By Dan Hust
LAKE HUNTINGTON — July 29, 2005 – With the meeting site secured, Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther announced this week that Sullivan West school district residents will have a chance to speak next month with two top-level representatives of the NYS Education Department (SED).
Gunther said yesterday that the Sullivan West High School auditorium in Lake Huntington will be made available for the gathering, set for August 10 at 6:30 p.m.
SED is sending Jim Kadamus and Jim Butterworth down to SW to answer questions and discuss various options to some of the district’s most pressing problems.
Having merged just six years ago, the district has had no end of minor and major disasters, from construction difficulties to financial errors to administrative/board clashes.
Kadamus is SED’s deputy commissioner of elementary, middle, secondary and continuing education. Butterworth is the assistant commissioner of the Office of Regional School and Community Services.

By Dan Hust
LAKE HUNTINGTON — July 29, 2005 – Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther’s got $50,000 with Sullivan West’s name on it.
All the SW board has to do is ask for it.
“The money is there – it’s allocated,” she said yesterday. “But it has to have approval from the SW board of education.”
That’s because it’s not just free funds – that $50,000 has to be used to pay independent consultants who will conduct an “external review” of the district and its various issues.
If approved by the board, the review would be handled by the consulting firm of SW’s choosing (from a list provided by the NYS Assembly, which is where the money is coming from).
The oversight of the review process will not include the state education department, although Gunther said state ed. officials have given it their blessing.
“They think it’s a great idea,” she said.