Riverhead Board of Education

The Riverhead Central School District will hire a business official to act as assistant superintendent for finance and operations, after longtime district administrator Sam Schneider was demoted and administratively reassigned pending an investigation into unspecified allegations from an employee.

The board of education is set to appoint a new superintendent at a special meeting tonight called for that purpose. The board has not disclosed the identity of the new hire.

Six people are running for two seats on the Riverhead Board of Education in next month’s election, according to Riverhead Central School...

According to sources inside the district, Interim Superintendent Christine Tona, who applied for the superintendent position, yesterday told staff members she did not get the job.

The Riverhead school board last night unanimously approved the purchase of two face shields for each student in grades 7-12 at a cost of $5,400.

The situation our district finds itself in right now — failed budgets, failed bond votes, upset and angry parents, dejected children — isn’t somebody else’s fault. It’s a direct result of the persistent lack of candor on display at every carefully scripted board meeting — of the board and a series of superintendents being consistently unwilling to give people straight answers to straight questions about subjects that are, in fact, the people’s business.

The school board voted unanimously to schedule the revote on July 28, the date established by Gov. Andrew Cuomo for school budget re-votes across the state.

With its first failed budget in more than a decade, the Riverhead school board must decide whether to submit the budget to voters again or live with a $144.8 million contingency budget. In a June 9 executive order, the governor said school districts will be allowed a revote next month, with date and process to be determined by him.

Counting is underway of the more than 6,000 ballots received in the Riverhead Central School District election — by far the most votes cast in any school district election in more than 20 years and more than double the average turnout for school elections over the past decade.

The Riverhead Board of Education is set to vote on a six-year contract with the teachers union at its meeting Tuesday afternoon. The new agreement provides for salary increases totaling 3.5% over the six-year contract period, with no increases in the first two years, increases of .75% in years three and four and 1% increases in years five and six.