Filler: A teen educates Syosset's educators

You know when the phone rings, and the caller ID says it's your kid's school's emergency notification system? You think, "Either the school is on lockdown because someone's trying to kill my child, a student has contracted a contagious flesh-eating bacteria, or there is a book fair tomorrow. Just to be safe, I'll sprint toward the car in a fear-fed parental frenzy as I take the call."

Monday, when thousands of Syosset parents got robocalled by the district, the high alert consisted of news that a resident, Jeff Lafazan, had left the Syosset School District's offices with public information.

Lafazan's 18-year-old son, Josh, was running for school board and looking for support from recent grads away at college. So Jeff wanted to get the district's list of absentee voters.

He was worried because Josh's campaign platform included criticism of the district and its superintendent, Carole Hankin, and her compensation package of over $540,000 per year. A recent audit of the district's spending by the state comptroller's office also revealed that the second in command has a package worth about $420,000, and the third in line, $265,000. All three, the audit states, are paid far more than people in similar positions in comparable districts.

Josh says his criticisms were not well received, which is generally true of criticism. Rare is the grotesquely overpaid bureaucrat who cheers the highlighting of that madness.

And the whole situation was unfamiliar for the administration, because it's been so long since anyone dared oppose the slates of three candidates, blindly supportive of Harkin and her staff, that are elected each year.

So on Monday, Josh's father was shown a copy of the absentee voter list. Then he left with it. A district official said he ran, and was chased, and the district may press charges on two misdemeanor counts and one felony. Jeff Lafazan says he strolled, and had his wife take the list to the police department as soon as he realized there was an issue. He found out there was an issue when, as a Syosset School District parent, he got an emergency robocall telling him Jeff Lafazan is a thief.

The district, according to its news release, "sent an autodial message to the community in an effort to recover stolen district records which included confidential information and names and addresses of residents who had submitted applications for absentee ballots."

But if the information was confidential, why show it to Lafazan at all? And how does the district plan to compensate the people whose top-secret info this decision revealed? And since the district knew who took the list, what help were they hoping parents would provide? Form a posse? Tackle Lafazan on sight?

Or perhaps, just vote against his son?

According to Bob Freeman, executive director of the state's Committee on Open Government, Jeff Lafazan had every right to the information he sought. A district official said he could "inspect the list, but not take it or copy it" -- a distinction Freeman says does not exist.

And the district didn't need the eight pages of paper Lafazan took. It's not as if it were the lone repository of voter names, inscribed on ancient parchment. The district printed it from a computer, and could have made a copy with ease. District offices have more photocopiers than Carole Hankin has pension credits.

Josh won the election by outdrawing all other candidates by thousands of votes. Before the incident, he thought he'd squeak onto the board in third place. But after the "emergency" call, which enraged so many who received it, he was unstoppable.

Shakespeare would say Hankin and her crowd were hoisted by their own petard. I say they were schooled, in politics and public relations, by their own 18-year-old student.

Lane Filler is a member of the Newsday editorial board.