Glen Cove School District and community prepare for third bond vote

Some residents continue to oppose bond

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When Glen Cove City School District Superintendent Dr. Maria Rianna went to the district’s elementary school to read a book called “If I Built a School” to students, she received some simple requests.

“In the book it talks about glass tubes and roofs that open to let the sun in, and so much more . . . a perimeter pool and things like that,” Rianna said. “But [the students] were saying, ‘If you could fix our roof, if you can give us air conditioning, that would really help us, too.’”

After the failure of two bond proposals last year that would have funded repairs at all six schools, the district is moving forward with a third bond, totaling just over $45.9 million, that will be put to a vote on March 19. It has been reduced by 40 percent, and is projected to cost the average Glen Cove homeowner, with a home assessed at $500,000, $20.23 a month.

The first bond, last March, totaled $84.6 million, and the second, in October, was for $78 million.

The district Board of Education estimates that over 90 percent of the projects proposed in the bond would qualify for 38 percent reimbursement in state aid for capital improvements. According to a district news release, however, any bonds approved after July 2020 will receive a lowered state aid reimbursement rate of 25 percent.

Another significant factor relating to the new proposal is that Moody’s Investors Service has raised the district’s bond rating to Aa2, meaning that its bonds are considered high-quality investments, which would lower the district’s bond- related costs.

Some of the projects included in the bond would help district schools comply with Americans with Disabilities Act regulations, such as updates to restrooms, access to the Robert Finley Middle School gym and new elevators in the Deasy and Landing elementary schools.

All buildings besides Glen Cove High School and Finley would undergo heating, ventilation and air conditioning improvements. Doors and windows would also be replaced to help ensure student and faculty safety.

“ADA compliance is extremely important,” Rianna said. “In doing these projects, you’re also getting the classrooms out of the basement and providing an appropriate classroom space that is also an increase in safety and security.”

Danielle Fugazy Scagliola, a Glen Cove City Councilwoman and mother of four district students, is among the residents who have expressed their concerns about conditions in the schools. “I’ve had kids in the basement of Deasy, I’ve had kids at Landing with a leaky ceiling, a leaky roof,” she said. “This isn’t the best environment to put children in for them to learn.”

Former Deasy first- and second-grade teacher Barbara Kirby-Dubin has known that struggle herself. While she said she is thankful she was in a room with an air conditioner, which is required of some rooms for students with individualized education programs, at times that caused problems as well. “What would happen is that the children who were closest to the air conditioner were telling me that they were cold, so we had to turn it off, and then everybody else was hot,” recalled Kirby-Dubin, who retired from Deasy in 2006 but taught night classes until 2016.

According to Rianna, air conditioning units have compromised other windows in the building, making them less secure.

Rick Smith, a Glen Cove resident and the owner of Piano Exchange, agrees the schools need some updates, but the amount that the district is asking for, he said, would be costly for him and other Glen Cove business owners and residents. So Smith has opposed all the bonds, and has urged residents to vote against this one. “Every way I can to keep these people in line and to keep them from stealing taxpayers’ money, spending it foolishly, taking it unnecessarily, however you want to call it, I’m going to do,” he said. “We suffer already for the high taxes there are.”

Rianna and Fugazy Scagliola acknowledged that asking residents to pay more in taxes is not easy. “Anytime you ask people to dig into their wallet for something, that’s hard,” Fugazy Scagliola said, adding, “A stronger school district means better property values.”

Rianna said the bond would also be an investment in Glen Cove’s children, including a fifth-grader who wrote her a letter offering a couple of suggestions. “I want to make Connelly School as safe as possible,” the child wrote. “There’s some changes that need to be made to make the schools safer. For example, during a lockdown drill, can the doors lock from inside and prevent people from getting into the room? Bullet-proof glass would also be an addition to safety.”