May 27, 1983

The president of the New York Power Authority said today that the risk posed by the Indian Point nuclear plants in Westchester County was so small that the reactors should be allowed to operate despite questions about emergency planning. ''Even without prompt evacuation, the plants still would meet the commission's preliminary safety goals,'' the official, Leroy W. Sinclair, said at a hearing conducted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The N.R.C. also heard from officials of Rockland County, across the Hudson River from the plants, and Westchester. Herbert Reisman, the chairman of the Rockland Legislature, said local opposition to the emergency plans was deep-seated. ''These are not antinuclear freaks,'' he said. ''These are tough guys who are used to facing danger every day. I'm talking about the guys that have to go out there: the policemen, firemen, Health Department workers. They said this plan is garbage.''

Children in New York City's public schools are continuing to perform above national norms on reading and mathematics tests, according to statistics released yesterday by the Board of Education. This year, 427,890 students in the city took the reading test and 426,367 were examined in mathematics. The tests were administered to those in grades two through nine. The preliminary results of the examinations, given last month, showed that 55.5 percent of the students tested in reading and 58.1 percent of those tested in mathematics had scored at or above grade level.

The annual meeting of the American Iron and Steel Institute, normally a chummy spring rite for hundreds of the nation's top steel executives, will be remembered this year for its undertone of fractiousness. For the first time in recent memory, delegates to the industry's two-day circling of the wagons at the Waldorf-Astoria agreed, the big issue was the conduct of another steelmaker - the United States Steel Corporation at that. Industry executives reacted with dismay, and outright hostility, to the company's recently announced plan to import up to 3.5 million tons of steel slabs over several years from British Steel. ''It's a step backwards,'' said Frank Luerssen, chairman of the Inland Steel Company, the industry's seventh-largest producer. ''It's counterproductive to our relations with the union.''

Calvin Hampton will give the last of a 13-year-series of free midnight concerts at Calvary Church, Park Avenue South and 21st Street, tonight. Mr. Hampton, who has been Calvary's choir director for 20 years, is ending his affiliation with the church to concentrate on composing and concertizing. One of his specialties is transposing orchestral works for the organ. In tonight's concert, he will play his version of Moussorgsky's ''Pictures at an Exhibition'' - written originally for piano. Also on his program is Mozart's F minor Fantasy. A BROADWAY REOPENING The New Apollo Theater on West 43d Street, dark since ''Fifth of July'' closed in January, reopens tonight at 8 for previews of a comedy, ''The Guys in the Truck,'' starring Elliott Gould as a heavybetting television sports director. Written by Howard Reifsnyder, a former CBS sports producer, the play is a behind-the-scenes look at the people who televise pro football. It's set in a broadcast truck parked under Cleveland Municipal Stadium during a game. Tickets: $17 to to $30. Reservations; 921-8558. Chargit: 944-9300. Ticketron: 977-9020.

Congressional action has cleared the way for creation of a branch of Federal District Court in the center of this Westchester County city, Federal and city officials said today. It will be the first branch in the court's jursidiction, the Southern District of New York, which includes six counties north of New York City. Officials of the court, which is based in Manhattan, said the move was intended to meet the need for more space and to make the court system more convenient for all parties to Federal litigation.