Group to urge reopening Jack Abrams School

A recommendation to reopen the Jack Abrams School will be made to the Huntington school board by the committee designated to come up with a long-range plan for district reconfiguration.

The proposal would place students in grades K-3 at the district's four primary schools - Flower Hill, Jefferson, Southdown and Washington - fourth- and fifth-graders at Jack Abrams, and sixth-graders and administration at Woodhull Intermediate, according to Chris Bene, a nonvoting member of the long-range facilities planning committee and a school board member.

Bene's remarks came at a board meeting Monday night.

"In the beginning, people in the meetings were very divided," Bene said of the committee's process. "Everyone had very strong opinions . . . but in the end people came together. Abrams is a beautiful facility; it should be used, and in the end that's what came out."

Bene's report followed another by Robert Moore, chief of department for Suffolk police, who said violent crime is down 33 percent in the area from last year. Moore said increased police patrols would continue.

"The police department has no intentions or plans of reducing its commitments to the area," Moore said.

Existing tensions on the board were evident in the discussion that followed.

When pressed by fellow board member Kimberly Brown for his opinion, John Paci, also a nonvoting member of the planning committee, referred to his previous stance against reopening Abrams and added that he did not believe the police department's statistics. "There are still bullets flying," he said.

The meeting closed with a testy exchange between board members Emily Rogan, an Abrams supporter, and Elizabeth Black, who voted in July to close the school. Black said she felt "badgered" by Rogan's request to put the Jack Abrams issue on the agenda and suggested that a vote wait until new board members are elected in May.

"This will remain an unsafe school for students until we get better statistics forever or until you get board members who believe it [that the school is safe]," said Black, who joined Paci, board president Bill Dwyer and Rich McGrath in closing Abrams following the July shooting of a teen near a school parking lot.

Dwyer said the voting arm of the committee will be invited to make a formal presentation.

The 33-person committee has been meeting since June and whittled down more than three dozen options. Bene said the cost of the recommended option could range from nothing to $11.3 million, which would include an $8.8 million bond plus $2.5 million in capital reserve funds to update buildings in the district.

The district has faced overcrowding issues for years. In April, the board voted to use the Abrams building as a sixth-grade center, while trying to figure out a longer-term space solution.