Students' protest succeeds in advance

In a school budget season full of talk about cuts and layoffs, Smithtown students this week received a rare dose of good news.

After arriving at a school board meeting Wednesday to protest the elimination of non-mandatory art classes, dozens of students were told before the meeting that the classes -- and other electives -- had been removed from the budget chopping block.

School officials later credited the students with saving the programs, which cost about $800,000 a year.

But the students went ahead with the protest, marching outside district offices on New York Avenue and waving signs calling on school officials to save the arts.

Eleventh-grader Erin Fitzpatrick, who attends Smithtown High School West, said she and classmates continued their protest because they feared arts classes could be targeted in the future.

"There's next year and the year after," she said.

While arts and other electives were spared, district officials are mulling a proposed $212.3 million budget that would increase class sizes, eliminate ninth-grade sports teams and raise the tax levy by 4.9 percent. The school board expects to adopt the budget Tuesday.

Smithtown school officials included electives among programs that might be cut, but the protests by students and parents at previous board meetings prompted leaders to restore the classes.

"The board heard the community," Superintendent Edward Ehmann said Wednesday.

School board president Robert Rossi said school officials "worked very hard to not cut the things that are important to the students."