I have lived in Oceanside since 1997 and I have lived in my home since 2005. The idea of moving from New York City to Long Island when my parents decided it was time, was that life would be better. The quality of life was supposed to be better. As taxpayers, you wanted the schools to be better too.
My parents picked Oceanside because the taxes weren’t too bad, the houses weren’t too expensive, and things would work out because good schools would help maintain that. Oceanside schools had a great reputation. My parents no longer had children in schools, but they always supported school tax increases because good schools would help property values.
My wife and I felt the same when we bought a house in Oceanside in 2005. When my son started Oceanside schools in 2010 and my daughter started in 2011, we were happy with the education we thought they got. Despite a devastating Hurricane Sandy decimated our house and most of Oceanside, the superintendent at the time, Dr. Brown, and the school board, got Oceanside schools back up and running within two weeks. Unfortunately, Dr. Brown retired in the Summer of 2013.
Around that time, Dr. Harrington became the Superintendent. Like seeing how the sausages were made, my wife and I saw the ugly underbelly of the school board and the school district when we asked Dr. Harrington to make a special dispensation and allow our daughter to change her zoned school. For no reason, Harrington refused and we saw the school board rubber stamp it. At that time, I realized that we had more school board members with children on the school district payroll than with children in schools. All the school board members were members of Oceanside Kiwanis and were doling out school district jobs to friends and family. This was their way of buying support within the community to the point that a huge chunk of the 3,000 people who bother to vote in the school budget vote are on the district payroll. That is why in the past 10 years, we have had 3 contested school board elections. The current school board president is a functional illiterate and I’m convinced he didn’t graduate college, despite his claims.
The quality of the education has gone down the tubes and I have seen it every year. Whether it’s the poor teachers they hired because of the low starting salary or the sinking ratings or the terrible list of colleges that high school graduates are attending, you have people with no educational background, how great things are. With my kids in college, my time in Oceanside schools is done. I thank my wife for all the hard work in fighting the school district every part of the way to get the promised services and help. Yet the powers that be at Oceanside school district won’t stay on the top forever. There will be new residents who come from the City who won’t care which civic groups these school board members belong to or whose school board member has a wife as a special education aide. The day of reckoning is coming.
