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William Johnson has been working in the Rockville Centre Union Free School District since 1979 and is in his 28th year as schools superintendent. Rockville Centre’s South Side High School is one of the top high schools in the country, according to U.S. News and World Report’s 2013 rankings. We sat down with the superintendent this week to learn about what’s working in the district and what personally inspires him. 
When you first came to the district, did Rockville Centre’s public schools have the reputation they do now? 
When I moved to Long Island, I was steered away from Rockville Centre. While I think it had a good reputation internally, outside Rockville Centre -- at least among real estate people I spoke to at the time -- it was not a place they were sending prospective buyers... I just met with a couple yesterday who told me they didn’t buy a house, they bought a district. 
What was the turning point? 
When we began to shed all the really selective programs and to do away with the many tracks we had in the high school. By 1995, I began to realize that we should have one curriculum for all kids and it should be the honors curriculum. That year, we made a really big systemic change, taking algebra, which at that time was a high school course, and moved it to the middle school, making it an eighth-grade course for all kids. 
Had you seen that done elsewhere? 
I based that on what I had found out internationally is an age when students can learn algebra… The math department originally objected to it, but the very same people who were the most hesitant to implement it turned out to be our strongest advocates once we did it. &nbsp;Then, I pushed to begin eliminating all the non-honors classes, so almost 20 years later, we basically have everyone [except for a small percentage of special education students] in the same curriculum up through their junior year... Kids learn to adjust upward. High expectations bring about high performance. 
Tell me about the International Baccalaureate program. 
We literally have 100 percent of our [juniors] now in International Baccalaureate English and next year, we’ll have 100 percent in IB American Studies, so everyone will have the opportunity to take two IB courses. IB is a curriculum and series of assessments that keeps kids on their toes from September to the end of May, so kids are expected to do oral reports, written papers, and all of these contribute to final grades as well as a test at the end of the year. The kids who live through the IB experience come back and tell us they are extraordinary well-prepared for college. 
You’ve been outspoken about the state’s implementation of Common Core. What’s your current stance on that? 
Some of the things they are suggesting we do with kids may not be developmentally appropriate. If I have already figured out, on the basis of research done by the IB program, what kids need to do well in order to succeed as a learner beyond high school, and I’ve already begun to infuse my entire system with curriculum and instructional activities that enable our kids to do all that, why am I changing what I already know works? 
Where do you draw your inspiration from? 
I have a seriously disabled brother [Paul Johnson], and when he was first born the doctors said, “Don’t bring him home. He’s going to die in two years.” I was very close to him when we were growing up and my parents taught us, ‘Don’t accept what anybody says is a limit.” He would have been institutionalized but… he did very well. He was never able to walk but he went to college, he worked for the IRS, and he’s still alive at 60 years old. Don’t ever tell me that someone can’t succeed. 
What’s your vision for the district’s future? 
Today about 30 to 40 percent of South Side students graduate with an IB diploma. You have to earn 24 points, write a 4,000-word essay and do community service. It’s a real challenge. When 100 percent of the kids graduate with an IB diploma, I’ll be happy. People tell me I’m nuts to even think that.

Q&amp;A with Rockville Centre schools chief

Q&A with Rockville Centre school district chief William Johnson

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For five years, Rockville Centre Youth Council chair Beth Hammerman has been talking about creating a space where local teens could socialize safely and substance-free. That vision will soon become a reality. 
The not-for-profit youth group was formed in 2009 in reaction to teens in the community getting in trouble. Hammerman said there were complaints about young people consuming alcohol on pedestrian bridges stretching across Peninsula Boulevard and roaming the streets, leaving empty beer cans on residents’ lawns and destroying private property. That year, two teens also died from deaths related to alcohol, she added. 
The consensus was, she said, “for teens, there’s nothing to do in town.” 
It was an issue that Hammerman discussed with her former neighbors and close friends, John and Anita LaSpina, who own the bowling alley on Maple Avenue, Rockville Centre Lanes. Those conversations led to a lightbulb moment. 
“We want more youth under our roof, the youth council has a need and we have the space,” said John LaSpina, referring to the vacant space inside the alley, where the snack bar used to be located. 
La Spina has transformed the room into a lounge with flat-screen TVs and a counter that will house an espresso machine. There’s also a bathroom, power outlets for devices such as laptops and a separate entrance from Morris Avenue. When it’s complete, he envisions it being a place where teens can hang out after school and on weekends, and where the youth council can host its meetings and events. The young council is planning a ribbon-cutting for April 10. 
“It’s really impressive,” said Alexandra Kosakoff, 16, co-president of the council and sophomore at South Side High School, while looking at the nearly completed lounge. 
In addition to the social events the council holds, Kosakoff and her fellow officers organize community service projects and programs to raise awareness about the dangers of substance abuse. In 2012 the group brought together teens and adults to create more than 40 mannequins depicting famous stars from Judy Garland and Elvis Presley to Amy Winehouse and Heath Ledger who have died from drugs or alcohol. They were displayed around town. 
As part of this new project, the LaSpinas have agreed to let teens use the lounge without purchasing anything. He said the alley staff knows how to supervise teens without smothering them. 
“Bowling centers have always been the traditional latchkey place,” said LaSpina, whose family has owned alleys for more than 50 years. “We’ve watched some wonderful people grow up under our roof who have turned into great citizens.”

