Veterans Day, 2018

Veterans Day, 2018, was a Sunday, and I presume many organizations, civil and religious, had commemorations at the same 11 a.m. hour, the centenary of the Armistice of 1918. At the Seaford American Legion Post, Judge Terence Murphy, former post commander, was master of ceremonies. In attendance were veterans, Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, and members of the Seaford Fire Department. An honor guard fired three volleys, and taps were played. Mr. Murphy then announced, "It is now 11 a.m. The war is over."

Above, Post Chaplain Charles Wroblewski with friends after the outdoor ceremony.
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About 116,000 United States military personnel lost their lives in the Great War, many due to fatal influenza they encountered. May they rest in honor and in peace.
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From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 28, 1922:
  Sun, May 28, 1922 – Page 23 · The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, Kings, New York) · Brooklyn Public Library

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 31, 1922, the day following Decoration Day.  Wed, May 31, 1922 – Page 21 · The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, Kings, New York) · Brooklyn Public Library
I am puzzled that neither the monument nor the news stories give the names of the "sons of the village who fought overseas." A compilation of those who lost their life lists only one from Seaford, but that is Seaford, Delaware.

Seaford election results

The election results in Seaford in 2018 generally followed the pattern of 2016, when Mr. Trump received about 65% of the vote in each of the election districts.
This year, there was a serious contest for the New York State Senate, in particular the seat of incumbent Seaford resident John Brooks. During October, many lawns in Seaford carried placards for Pete King (who won) and Jeff Pravato (who lost to John Brooks). Newsday briefly uploads to its website a detailed count of each election district in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, a useful tool which unfortunately disappears from the web within a few days. Therefore, I will try to give some Seaford numbers on this blog.
In that race for the 8th New York Senatorial District, Brooks received 38% in his own neighborhood around Maple Street, and Pravato 62%. Prevato's strongest districts were near the Massapequa Village Hall and south of Merrick Road in Massapequa. He won all of Seaford's election districts. The citizens of  Copiague, Amityville, Freeport, and much of Merrick, mainly away from the waterfront, chose John Brooks, who won the seat with 54% of the district.
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Governor Cuomo received 59% of the votes in Nassau and Suffolk Counties. His lowest count nearby was 109 votes in Biltmore Shores, Massapequa, against 401 votes for Marc Molinaro. Cuomo won no election district in Seaford.
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Kirsten Gillibrand received 67% of the Nassau-Suffolk votes, but lost Seaford with 37%.

Graduation

Patch reports HERE that the number of graduates of Seaford High School in June, 2018, was 178. The number of graduates of Wantagh High School was 247. The number graduating from Massapequa High School was 593.
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Fifty-two graduated from eighth grade at St. William the Abbot School.
One hundred ninety-one graduated from eighth grade at Seaford Middle School.
Fifty-seven graduated from eighth grade at St. Rose of Lima School.
Twenty-six graduated from Maria Regina School's eighth grade.

Memorial Day, 2018

Shortly after 10 a.m. on Monday, May 28, 2018, members of the Seaford American Legion Post 1132 led the Memorial Day parade north on Washington Avenue. My camera balked as they passed, so I offer photos of some following marchers.

Clicking on any photo will enlarge it.

Any photo may be enlarged by clicking on it. I have not yet learned when this monument was erected, nor have I learned how many people from the hamlet (not village) of Seaford participated in the Great War in France. A hundred years ago was the first American battle of the war, a victory at Cantigny. which cost 199 American lives.

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The beautification of this monument is a project of the Seaford Wellness Council.

Seaford school budget passed

On May 15, 2018, the Seaford school board budget for the new fiscal year passed, 1,117 votes to 375.  Also permission to establish a Capital Reserve passed, 1,082 to 383.
Andrew Parisi gained 905 votes to defeat Edward Rail, who got 482 votes.
It seems that about 1,492 people voted.

