LV, OBEN, CSH School Districts Sue NYS to Stop Take-Over

By Grant Lally

The north shore school districts of Cold Spring Harbor, Oyster Bay-East Norwich, and Locust Valley held emergency meetings this week - and voted to sue New York State to block the enactment of Governor Kathy Hochul's "Regionalization" Emergency Order that would transfer control of all Long Island's local schools to a "Regional Superintendent" appointed by Hochul's own NYS Education Department.

The Hochul Order was issued at the end of September as an "emergency" order - meaning it did not require a public comment period, no open public Hearings, and was not subject to being examined by the state Legislature - which is out of session.

The Hochul Regionalization Order comes into effect on December 6th, with no delay or opt-out given to Long Island's school districts.

The Order interestingly "exempts" five huge school districts - the "Big Five" of New York City; Buffalo; Rochester; Syracuse and Yonkers - which school districts are all run exclusively by Democrats.

Those "Big Five" school districts represent nearly 50% of all students in New York State - but have much lower academic performance than the school districts representing the other 50% of students on Long Island and Upstate.

The "rationale" for imposing NY state control over the more high-performing bi-partisan Republican-Democrat school districts on Long Island - while exempting lower-performing all-Democrat run school urban districts - was not explained by Governor Hochul (D-Buffalo) or her political appointees.

The Chair of the Cold Spring Harbor School District is Alexandra Whelehan; the Chair of the Oyster Bay-East Norwich School District is Laurie Kowalsky; and the Chair of the Locust Valley School District is Lauren Themis.

The three districts expect that dozens of additional Long Island school districts will now join their lawsuit to stop the Hochul "Regionalization" schools take-over "power-play."