Long Island parents demand district not play rival district schools over race issues: Definition of insanity

Parent advocates at a Long Island high school are demanding that local sports authorities take the extraordinary step of keeping schools in a rival district off their kids’ athletic schedule — because of race issues.Elmont High School’s Parent Teacher Student Association and Dad’s Club recently held a town hall with officials from Nassau County’s sports Section VIII over what the parents said is a long history of racist behavior against their kids by the Bellmore-Merrick School District crowd.Reps from Elmont High’s Sewanhaka School District and Bellmore-Merrick district were in attendance, too.“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result,” said Lynette Battle, a Sewanhaka board of trustee, former PTSA president and Elmont mom, to The Post.“Something different has to be done.And someone needs to be courageous enough to stand on business,’’ she said.The straw that apparently broke the camel’s back for Elmont’s advocates involved a varsity girls basketball game on Feb.

7 at Kennedy High School in the Bellmore-Merrick district.An Elmont player and a Kennedy player got into a scuffle during the game, but only the Elmont girl, who is black, was kicked out after she was seen swinging at the Kennedy girl, who is white.Elmont appealed the suspension when video emerged showing their student was hit first.Section VIII upheld the suspension initially but then reinstated the girl after a second appeal, allowing her to suit up for a play-off game.Bellmore-Merrick meanwhile suspended its Kennedy player for two games voluntarily.But for the activist parents at Elmont, the incident provided enough fuel to make them want to redress the history of problems between the districts.At the recent meeting, the Elmont camp demanded that Bellmore-Merrick schools be kept off its high school’s athletic schedule, as well as that of its middle school, starting next fall.Lynette Battle, a mother of a recent gradua...