This year's board of education is vastly different than prior boards within memory. The meetings start promptly, are conducted as business meetings, and move right along. Twice now, amazingly, the board completed its agenda and adjourned by 10:15 p.m.

At the last meeting, the board demonstrated a new attitude in two ways. First, every member asked incisive questions of the staff about the matters at hand. Second, three applications came before them for exceptions to the boundaries for assigning students to attend one or the other of the two elementary schools. As we know, both schools are essentially of the same academic quality. In each case the board applied the long-standing policy that within it contains the rules for exceptions. The board applied the policy in each case in accordance with these rules. One case was approved, but only after the board was assured that there would be no impact on number of class sections. One case was denied. In the third case, the parents made an emotional appeal and based their reasoning on issues that were outside the rules; basically, that in the past, the previous boards acquiesced for reasons that now could not be discerned. This board, having reviewed the policy, gently denied the parents their desired choice. This is the first time, in a long, long time, that a Manhasset School Board has not granted parents their wish as the easier thing to do than to follow reasonable process. How wonderful it is to see our elected representatives thoughtfully working toward the greater common good rather than bending to individual ideas.

In the fall, board meetings will begin to include various staff presentations. In order to keep their record of holding meetings that end at a reasonable hour, perhaps this board might follow another business practice: that is, limiting public presentations to well-rehearsed succinct ones, taking up no more than 20 minutes each and followed by no more than 10 minutes each of board questioning. This, of course, means that the complete presentation (slide show plus backup material) is in the hands of the board well in advance, and the presenter has his remarks and visual aids condensed to the essentials, conclusions, and action items of the report. Professionals can do this, especially if they expect to obtain funding in future budgets. Long-winded discourses and ramblings should be a thing of the past.

With the board meetings being shorter now, the interesting things occur well before the witching hour. More working citizens could arrange to attend and learn how the schools are being managed.