At the July 21 Special Meeting of the Levittown Board of Education, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Herman Sirois spoke with the board about plans for two school buildings owned by the district that are not being used for regular classes.

The Laurel Lane School, a 13-room school which was closed as a regular school in 1978 because it is too small to be cost effective for that purpose, has had many uses over the years and at one point in the interim remained vacant.

Laurel Lane was used for vocational classes before the Vocational Education Program was moved to what was formerly Memorial High School, in about 1983. It was then leased out to a school for problem teenagers, but the district kicked them out because they were bad tenants, according to Sirois. It was leased by a Montessori School, which only remained there for a couple of years. The school was then vacant for a couple of years before the district began using it for the gifted program, the GED Program, an alternative high school, and for home teaching.

The district has now decided to lease eight rooms at Laurel Lane to the Nassau Suffolk School for Autism, which currently leases six rooms at Division Avenue High School. They have had a lease at Division for six years. This will open up additional rooms at the high school for the district as well as bringing in more revenue. The GED Program and the home teaching will continue to use rooms at Laurel Lane.

According to Sirois, this lease works out to everyone's benefit because the School for Autism needs more room and the district needs more space at Division.

The lease with the School for Autism is a five year renewable lease with a one year cancellation clause after two years. Úquot;They are paying more revenue for those rooms, not only more because they're eight rooms but more per square foot, so we're getting substantially more revenue,Úquot; said Sirois.

This lease is good for the community, said Sirois, because the district knows that this school is a good tenant and good neighbors and because there are only about 25 students as opposed to the Montessori School which had nearly 200 students, so the traffic will be considerably less in the neighborhood.

Sirois noted that the director of the Autism Program, Dr. Howard Schneider, will be at the Aug. 11 school board meeting and if any residents have questions or concerns they are welcome to attend.

As previously reported, the Levittown School District has decided to re-open the two newer rooms at the Little Red Schoolhouse as a day care facility for children of district staff members. At the board meeting, Sirois announced that despite earlier talk of the day care facility opening in September, it will not actually open now until January.

The district has been maintaining the Little Red Schoolhouse and has done major capital repairs on it over the past 10 years and has received a Certificate of Occupancy from the Board of Health for the day care facility but it still needs some cosmetic repairs before it is opened. Because the facility will not be opened until January the district has decided to let the maintenance workers continue on the projects they are doing to get other schools in the district ready for September and then when things slow down, in the fall, send them over to the Little Red Schoolhouse to complete those repairs. This will also allow less opportunity for vandalism between the time of the repairs and the opening of the facility.

The day care facility, which has been agreed to by district administration and the Levittown Union of Teachers (LUT), will be self-sustaining and will not cost the district any more than the current amount that is spent on maintaining the building, which is a national historic landmark.

The plans for both these schools are beneficial to the school district, according to Sirois, because, Úquot;if some of it or most of it, or all of it is vacant, it's subject to vandalism. The best thing to do with it is have something in it.Úquot; Sirois noted that both these programs are good because they are highly visible, which will deter possible vandals.