The Gold Coast Library district is made up – essentially – of the North School Central School District minus the Village of Sea Cliff, Sea Cliff having had its own public library before the rest of this “unserved” area established a library in 2005. The unique history of this library district is matched by the unusual and – at times – contentious history of the school district.
The North Shore School District did not exist before 1953. Instead there were three smaller school districts: Sea Cliff, Glen Head and Glenwood Landing, each home to a single school building. Only the Sea Cliff School was K-12. Students from Glen Head and Glenwood landing commuted to Sea Cliff after completing elementary school.
With that in mind and increasing population growth throughout the area, consolidation of the three districts was proposed. The merger was not an easy one, however. Generally speaking, the residents of Glenwood Landing were opposed. Before unification, Glenwood Landing residents were the sole beneficiaries of the tax subsidies that came from the waterfront power station and they did not give those revenues up without a fight. A 1953 vote to consolidate the districts failed. A second vote was held later in the same year, this time to centralize – a process that required a simple majority of votes across the three districts. It was successful. The three districts became one.
Construction on much-needed new school buildings began quickly. But even as late as 1955, the fight went on. A lawsuit which set out to undo centralization delayed the construction of North Shore High School. The new school finally opened in 1957.
Photos and some factual information courtesy of Wikipedia.