Tag: 2013 Top News Stories

MELANIE DROZD FILE PHOTO | Sound Avenue in Wading River behind EastWind Caterers during this year’s blizzard.

A record-setting blizzard dumped more than two feet of snow on parts of Riverhead Town in February, shuttering businesses and schools, clogging roads and trapping some residents in their homes for days.

The nor’easter struck the night of Feb. 8 into that weekend, dumping the most snow on the west side of town. Baiting Hollow recorded the most snowfall with 26 inches, while downtown Riverhead endured more than a foot-and-a-half of snow.

Towns west of Riverhead fared even worse, with Brookhaven seeing more than 30 inches.

More than 100 people became trapped in their cars on the Long Island Expressway as the storm hit. Local firefighters, ambulance volunteers and police answered dozens of calls during the blizzard, and at least two police cars and an ambulance became trapped in the storm.

Town highway crews immediately got to work clearing roads, but the sheer volume of the snow slowed efforts.

Weather experts said the storm — which strengthened rapidly when two branches of the jet stream combined west of Long Island — will be remembered as one of the biggest blizzards to hit Long Island in recorded history.

Click here for a complete list of our 2013 top news stories.

CARRIE MILLER FILE PHOTO | Education commissioner John King and state Board of Regents Meryl Tisch listening to a parade of speakers at recent forum.

This year marked the first time New York public school students took state assessments based on new curriculum known as Common Core.

The Common Core State Standards is designed to raise academic achievements inside the classroom and help prepare students for college and careers in the 21st century, state officials have said. The nationwide initiative primarily requires instructors to teach more non-fiction and rigorous math to students at a younger age.

While state officials have claimed implementation of Common Core aims to better prepare students for the future, many parents and educators have criticized the move because they believe teachers are being forced to abandon true learning for what is known as “teaching to the test.”

The results of the new assessments are also expected to be tied to the APPR plan, which stands for Annual Professional Performance Review. This teacher evaluation requirement originated in 2010 after New York was awarded a grant of nearly $700 million under the federal Race to the Top program. For individual school districts to qualify for part of the grant, the state required each to implement its own APPR program this year.

In August, the state Department of Education released the results of math and English Language Arts assessments that students in grades 3 through 8 took in April. Those scores were significantly lower compared to the previous school year, which state and school officials had predicted.

Statistics statewide for New York schools in which students took the assessments showed 69 percent failed to meet proficiency levels in math and 68.9 percent in ELA. School districts in Suffolk County generally fared better than the state overall, with 66.8 percent failing math and 63.7 percent failing ELA.

After scores were released, local districts passed resolutions calling on state and federal officials to overhaul the current method of standardized testing tied to teacher evaluations.

Editor’s note: We’re counting down the top 10 news stories of 2013. Check back every day until Jan. 1 to follow along.

DEC COURTESY PHOTO | Sandy-damaged cars parked on grasslands at EPCAL in early January.

First came the storm, then came the storm-damaged cars. By the tens of thousands.

The Enterprise Park at Calverton found itself in the national spotlight as the most expansive storage site for storm-damaged cars in the Northeast. The images were startling, as cars stretched as far as the eye could see, made all the more impressive by aerial shots from news choppers and state agencies. Controversy swirled around the arrangement, with most complaints coming from environmentalists concerned that fluids would leak from the vehicles and pollute groundwater.

Officials in Riverhead Town, which netted about $2 million in fees from leases, argued that cars parked on town land were restricted to impervious runways. But private property owners at EPCAL were also found to be leasing undeveloped space for car storage. State Department of Environmental Conservation officials took issue with those arrangements, ticketing property owners for cars parked on grass.

By late June, all the cars had disappeared.

Editor’s note: We’re counting down the top 10 news stories of 2013. Check back every day until Jan. 1 to follow along.