Safe haven for LI teens in bowling alley

Bowling alley lounge to be safe haven for Rockville Centre teens

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Inside Pioneer Hair Design on North Park Avenue in Rockville Centre, the walls are filled with hundreds of photos of the young boys and men who have sat in Jose Dominguez’s chair for a cut or shave. 
While waiting on the bench inside the shop Tuesday, Colin Gregoire, 37, pointed to a photo of himself on the wall, which was taken when he was about 7 or 8. Although Gregoire, a Rockville Centre native, has since moved to Brooklyn Heights, he still makes the trip to Dominguez’s barber shop. 
“No one can cut my hair like Jose can,” he said. 
Gregoire is not the only loyal customer. Dominguez, 76, has been cutting hair in the village since he emigrated from Cuba 46 years ago, and many of his clients have been coming to him since they were kids. 
“Now, they bring their own kids here,” he said. “I’m very proud of that.” 
He estimates he’s given more than 300,000 haircuts. His clients come from all over Long Island and the Tri-State area, he said, including Kevin Connors, a host on ESPN’s “SportsCenter,” who makes the trip from Connecticut, where he now lives, with his family. 
Dominguez is a beloved man in Rockville Centre. His customers are often bringing him gifts, everything from cookies purchased at the nearby Front Street Bakery to autographed photos of celebrities they met for him to showcase in his store. &nbsp;One longtime customer, a U.S. Marine, even wrote to him while deployed overseas, sending an American flag and photo, which Dominguez also displays. 
Last week, while dining out in Rockville Centre, he said a customer picked up his lunch. 
“We have excellent clientele, the best in Long Island,” he said. 
Dominguez pays it forward, sponsoring youth sports teams. And for the past 30 years, he’s been giving free haircuts to sick people who are either homebound or staying in one of the area’s hospitals. 
“I do the best I can do,” he said. “Sometimes money is not everything.” 
Michael Buckheit, 16, of Rockville Centre, has been coming to Pioneer since he was a toddler. He said Dominguez used to cut his hair for free when he was younger, because his family was going through some personal issues. 
“He’s just a great barber and a great guy,” he said. 
On Saturday, in conjunction with the annual Rockville Centre St. Patrick’s Day parade, Dominguez will be on the other side of the buzzer, getting his head shaved and making a donation to the St. Baldrick’s Foundation for pediatric cancer research. 
Dominguez said he loves cutting hair and getting to know his customers. 
“They tell me a lot of things,” he said. “They bring the problem here, I got the jokes. It’s excellent.”

