danjanison