The New Hyde Park Road School Executive PTA is circulating a petition across the New Hyde Park-Garden City Park School District to eliminate its schools as polling places, reps told the New Hyde Park Illustrated News. PTA officials say it will present the petition to the board of education at its next meeting.
If the board agrees, it would forward the petition to the Nassau County Board of Elections to begin discussions. The county did not return calls for comment.
“We would like to see if the polling places can be relocated to different places rather than held in schools,” District Superintendent Robert Katulak said. “The administration, including central office as well as the building principal and the parents, are concerned that when elections are held, whether they be primary or major elections, during the day when students are in session, there really is no way that we can keep people out the right way.”
The PTA movement stems from a lockdown that commenced at NHPRS during the primary elections on Tuesday, Sept. 9. A faulty panic button initiated the lockdown around 10:25 a.m. and Nassau County police was called to the scene, officials said. The cause of the malfunction is unknown as of press time.
“We’ve been discussing [this idea] for a couple of years,” Katulak said. “[The malfunction] just brought it to light that all schools are more vulnerable when you have people coming in all day long that you can’t screen.”
New Hyde Park Road School PTA reps were meeting with school principal Peggy Marenghi on Primary Day when the button malfunction occurred. According to NHPRS PTA President
Daniell Messina, Marenghi wasted no time issuing protocol for the alarm.
“We were told to immediately seek shelter,” said Messina. “The principal told us where to go immediately. She moved very quick and did a great job. During a lockdown, there’s no movement.”
The petition was first circulated at an Inter-School PTA meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 17. PTA reps said the petition was brought to Back to School Night last Thursday. As of Monday, 800 people, including Katulak, five of six board of educations members, four district principals, Senator Jack Martins and North Hempstead Councilman Angelo Ferrara, signed the
petition.
“We’re hoping every [PTA] will begin to do their own petition hopefully,” Messina said.
Messina said she was “extra nervous” with the malfunction occurring on Primary Day.
“I’m thinking to myself ‘there are strangers in this building.’” she said. “This could’ve gotten real in so many ways because all the doors are open.”
Messina and Second PTA Vice President Daniella Loonam feel alternative polling places should included local area fire departments (there’s four in the school district zone alone), the Hillside Public Library and Village Hall on Jericho Turnpike.
“If we’re putting all the measures for security, how can we allow these strange people to come into our building? It basically should be stopped,” Loonam said. “We have other avenues to look at to have [polling places].”
