Commack school district removes book; Sachem board trustee resigns

This week's top stories

1. Commack removes book from reading list

Commack High School students are no longer required to read "Persepolis," an award-winning comic-book-style novel about an Iranian girl’s coming of age during that country’s 1978 revolution, after school district officials said it was not age-appropriate.

Superintendent Donald James said the book, which was required for the district's roughly 500 11th-graders this year, "will not be required reading for future classes but will still be available on our reading lists and available for electives."

The statements came as the district faces pressure from parents over critical race theory, an approach to analyzing systemic racism school leaders repeatedly said they did not support or teach, though school officials noted in an interview that parent complaints had nothing to do with the decision.

The decision had to do with the "graphic nature" of some parts of the book, though school officials declined to specify on the record what those are.

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2. SCCC freezes tuition

Suffolk County Community College plans to freeze tuition at $5,470 for county residents who attend full time, even with declining revenues because of enrollment drops and higher costs from a return to on-campus learning, school officials said.

• The freeze, the second in two years, comes as the college expects a 5.4% drop in full-time enrollment next school year, officials told a Suffolk legislative committee.
• Full-time enrollment has declined by about 30% since 2010, according to the Suffolk County Legislature’s Budget Review Office.

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3. Sachem trustee resigns

A Sachem school board trustee has resigned following an incident at one of the district's schools.

James Mancaruso, 51, submitted a letter of resignation that was accepted unanimously by the school board at a recent meeting.

• Some members of the audience cheered after the vote. Mancaruso did not attend the meeting.
• Mancaruso's resignation came one week after a June 9 incident at Sachem East High School in Farmingville. No charges have been filed in connection with the verbal incident, which Suffolk County police are investigating.

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4. Three Village moves to contingency budget

Budget season has been rough for Three Village, the only school district on Long Island this year to twice fail in attempts to win voter support of identical spending-and-tax plans.

• Three Village had said a second rejection would result in adoption of a contingency budget that would freeze taxes for a year and possibly result in modest increases in class sizes and in reductions of elective courses.
• Three Village's proposed $222.6 million budget would have raised spending 1.75% and taxes 1.85%. Since the plan exceeded the district's state-assigned tax cap, it required a 60% voter majority to pass. In a revote, residents rendered their final verdict: 3,211 ballots marked "no" and 2,027 marked "yes."

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5. Mom champions bill for late son

Melinda Murray-Nyack created the Dominic A. Murray 21 Memorial Foundation to raise awareness of sudden cardiac arrest after her only child died of the condition in October 2009 and has for years championed passage of a bill named after him.

• The "Dominic Murray Sudden Cardiac Arrest Prevention Act" passed in the State Legislature earlier this month and is pending Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s signature to become law.
• The act would require the state Education Department to include signs and symptoms of the life-threatening emergency on its website. Such information also would be included on permission forms that parents must sign before students could participate in interscholastic athletics. The requirement would apply to public and private K-12 schools.

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Resources for you

• Check out some of Newsday's best high school sports photos for the month of June.
• Two New York State mathematics teachers and three New York State science teachers — including an educator from the William Floyd district — are state-level finalists for the 2021 Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching at the secondary level, grades 7-12.
• Beginning this fall, students enrolled in Nassau Community College will be able to continue earning their associate degrees while being a part of campus life at Adelphi University. In addition to being able to live at Adelphi and participate in university activities, they will gain easy access to streamlined transfer pathways for completing their bachelor's degrees.

Round of applause

Two Long Island students have been recognized for videos they created about human population growth.

Tia Walker, a senior at Valley Stream South High School, won the "Best in State" Award in a public service announcement video contest called World of 7 Billion.

The contest, which is a program of the nonprofit Population Connection, asked participants to create 60-second videos on population growth that highlighted one of the following global challenges: promoting environmental justice, strengthening global health or re-imagining industrial systems. More than 2,200 videos were received from 44 countries.

Walker's video, "Kicking the Carbon Habit," focused on the dangers of carbon dioxide.

Anna Paradise, a senior at Harborfields High School in Greenlawn, was one of nine high school finalists nationwide in the "promoting environmental justice" category. Her video, "Stop the Mistreatment of Indigenous Peoples," addressed the issue of indigenous people being used as scapegoats for environmental issues.

You questions answered

Have questions? Send them to ednews@newsday.com. Newsday’s education reporting team will pick one to answer in this space each week.

What impact does a recent Supreme Court ruling have on student athletes?

Student-athletes in college sports won a significant victory on Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the NCAA may not regulate or restrict benefits to them that are permitted other students.

The 9-0 decision upholds a lower-court ruling that said the NCAA’s rules restricting forms of educational compensation were in violation of antitrust law. While it is narrow in scope, it could influence determinations about whether athletes should be compensated for competing or whether they can be compensated for the use of their name, image and likeness.

The NCAA is under pressure to draft legislation related to name, image and likeness as several state legislatures have passed laws that will allow student-athletes those opportunities and go into effect July 1.

"Today's decision provides student-athletes with the right to not be told they can't receive benefits that have been impermissible," Hofstra University athletic director Rick Cole Jr. said. "I think the general public has long believed that student-athletes could, and maybe should, have the same rights that any other student has at [that] institution. The general public may not understand that the NCAA bylaws or rules or regulations of intercollegiate athletics are different than that of what is permissible to other folks on campus."

— Find the latest education news at newsday.com/long-island/education. Joie Tyrrell can be reached at joie.tyrrell@newsday.com or on Twitter @JoieTyrrell.