Barber enjoys 46 years in Rockville Centre

Barber Jose Dominguez enjoys 46 years in Rockville Centre

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Rockville Centre Mayor Francis X. Murray is following in the footsteps of his father, Eugene Murray, who served as village mayor from 1987-2007. We sat down with the current Mayor Murray on St. Patrick’s Day, which is an important date for him personally, to learn about growing up in Rockville Centre, what he learned from his dad and what he hopes to accomplish while at the helm. 
Here’s 10 things we discovered about him. 
1. He was not only raised in Rockville Centre, but he was born there, too, at Mercy Hospital in 1951. Murray, who is one of eight children, attended Watson Elementary School and St. Agnes Grammar School. “Growing up playing sports in this village was very special to me. In those days there were no ‘play dates.’ Everyone’s doors were unlocked literally, even at night. And we were always riding bicycles.” 
2. In high school, he cleaned buildings and waxed floors for his family’s cleaning business, which he eventually took over. “My dad had a very huge influence on me growing up and still does now. He taught me all about work and work ethic, but just as importantly he taught me about giving back.” 
3. “I’m a Parrothead,” said Murray, referring to the nickname given to Jimmy Buffett fans. Recently, the mayor held a Hawaiian-themed “Margaritaville” benefit complete with a Buffett cover band at Molloy College in Rockville Centre. The event drew about 500 people and raised more than $17,000 for the Rockville Centre Community Fund, which Murray’s father established in 1987. It provides financial assistance to Rockville Centre residents who have fallen on hard times. 
4. At 62 years old, he’s still an active firefighter. 
5. He married his wife, Barbara, on St. Patrick’s Day in 1973, and had an Irish-themed wedding. “We were eighth-grade sweethearts at St. Agnes.” 
6. He’s lobbying for funds to turn Rockville Centre into a resource for other communities when the next natural disaster hits. “The only places who generate their own electric on Long Island are us, Freeport and Greenport. So after superstorm Sandy hit, we were the only one with lights. I was getting calls .?.?. to turn on Oceanside, turn on South Hempstead, but we can’t do that. But the governor is talking about mitigation money that’s out there and we’re trying to get it to put more power in our plant and modernize it, so we can help communities with the next storm.” Murray also said he’s lobbying to build a satellite office for the Nassau County Office of Emergency Management in Rockville Centre that would house first responders responding to disasters in nearby communities including Long Beach and Island Park. 
7. On his first day of office, he changed parking in downtown Rockville Centre drastically. “Store owners, restaurant owners were complaining they were losing market share, their customers were leaving. People were going out for dinner .?.?. and they’d put money in the meter, they’d forget, have a bottle of wine, and come out and find a ticket. My first act as mayor, that night after my father swore me in, I stopped all ticketing for expired meters after 6 p.m. and the place exploded. Everyone wants to come here.” Murray said when he took office two-and-a-half years ago, the business occupancy rate was at 82 percent, but now it is 98 percent. 
8. He remembers a more affordable Rockville Centre from his youth. “It’s a very, very different place. It’s more of a professional place to live. If you want to live here, the housing is $500,000 up to $2 million, so if you are a blue collar guy, it’s kind of hard to live here. I don’t know if that’s a bad thing or good thing. It’s great for the real estate, but the issue is my own children can’t live here now. On a positive side, almost every house in this village has been redone or close to it. It’s beautiful and the downtown is much more vibrant than when I was a kid.” 
9. His vision for Rockville Centre’s future includes consolidating the village’s firehouses, relocating the police station and erecting a parking structure in its place. “I’d like to merge two of them. If that happens, I can move the police station down to Centre Avenue and knock down the [current} police station for parking. It is right by the railroad and that’s one of the spots identified by Long Island Index to build a parking structure. It would be a great spot for it, because it’s surrounded by buildings, so it wouldn’t be an eyesore.” 
10. He likes being mayor. “I like this job. It fits me and I think we’re making a difference.”

10 things to know about RVC mayor

10 things to know about Rockville Centre Mayor Francis Murray

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This St. Patrick’s Day, Newsday is kicking off its five-day Town Focus series in the village of Rockville Centre. 
Throughout the week, I’ll be getting to know the people and places that define Rockville Centre, which is home to more than 24,000 people, the headquarters of the Diocese of Rockville Centre and one of the Long Island’s largest St. Patrick’s parades. More on that later. 
I started the morning off at Rockville Centre Lanes, where the owners of the bowling alley have teamed up with the Rockville Centre Youth Council to create a special place for the community’s teens to socialize. Look for the story later this week. 
I also met with Rockville Centre Village Mayor Francis X. Murray to learn more about the village, including some of the issues he discussed in his recent “State of the Village” address. 
Oh, and since it is St. Patrick’s Day, I'm hitting some of Rockville Centre’s various bars and restaurants in the bustling downtown area -- it has quite a few Irish pubs -- to see how residents and visitors are celebrating. 
Many people are looking forward to the village's&nbsp;18th annual Rockville Centre St. Patrick’s Day parade, which takes place this Saturday. 
As I continue to explore the community throughout the week, I welcome your feedback. Have suggestions of places I should visit or people I should get to know? Or maybe there’s something about Rockville Centre you’ve always wanted to know that I can you help you discover. Send your input to <a href="mailto:tara.conry@newsday.com">tara.conry@newsday.com</a> or tweet at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/tarakconry">@TaraKConry</a>. 
I’ll also be chronicling all my adventures via Instagram and Twitter, so follow along on social media or at newsday.com. 
Sláinte! 
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Celebrating St. Pat's in Rockville Centre

