It was a great victory for "we the people" of all four communities which make up the Sewanhaka Central High School District, namely, Elmont, Floral Park/Bellerose, Franklin Square and New Hyde Park/Garden City South, to overwhelmingly support the dismantling of the Alva T. Stanforth ("ATS") School building and giving it back to the Elmont community. A spirit of cooperation and good will was evident and demonstrated by all four of the communities in giving their neighbors the right of self-determination for a school building within Elmont's own borders.

The ATS referendum demonstrated, for example, that more voters in the Floral Park/Bellerose community voted 534 in support of their Elmont neighbors' exercise of self-governance, with only 61 against, than Franklin Square (291 yes/40 no) and New Hyde Park/Garden City South (225 yes/45 no) combined.

The fact that it took the Sewanhaka Central High School District since June of 1984, however, to simply give back to the Elmont community a school building within its own borders is outrageous. The Sewanhaka Central High School District is one of only two central school districts left on Long Island, a legacy of a decision made by merely 306 voters in June of 1926. In this year of heightened voter awareness, a ballot referendum must be included in 2004 which simply asks, do we the people want to control the schools within our own borders, or do we want to continue to leave the education of our junior high school and high school students to the largest school district in Nassau County?

Let we the people of the four communities decide how best to respond to the educational needs of the children today, so that "no child is left behind." Let us find out if the time has come for the citizens of the four communities, Elmont (population 49,563), Floral Park/Bellerose (population 19,994), Franklin Square (population 25,041) and New Hyde Park/Garden City South (population 22,222), to have more direct responsibility for the schools within their own borders.

The Sewanhaka Central High School District ("SCHSD") was formed in June of 1926 by a vote of 288 for and 18 against. It is likely that those 306 voters in 1926 would have wanted the 116,820 citizens within the district today to decide for ourselves, just as those voters did three

generations ago, the best way to meet the educational needs of our children in this day and age.

Just as the voters in June of 1926 decided to start the SCHSD bureaucracy, let we the people who now make up the 38,816 households within that same district decide whether or not we want to have four separate school districts instead of the current one monolithic central school district. This is the year for the citizens of Elmont, Floral Park/Bellerose, Franklin Square and New Hyde Park/Garden City South to either reaffirm the decision of those 306 voters in 1926 to now educate over 8,500 students through the SCHSD with its operating budget totaling over $100 million per year, or to give back control of the schools within their borders to each of the four individual communities. Just as we the people decided overwhelmingly this month to give the citizens of Elmont control of an empty SCHSD school building within its borders, so too can we the people decide to give control of all the SCHSD school buildings actually currently in use inside their borders directly back to the citizens within each of the four communities.

We the people of the four communities must decide for ourselves the answer to that question by way of a ballot referendum in 2004, and not merely continue to allow the Goliath SCHSD to rely on 306

voters in June of 1926.

Dennis McEnery