Fourth Graders 90 Years Apart

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Sneakers and blue jeans weren't the style nine decades ago when fourth-grade students at the Park Avenue School in Amityville posed for a class picture on the front steps of the school building in a photo, top, from the collection of the Amityville Historical Society.

But they certainly were in style earlier this month, when a contingent of fourth- graders from the current Park Avenue School sat on the same steps of the building - now the district's Administration Building, known as Park Avenue North - for a group shot of their own.

The school building, at Park Avenue and Ireland Place, was built in 1894 and replaced a small one-room schoolhouse on Merrick Road and a school for black students in North Amityville. Black and white students went to the new school together in grades one through 12. The current Park Avenue Elementary School was built nearby in the 1930s and has about 780 students in grades three through five.

Apart from the dress styles of the students, fourth- graders have changed a great deal during the period that spans most of thise century, says Park Avenue Principal Kathleen Kelly. ``Now they're learning through TVs and computers,'' Kelly says, but ``in many ways, they're less self-sufficient.''