Projected enrollment in various school districts

A chart in Newsday of 5.3.2018 presented various statistics about Nassau County public schools. Below are some sample enrollments. In the case of central school districts with separate elementary school districts (Sewanhaka, Valley Steam, Bellmore-Merrick), the number totals all K-12.

15,261 Sewanhaka
11,045 Bellmore-Merrick
9,327 Valley Stream
7,052 Levittown
6,741 Massapequa

2,856 Wantagh
2,262 Island Trees

2,243 Seaford
2,040 Locust Valley
1,353 Carle Place
1,169 East Rockaway

These are merely projected enrollments for the new school year.  New families sometimes arrive in late August, and some transfer to other schools or move away.

Seaford, New York, library budget passes

On April 18, 2018, the Seaford Library budget passed with a vote of 66-7. Unopposed, Peter Ruffer was re-elected as a trustee.

Pinterest and Seaford

Pinterest.com can be a frustrating site for several reasons that I will not address now. However, I must thank Maryann Dicco for assembling a page of photos of Seaford and nearby interest.  The link is https://www.pinterest.com/mdccoe/long-island/

The photos on Pinterest get saved from page to page, but rather than copy her entire page, I merely give the link to her work above.

My own Pinterest Long Island page is https://www.pinterest.com/cjmcmann/long-island/

I may edit this post to reference other findings. I am searching for older photos of the Palace diner than the 2018 photo below.

Seaford Little League parade

On April 14, 2018, the Seaford Little League teams opened the season with a parade on South Seaman's Neck Road to the Town of Hempstead park.

Clicking on a photo will enlarge it.

PSEG utility pole work in and near Seaford

The routes listed on this announcement seem to be nearly complete. I question whether some shorter poles will be removed after communication wires are moved to new poles. It has surprised me that some older poles are very tall, maybe forty or fifty feet.

Seaford, NY, public school enrollment

In February, 2018, the enrollment at the Seaford, New York, public schools was approximately as listed in the first column below.  The second column are numbers from November, 2016.

            Feb., 2018                            Nov., 2016

Kindergarten   153                                  161
Grade 1             167                                 148
Grade 2             151                                 178
Grade 3             180                                 145
Grade 4             155                                 170
Grade 5             177                                 171
Grade 6             176                                 169
Grade 7             174                                 191
Grade 8             191                                 185
Grade 9             161                                 186
Grade 10           205                                 158
Grade 11           142                                 180
Grade 12           178                                 185

Figures from 2007 and 2012 may be found HERE.

February meeting of the Seaford school board

(Errors are possible in these notes of mine.)
At the Seaford school board meeting of 2.1.2018, the people rose to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in the all-purpose room of the Seaford Manor School. Dr. Adele Pecora, the superintendent, explained that the NYS review of our district gave no pejorative designation of fiscal stress, awarding it a laudable zero score. with regard to evaluating programs within the district, a committee looked into the multi-age first and second grade program at the Harbor school and decided to discontinue the program.
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A representative from Custom Computer Specialists gave a 45-minute interesting, clear assessment of the "IT"environment within the Seaford school district. From the outset,he presumed the audience knew a few bits of jargon without explaining them, for example, the use of "ticket" to identify a complaint about a computer problem. Tickets are tracked. "In the industry, tickets must be resolved in 48 hours" = "It may take two days to solve the problem."
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The school district is moving from an Apple environment to Windows 10. About 3,000 devices will be introduced. They may come with 3-year warranties, and extensions will have to be purchased. He made a reference to the SAMR model. I later found this chart explaining what he had discussed. Most current applications are browser-based, so they will be reachable both from Apple machines and Windows. In the future,the district may need more bandwidth, but bandwidth purchase has become less expensive.
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The residents' comments included a request for foreign language study in the elementary schools, a remark about the number in first grade classrooms at the Manor School (24 and 27), an inquiry about security at the front lobby doors of the high school,and the service of a teacher to help an IEP student in each and every class he attends.
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A fire near the Seaford Harbor School recently showed the usefulness of the new road.

New Year's Day, 2018

Each photo may be enlarged by clicking on it.