BHS senior earns first place in Italian singing competition School budgets pass, board members elected

Bethpage

The Bethpage School District’s budget for the 2023-24 school year passed in voting on May 16th. 584 votes were cast in favor of the $102,062,376 budget and 206 were cast against it.

Michael Kelly and Anna Israelton, both incumbents, were reelected to the school board. Kelly received 642 votes; Israelton received 557 votes. Both were unopposed.

Levittown

The Levittown School District’s $251,792,906 passed 1,197 to 520. A second proposition to create a capital reserve fund also passed.

Jennifer Messina, Michael Pappas and Phyllis Dalton were elected to the school board. They ran unopposed. Plainview Old Bethpage

Voters in the Plainview Old Bethpage School District passed their budget 1,038 to 365. Ginger Lieberman and Debbie Bernstein, running unopposed, were elected to the Board of Education.

Hicksville

The Hicksville School District passed 763 to 308. In addition, voters approved measures to create a Capital Reserve fund and to fund the Gregory Museum.

Sunita Manjrekar, Irene Carlomusto and Danielle Fotopoulos, all running unopposed, were elected to the Board of Education.

Graziella Conte, a senior at Bethpage High School, was recently recognized as a first-place winner in the singing portion of the Secondary School Poetry and Arts Contest: Gara di Poesia e Gara di Canto. The contest is run annually by the Long Island chapter of the American Association of Teachers of Italian. This year, students were invit- ed to submit pre-recorded poem and song recitations.

Conte submitted a video of her performing “Caruso” by Lucio Dalla, in honor of her nonna (grandmother).

Dalla was her grandmother’s biggest inspiration growing up.

Conte’s grandparents were born and raised in Italy and both of her parents are first generation

Americans. She developed a love of singing from an early age and has taken Italian courses throughout her entire high school career. Now in her senior year, Conte is enrolled in Advanced Placement Italian with Teresa Sagarese. Both Sagarese and Conte’s former Italian teach-

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