Town Focus: Day 1 in Rockville Centre

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From the Long Island: Our Story archives&nbsp; 
More than 350 years ago, as the winter of 1643 arrived, so did some visitors to the ancient village established by the Rockaway Indians. 
The community, at the southern end of what was then a swamp, was in the approximate area where Rockville Centre stands now. About 500 people lived there, led by the one-eyed sachem Tackapousha, and some suspect that Shellbank Avenue in the village took its name from enormous piles of shells the Rockaways had amassed to make wampum. 
The visitors were John Carman and Robert Fordham, representatives of a group of Englishmen who were unhappy where they lived at the time, in Stamford, Conn. Carman and Fordham forged south from Hempstead Harbor to Tackapousha, and negotiated the purchase of the southern half of modern-day Nassau County. 
Indians coexisted peacefully with the new residents, but European diseases - smallpox and measles - wiped out almost the entire population in less than 50 years. The last of the Indians moved to Barnums Island, leaving little trace behind. The area remained largely uninhabited until 1710, when Michael DeMott constructed a dam for a mill across the stream at the southern end of what was then Long Swamp. 
The isolated settlers in the area wanted nothing to do with the rebellion against the British 60 years later. They became a nuisance to the rebels, and Gen. George Washington ordered them arrested. Several hid out in the swamp north of DeMott's mill, at a spot near modern-day Peninsula Boulevard. Rebel soldiers persuaded the Tories to surrender with a single shot, which injured George Smith in the shoulder. It was the first blood of the Revolution spilled on Long Island. 
The area became known as Near Rockaway, and by 1849 there were enough people to warrant a post office. Residents wanted to honor the current mill owner and civic leader, Mordecai Rock Smith, but the name Smithtown was already in use in Suffolk County. So, they used his middle name and dubbed their community Rockville Centre. The mill disappeared a few years later when the Brooklyn Water Supply Co. tried to build a massive reservoir there. Its failure resulted in what is now Hempstead Lake. 
The combination of water company activity and a new plank road to Jamaica spurred development in Rockville Centre and elsewhere on the South Shore. Sea captains came to favor Rockville Centre, because it was close to the sea and to the port of New York. Indeed, Maine Avenue was named for the many captains who came from that state. (And some became eternal residents: When the winter of 1836-37 brought two horrifying shipwrecks on the South Shore, residents collected money to bury the victims in the Mariners' Lot at the Sandhole cemetery in the village.) 
The 1860s marked the arrival of the Wallace brothers, men who would shape Rockville Centre's development for decades. George Wallace owned the South Side Observer, an influential Freeport newspaper, but in 1873 he moved it and himself to Rockville Centre. 
Wallace, a former teacher who became a state assemblyman, soon began campaigning for the formal incorporation of Rockville Centre. Residents debated the issue for more than two decades before voting to do so in 1893. (Wallace also introduced the bill in the legislature that established Nassau County in 1898.) 
Within months of Rockville Centre's incorporation, the board of trustees began to set up its electric and water supply service - utilities that remain to this day. Indeed, it was thanks to Rockville Centre's own electric utility that the village escaped the blackout that crippled the Northeast in 1965. 
In 1927, the new Sunrise Highway reached Rockville Centre on its way to the Suffolk County line and beyond, and the village's population doubled during that decade. Twenty years later, during Long Island's seminal postwar boom, the Roman Catholic Church decided to split the Brooklyn Diocese in two. The eastern half, serving Nassau and Suffolk Counties, became the Diocese of Rockville Centre in 1956, and St. Agnes Church in the village became the new cathedral. Where to Find More: "The History of Rockville Centre," by Preston Bassett and Arthur Hodges, Rockville Centre Library.

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Home to sea captains and a diocese

Town Focus: Village of Rockville Centre

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