Reminder : The City Lax Gala will be held on Thursday, March 6th - tickets are available for this event and for individual contributions.
Not sure if most folks have been to the City lately. I'd like to shed a little light on the state of the city schools. Over the last many years there has been a building boom. Not all, but many, many schools have been completely rebuilt with beautiful buildings and facilities. Most of these schools also have beautiful turf fields as well. It is my understanding that much of this construction was funded through NYS capital improvement grants. Which is great, every kid should have a nice school to attend.
Interestingly, I have had the opportunity to also see some schools out here on LI. The buildings in many cases are 40 or 50 years old. Haven't been updated in years. The fields are terrible, with many "wealthy" districts still without turf fields. These same districts are also cutting teachers and staff left and right just to stay solvent. One very "wealthy" district in western Nassau was recently highlighted in Newsday as being at financial risk. Many other districts have gone to three lax teams from six just a few years ago. The state of our school systems and their lax programs are the worst they've been in 20 plus years. In addition, our property taxes are through the roof. $20, 30k, 40k per year for the those called wealthy.
Further, our income tax money is sent to Albany and redistributed away from LI by the continued cuts in State education aid. This is one of the very reasons our schools are in the condition they are.
With all that said, we are now being called on to support the growth of lax in the City?
Should we not be doing fund raising for our districts here on LI that are cutting school lax back to one team in MS. Many districts are now down to 12-15 boys per grade left playing lax because of the cuts. One coach for one team for 7th and 8th grade. Just one man's opinion, but I think we need a whole lot of fund raising right here on LI. Charity starts at home folks.
