March 11, 1986

Community school boards and professional groups have warned the Board of Education that that New York City's schools will face serious disciplinary and personnel problems unless the board rescinds its decision to keep the schools open during Passover. The groups have contended in letters to the central board and in resolutions that holding classes the first two days of the religious holiday would endanger student safety and incur unnecessary costs for the school system. They say that Jewish teachers, who make up the majority of teachers at many schools, will, for the most part, stay home on those days.

A diagram yesterday with an article about the sighting of the space shuttle Challenger's crew cabin showed the astronauts' seating arrangement incorrectly. A corrected diagram appears today on page C8.

After a year of delay, senior Democrats in the House of Representatives are moving toward action on the Senate-passed Reagan Administration bill to sell Conrail to private owners. Supported by key Republicans, they are bent on revising the Senate bill into one they can advertise as better than the President's, one they will portray as doing more to protect service, competition, jobs and the Federal Treasury. Such changes portend a House-Senate conference in which the House Democrats, given their basic lack of enthusiasm for the bill, may just hold the upper hand. The outcome of such a battle could affect rail freight rates and jobs from coast to coast.

Geoffrey G. Lindenauer admitted in a Federal court yesterday that, as the Deputy Director of the city's Parking Violations Bureau, he extorted bribes from contractors ''on behalf of myself and others'' from 1981 to the beginning of this year. Pleading guilty to two counts of a 39-count Federal indictment, Mr. Lindenauer also said he had made false statements in 1983 to help a company partly owned by the Bronx Democratic chairman, Stanley M. Friedman, to ''fraudulently obtain a contract from the city.'' The company, Citisource Inc., denied the charges last night. [ Page B2. ] Mr. Lindenauer's plea - and the statements he read to Judge John E. Sprizzo in Federal District Court in Manhattan - were part of an elaborate plea-bargaining agreement under which he will begin assisting Federal and local prosecutors in their investigation of corruption by other city officials. The agreement culminated two months of efforts by prosecutors to pressure Mr. Lindenauer into testifying. 'A Major Step Forward' ''This is very helpful,'' said Rudolph W. Giuliani, the United States Attorney in Manhattan, ''The investigation is moving along very well and this will help it.''

Commuters pushed and squeezed through the doors of an E train, but James L. McCarthy remained serene in his seat. ''Sometimes, it gets lonely in here,'' he commented, peering ahead to the darkened tracks. Cloistered in his subway motorman's cab, Mr. McCarthy enjoys a world of privacy in a very public place. He also sees a side to the subways glimpsed by few of the nearly 2 million New Yorkers who ride the system daily.