Tag: Hempstead School District

New York State lawmakers and education policymakers met Thursday with Hempstead School District officials to discuss how they can work together to solve the many problems facing the troubled district, participants said.

OpEd: Our legislation would appoint a panel of three monitors with veto power to provide oversight and guidance to the school district. We need the governor’s signature so we can hire monitors ASAP.

Education advocates have formed a petition urging Gov. Andrew Cuomo to sign recently passed legislation that would create an oversight panel to monitor the troubled Hempstead School District. 

New York State lawmakers passed a bill this week that increases oversight of the long-troubled Hempstead School District, which is plagued by corruption, low graduation rates, and crime.

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress,” the superintendent says, quoting Frederick Douglass.

In his first annual report on the Hempstead School District, New York State-appointed adviser Jack Bierwirth painted a positive picture while emphasizing much work remains in the academically struggling, gang- and corruption-plagued district.

The Hempstead school district has “rampant and corrosive corruption, waste, and gross illegalities,” a terminated deputy school superintendent claimed, in the latest federal lawsuit filed against the troubled district and members of its school board.

Besides the Hempstead school district’s 37 percent graduation rate, crumbling schools, gang violence, and embattled superintendent, another vexing problem is that school officials just can't stay out of trouble.

Political newcomer Taylor Raynor’s stunning Democratic primary upset over 30-year incumbent Deputy Assembly Speaker Earlene Hooper (D-Hempstead) may have implications from Albany to Hempstead schools if Raynor unseats Hooper on Election Day.

In the latest news to rock Hempstead Public Schools, its board of education voted recently to bring charges against former Superintendent Shimon Waronker, who has been suspended with pay since January.