Ray Spatafora: The Face of Whitman

Trite but true: At Whitman High School, everybody loves Ray.

Ray is Ray Spatafora, the night shift security boss at Whitman who gets into everyone's business.  No one escapes his attention. And no one, apparently, wants to.

He jokingly scolds parents for cheering their children-athletes too loudly at sports events and suggests he might have to escort them out of the stands. He tells administrators what he thinks they need to know about the schools. He watches over students waiting after school for rides home. The lifelong Huntington Station resident gives athletes and coaches advice. Spatafora takes questions and gives grumbling students advice on everything, from how to deal withe parents they think are meddling in their lives to ways to keep out of trouble.

And he gives and gets hugs, lots of them.

No one escapes his attention. When now-Huntington school superintendent Jim Polansky went from Whitman principal to assistant superintendent, working out of the District Office, Spatafora would sometimes drive over and flash his high-beam headlights lights into Polansky's office to remind him it was time to go home.

If you turn up at Whitman and he doesn't already know you--and you aren't one of his many relatives or friends around Huntington Station--he'll soon know you.

Where will you find him? At Whitman after 2 p.m. and most after-school events. You can't miss him. You might even see him in your neighborhood when he goes to visit the family of a student who's having trouble at school.

It's not unusual to see him in what appears to be a gabfest at a school event but suddenly involved in a second or third conversation that he's been watching all along.

Spatafora, who will be 56 next week, is a 1973 Whitman graduate, and all four of his daughters went through South Huntington schools. Before joining the school district, he worked  32 years in the HART bus system.

After moving to the school district, he initially worked a custodian, but one of the security bosses "saw that I knew a lot of the parents" and would be valuable in a security role.  He also has been with the Huntington Manor Fire Department for more than 25 years.

His daughter Daisha teaches at Whitman, and another daughter, Lisa, is the cheerleading coach.

Students, male and female alike, gush over Ray, usually starting with, "Oh, we LOVE Ray!" before detailing the most recent way he'd looked out for them.

"Ray is probably one of the nicest persons up at Whitman, " said 2011 graduate Ali Aievoli. "He literally knows every kid in that school and always has a contagious smile on his face."

Asked about changes he's seen in the students in recent years, he said, "We were more disciplined then," he said. "The mothers were home more. But the kids are more rounded now, more things that they're involve in.

 Spatafora, though, sees one main role in his job. "I take care of the kids."