His mother works in the Half Hollow Hills school district on Long Island, providing job training for special-education students.
For students, E-learning is also a way to share information with a greater audience, said Corinne Carriero, director of instructional computing for the Half Hollow Hills school district.
The concern was that building housing for all age groups would bring an influx of children into the Half Hollow Hills school district, said Mr. Petrone, the town supervisor.
"This is a seamless way to get the information out immediately," said Corinne Carriero, director of instructional computing for the Half Hollow Hills school district.
Karen Morrow, the director of Sleepy Hollow Nursery School, believes that children without problems can benefit from being exposed to those who are different: one large-framed, boisterous boy, for example, becomes noticeably gentler when he is interacting with a classmate with Down syndrome.
Alissa Sue Taff, the president of the board of the Half Hollow Hills school district in Dix Hills, said her district has had an increase of 2,000 students in the last five years, mostly a result of hundreds of acres of farmland sold, subdivided and developed.
But that all rings a bit hollow as schools digest the latest machination from the exams regulator Ofqual, doing the bidding of his endlessly energetic, deeply ideological education secretary Michael Gove.
Children from ranches in the area, including Joe's forebears, have been educated at Cozy Hollow since the school's founding in the early 1930's.
In New York, parents say its promise of relief from failing schools is hollow because there are insufficient seats in better schools to accommodate those requesting transfers.
Christiane Alt, a thin, dark woman of 46 with large hollow eyes, is the school's chief teacher.
