An influx of Asian-Americans has changed the face of the Great Neck School District in the past 10 years, according to a demographic study released by the school district last Wednesday.
Asian-American students currently make up about 33 percent of the school district population, up from about 19 percent 10 years ago, according to the study.
The change is particularly pronounced on the south side of Great Neck with Asian-Americans now making up 45 percent of Great Neck South High School and 51 percent of Great Neck South Middle School, the study found.
“We’ve seen a remarkable increase in the number of Asian students,” Great Neck Superintendent of Schools Thomas Dolan said at a meeting of the Great Neck Village Officials Association.
Dolan and Steven Lando, the school district’s assistant superintendent for secondary education, were invited Village of Great Neck Mayor and village officials association President Ralph Kreitzman to discuss the demographic changes in Great Neck.
Kreitzman said at the meeting he thought it would “be interesting to see what our school demographics look like.”
Lando told the village officials that the school district compiles the demographic numbers every October during a day school officials called “bed day” when the number of students in each school is counted and broken down by race.
Lando said school officials use the federal government’s definition of “white” and “Asian” for the study.
The U.S. Census Bureau defines white as “a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa,” and defines Asian as “a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand and Vietnam.”
White students currently make up about 57 percent of the school district, down from about 71 percent 10 years ago, the study said.
Black students currently make up 1.2 percent of the school district, down from about 2.2 percent 10 years ago, the study said.
And while white students are the majority throughout the district, Asian-American students outnumber white students on the south side of the peninsula, Dolan said.
“Last year, Asian-American students outnumbered white students at South for the first time,” he said.
Asian students make up about 51 percent of Great Neck South Middle School, up from 27 percent 10 years ago. White students make up 41 percent of the school, down from about 62 percent 10 years ago.
At Great Neck South High School, Asian-Americans students make up about 45 percent of the school, up from about 29 percent 10 years ago. White students make up 42 percent of the school, down from about 61 percent 10 years ago.
On the north side of the peninsula, white students remain the majority.
White students at Great Neck North Middle School make up 78 percent of the school, while Asian-American students make up about 13 percent. White students at Great Neck North High School make up about 78 percent of the school, while Asian students make up about 14 percent.
Dolan and Lando said they could not explain why the Asian population was larger on the south side of the peninsula than on the north.
“These numbers are purely statistical,” Lando said. “They’re not editorial.”
White students also remain the majority at Great Neck Village High School, where they outnumber Asian-American students 35 to 2.
White students also remain the majority at the elementary and middle school level, with the exception of Lakeville Elementary School where Asian-American students make up about 56 percent of the school.
Dolan said the rise in the Asian-American population has led the schools to change its curriculum.
“We offer Mandarin Chinese as a foreign language,” he said. “That’s accessible to every student when they hit the sixth grade.”
Dolan said Latin classes were taken away at the elementary school level about five years ago to make way for Mandarin Chinese program.
Dolan said the school district hosted “Asian nights” in the past when the Asian-American population was lower than it is today.
“We had those to acclimate them into the schools,” Dolan said.
But with the number of Asian-American students on the rise, those events are no longer necessary, Dolan said.
“Now, those have become international nights,” he said.
Chris Huang, a native of Taiwan who is running for a seat on the Great Neck Board of Education, said the rise in Asian-American population did necessarily mean an Asian-American should sit on the board, just that board members understand the concerns of the constituents.
“I think we need to elect officials who understand the student population and their parents (who pay the taxes),” Huang said. “The fact that we have now 33 percent Asian [students] should be something that all of the representatives must care about.”
School board Vice President Lawrence Gross, who is also running for re-election in a three-person race for two seats that includes fellow Trustee Susan Healy, said in an interview that one demographic should not be represented by one board member.
“One of the things that the board has worked very hard at is to ensure that the board members do not represent any one group,” Gross said.
Huang also said he believes many of the parents in the district, regardless of race, want to see the quality of education in Great Neck be improved.
“I want to change the status quo of the current board of education by injecting a new voice and fresh ideas,” he said.
