Over the past two decades, classrooms in the Herricks school district have become a thoroughly multi-ethnic mix of students who are learning the same basic subjects, and simultaneously learning cultural lessons from each other.
In an area once largely populated by Italians, Irish and Jewish immigrants following an eastward track from Brooklyn and Queens, the same procession has continued with a wave of Indian, Chinese and Korean families seeking a good education for their children in a school district with an exemplary reputation.
Asians now represent as much as 55 percent of the student population in the Herricks schools, according to John Bierwirth, Herricks superintendent of schools.
The emigration of Asians into the Herricks district was a well-established phenomenon by the time Bierwirth became the superintendent in 2001, but he notes that the influx of new families accelerated as the student population continued to grow by 1 percent or 2 percent in the five years after he arrived.
“The only difference between us and other districts is we are further along than they are,” Bierwirth said.
A survey conducted in the district a few years ago revealed that 69 languages were being spoken by the students attending classes there. That suggests a cultural diversity that spawns a broader range of viewpoints than most students in most public school districts might never experience.
“It’s not that courses are different. It’s discussions in the classes that are different,” Bierwirth said. “You’re still reading ‘The Great Gatsby,’ but you’re seeing it from different cultural perspectives. The differences are in the nature of discussions in classes and the fact that students have different perspectives.”
That range of perspectives is, in itself, an educational experience as many parents in the Herricks district see it.
“The gain has been that children in a school district like Herricks are almost traveling the world, getting exposed to all the colors of the world without the cost of airfare,” said Jonai Singh, who has two children attending Herricks schools.
Singh is co-president of the Herricks PTA Council and president of the Herricks Indo-US Community, a non-profit group that helps acclimate new Indian families into the district. She has gone from learning about the school system on her own after moving into the district with her husband, Tito, 13 years ago, to running for a seat on the board of education this year.
Singh said that journey has been well worth the effort for the sake of the multi-cultural experience her two daughters, Disha and Rashni, have enjoyed as part of the quality education that prompted the Singhs to settle in Searingtown.
“Kids are so tolerant of each other,” she said. “They make friends effortlessly and that has nothing to do with where they come from.”
Singh said the demographics of the district have not changed dramatically in the time she’s lived in Searingtown.
But Joyce Kim remembers her parents moving to the area 30 years ago so that she could attend Herricks High School. She said her parents moved to the area after researching school districts on Long Island and concluding that Herricks was the best.
She started as a sophomore, speaking only Korean and seeing only a handful of other Korean kids in her classes.
“It was a nightmare, but I got by,” said Kim, who is president of the Herricks Korean American Parents Organization.
Indians and Chinese students already had a strong foothold in the district then. But Kim said she’s witnessed a quantum shift in the intervening years, with many more Koreans arriving, along with more Chinese and Indians – the most numerous of the three groups – moving in as well.
Today, she said, her teenage son has a very different self-identity, with an ethnically diverse circle of friends.
“Even though my son is Korean-American, he is more Americanized. He has more non-Asian friends in school,” Kim said.
Her daughter is in fourth grade, learning Spanish as part of her art class in a novel combination of language and culture. The idea is to give students increased exposure to a language they’re learning, according to Lori Langer de Ramirez, chairperson of Herricks’ Global Language Department.
“It’s a way of reinforcing things in the language. And students love it,” de Ramirez said.
That’s just one of the differences in the educational experience Kim’s children have had in a school district that takes an increasingly globalized approach. Another difference is that there are far fewer Italian, Greek and Jewish children in her daughter’s classes than there were in her son’s classes.
“I don’t think she’ll be going to that many Bar Mitzvahs,” Kim said.
Juleigh Chin moved into the school district with her family six years ago. She sees her sons Justin, in grade school, and Jordan, in middle school, enjoying a vivid cultural education through programs like the Denton Avenue School’s Heritage Week, which gives parents from all ethnic groups a chance to celebrate their cultures in workshops and group dance lessons.
“Our district is by far just amazing with the amount of cultural awareness that they teach,” said Chin, who is a leader of the Herricks Korean Community and vice president of the Korean Parents Association of Long Island. “They’re showing these kids a whole new world, a world that a lot of schools and districts don’t show.”
Chin, who studied piano for 12 years, is particularly pleased that her sons are getting a musical education – both learning to play guitar – as part of their class work.
“With Herricks being such a musical district, I think that draws Asian families,” she said. “Most Asian families value a musical education.”
Teresa Louie, whose older son Ryan is now continuing his cello lessons majoring in music at the Royal Academy of London, seconds that sentiment.
“I’m grateful that he learned to have a passion for something. Music and arts are a very important part of an education,” said Louie, an active PTA parent who is also on the board of the Chinese American Community of North Hempstead.
She recalled that there were only one or two Chinese children in her older son’s classes when was in kindergarten, but now she said there are typically four or five Chinese students in her younger son’s classes.
“I think there’s a big change,” she said.
But from the start, Louie said her family felt the embrace of “open arms” among teachers, parents and students. And she said its extraordinary ethnic mix of students makes Herricks an exemplary district.
“What I love about the Herricks school district is the diversity. Everybody gets along,” she said. “It’s not just that it’s Chinese or Korean or Indian. It’s everyone getting along.”
