The Roslyn Union Free School District (also known as Union Free School District No. 3 and more commonly known as Roslyn Public Schools or simply Roslyn School District) is an American public school district located in Nassau County, on Long Island in New York, United States.
The district serves the entirety of the villages of Roslyn and Roslyn Estates, in addition to parts of the villages of East Hills, Flower Hill, North Hills, and Roslyn Harbor, and parts of the hamlets of Albertson, Glenwood Landing, Greenvale, and Roslyn Heights.
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] }The school district was founded on December 1, 1904, when the Roslyn Union Free School District's charter was officially signed and enforced.
In the early 20th Century, segregation in America's public schools was still common practice – even in northern parts of the nation. The Roslyn school district was segregated from its 1904 founding until circa 1917, when the district became racially integrated. This was earlier than many other school districts in the nation; for comparison, schools only a few miles west in New York City were segregated until being outlawed there in 1920.
In the first two decades of its existence, over 100 studentsan average of over five students per yearfrom all over the Roslyn area had graduated.
After 1912, the Heights School replaced a one-room schoolhouse, which was located nearby. It remains in active use today as one of the district's elementary schools.
The 1920s, the Mackays, and the Horse Tamer In 1923, wealthy Roslyn couple Clarence and Katherine Mackay donated a portion of their estate, named "Harbor Hill" for the hill of the same name that it sat on, to the school district. This land became the current location of Roslyn High School and its athletic fields, and a new high school opened on that piece of land in 1925 and was designed in the Colonial Revival Style by architect William Bunker Tubby, a relative of a family in town. A plaque commemorates the donation, and was located in the lobby of the original high school. After the building was replaced by the current high school structure in 1970–1971, the plaque was placed in storage for many years. It was re-installed by the visitor entrance of the high school in 2020.
One of the marble Horse Tamer statues from the Mackay estate was given to the district in the 1950s by a local artist, George Gách, to ensure its preservation.
Additionally, Katherine Mackay was the first woman to serve on the district's school board.In 1927, the Village School was destroyed in a fire, and a third and final structure for that school was soon erected in its place.
The Baby-Boom Era (Mid-20th Century)
Following the Second World War, the United States saw a population boom and the rise of mass suburbanization. Roslyn was no exception to this. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, new Roslyn housing developments were built, including Strathmore at Roslyn (currently part of the Village of East Hills), built by Levitt & Sons, and Westwood (also part of the Village of East Hills), built by the Westgate Building Corporation. Given the influx of new residents and students within the district's boundaries, a handful of new schools were built, in addition to a major building expansion off of the back of the high school.
Five schools opened as a result of this boom: East Hills Elementary School, Roslyn–Flower Hill Elementary School, and Roslyn Highland Elementary School in the early 1950s; Roslyn Junior High School (now Roslyn Middle School) in the late 1950s, and Harbor Hill Elementary School in the early 1960s. Of these 5 schools, the ones that remain in use are East Hills Elementary School (currently serving grades 2–5), Harbor Hill Elementary School (currently serving grades 1–5), and Roslyn Middle School (currently serving all students in grades 6–8).
Roslyn Junior High School opened in 1957 as the southernmost school in the district, located just north of the Northern State Parkway and the district's southern border, and just south of what is now the Long Island Expressway (Interstate 495) and its eastbound service road (Powerhouse Road). The Long Island Expressway reached Roslyn a year later, in 1958, replacing former NY 25D with a limited-access highway. As a result, Roslyn Middle School is the only school in the district to be south of the Long Island Expressway.
1967 saw the district's highest number of enrolled students, with nearly 4,500 students attending the district's schools.
After the Baby Boom (the 1970s, 1980s, & 1990s) At the end of the baby-boom era, school districts nationwide saw huge enrollment drops, given the population trends of the time. Roslyn was no exception. As a result, four of Roslyn's elementary schools were closed from the mid-1970s through the early 1980s.
The four schools closed during this time: Roslyn–Flower Hill Elementary School and Roslyn Village School were demolished and were replaced by housing; North Roslyn Elementary School was sold and became the Nassau BOCES Iris Wolfson High School; and Roslyn Highland Elementary School was sold and was used as a temple and later a church.
In 1987, Roslyn Junior High School became Roslyn Middle School.
The 1990s saw another increase in enrollment numbers - albeit at a slower and steadier pace. This trend would continue into the 2000s.
2004 financial scandal As editor-in-chief of The Hilltop Beacon, the Roslyn High School newspaper, Rebekah Rombom was preparing the March 2004 issue when she learned that a woman, who had stolen money from the school district two years prior, had been allowed to resign quietly without facing criminal charges.
As Rombom researched the story for her newspaper, she discovered that the woman, who had embezzled at least $250,000, was Pamela Gluckin, the school district's former assistant superintendent for business, but she was told she could not use Gluckin's name in her article. She was also told that she needed to show the article to her principal and the director of community relations before publication; both read it and did not request any changes. One of the interviews conducted by Rombom was with then-superintendent Frank Tassone, who was eventually implicated as a co-conspirator.
Once published, the article prompted the opening of a criminal investigation, which led to the indictments of Gluckin and Tassone – both of whom initially pleaded not guilty. In 2005, a state audit was issued by then-New York State comptroller Alan G. Hevesi, which detailed the full extent of the financial abuses by the top officials of the school district from 1996 to 2004. The investigation found that officials had stolen million (equivalent to $million in ) from the district, and that at least 26 other officials besides Tassone and Gluckin had benefited from the embezzlement.