Three new faces and one familiar one are running for two seats on the Floral Park-Bellerose Board of Education in elections on May 18.
Board President Laura Ferone, district officials said, is retiring after 14 years on the school board, leaving a vacancy. Jaclyn O’Donohue and Amanda Talty are running against each other for Ferone’s seat. Incumbent Trustee Douglas Madden, who has been on the board since 2017, is running for re-election against challenger Beth Kierez.
O’Donohue, a registered nurse, has been active in several local organizations, including as president of the Wednesday Mother’s Club, Liz’s Day board member and co-leader of her daughter’s Girl Scout troop and son’s Cub Scout den.
“I believe that if we come together as parents and as a community, we can make a big change not only for the future of our children, but for the future of our fantastic village,” O’Donohue said in a Facebook post.
Talty, a product of the Elmont and Sewanhaka school districts, is the president and CEO of the Tourette Association of America. She is also a mother of two and the recording secretary for the district’s parent teacher association.
Talty, in a Facebook post, said she wants to work toward bringing a team-teaching model to inclusion classrooms, taking advantage of public-private partnership opportunities, and establishing a clear curriculum review and renewal cycle to ensure the district’s resources are being appropriately allocated.
“I’m running for our community and our kids,” Talty said on Facebook. “If my candidacy makes folks pay closer attention to this race because so many new faces and voices are rising up then, before the ballot has even been finalized, I’ve won. So listen to my ideas and the ideas of the other candidates.”
Madden, a Floral Park resident for 17 years, has been married to his wife, Susan, for more than 20 years and is a father of three children, all graduates of the Floral Park-Bellerose School. Madden also serves as the vice president of the Floral Park Little League Board of Directors.
Kierez has spent the last 20 years in the educational field, including as the current assistant principal at Benjamin N. Cardozo High School in Bayside. Kierez has four children and said her goal is “to ensure that every parent and child has an advocate at the table.”
“My love for education and the desire for all children to have their needs met has always been my priority as a teacher, an administrator and more importantly a mother,” Kierez said on Facebook. “I truly know for change to happen it has to start with those who seek change for the better good and our children’s education is the better good.”
The election will take place at the John Lewis Childs School and the Floral Park-Bellerose School from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.
The board adopted a $34.2 million budget on April 12. The budget calls for an increase of $1.7 million, or 5.3 percent, from the 2020-21 budget. The tax levy increased by 3.87 percent, which is under the allowed limit.
Expenditures in the budget include establishing a four-day pre-kindergarten program, support for English as a New Language courses, and $475,000 for a new kindergarten-sixth grade reading series that will be implemented in the 2022-23 school year.
New Hyde Park-Garden City Park
All three incumbent trustees on the New Hyde Park-Garden City Park Board of Education are not seeking re-election, school officials said.
Incumbent Trustees David Del Santo, Jennifer DeRocchis, and Danielle Messina will not be running to retain their seats on May 18, officials said. Del Santo, who has also served as the Sewanhaka Board of Education president, spent five terms on the board. DeRocchis, a former Manor Oaks Parent Teacher Association vice president, was first elected to the board in 2015 after unseating Frank Miranda. Messina, an involved parent in the school district, was appointed to the trustee position last year.
Efforts to reach the three for comment on why they are not seeking re-election were unavailing. District residents Binu Jacob and Danielle Fagan are running for DeRocchis’ and Del Santo’s seats, respectively, officials said. The board will appoint someone to fill the vacancy left by Messina, with that term ending in 2023.
The board adopted a $42.3 million budget for the 2021-22 school year on Monday. The budget comes with a tax levy increase of 1.14 percent. The $32,971,547 tax levy will cost the average homeowner $42 more.
It also includes a 0.69 percent decrease in salaries to $20,649,980 and a 0.32 percent increase in benefits to $10,803,115. As the school district’s deputy superintendent, Michael Frank, explained, administrators expect a decrease in staffing needs based on enrollment projections, and there has been a simultaneous decrease in staff due to retirements.
Thanks to a 24.15 percent increase in state aid to $7,766,370, the budget will be able to fund various enhancements to the district’s programs.
Sewanhaka
The Sewanhaka Board of Education adopted a $215.7 million budget for the 2021-22 school year last week.
The budget is an increase of 3.09 percent, or nearly $6.5 million, from the $209.3 million budget for 2020-21. The board also adopted a 1.11 percent tax levy increase for the 2021-22 school year, which remains below the tax cap.
One of the biggest increases to the budget is a 3.84 percent, or $6 million, increase in additions to programming.
Officials said that some of the programs they are focused on including in the 2021-22 school year include art offerings for seventh- and eighth-graders, English as a New Language courses for seventh-graders to seniors in high schools, literacy offerings for struggling readers, math workshops for additional support, and several inclusions for science technology, engineering, art and mathematics programs for middle schoolers.
Officials said they also expect to receive more than $48 million in state aid this coming year, an increase of more than $6 million from the previous year.
Sewanhaka’s school board is made up of two representatives from each of the five elementary districts that feed into the high schools.
Herricks
Herricks Board of Education Trustees Brian Hassan and Nancy Feinstein are running unopposed in their campaigns for re-election.
Feinstein, a Roslyn resident, is running for her fourth three-year term on the board. She has three children who have all attended and graduated from Herricks schools.
Hassan, an Albertson resident, is running for his fourth term on the board. He has three children who have graduated from the Herricks schools.
The board unanimously adopted a $122.9 million budget on Tuesday, a $2.33 million, or 1.94 percent, increase from the 2020-21 budget.
The budget also called for a 1.42 percent increase in the 2021-22 tax levy compared with this year, but still remained to stay below the state tax cap of 2.51 percent.
The initially proposed 1.86 percent levy increase was lowered to 1.42 percent as a result of additional state aid. The district’s average levy increase since the tax cap’s inception in 2012-13 is 1.66 percent.
A total of 75 percent, or $91.6 million, of the budget, is for programming, with 15 percent, or $18.4 million, for capital projects, and the remaining 10 percent, or $12.8 million, made up of administrative costs.
The vote for the board and the budget will take place on May 18 from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the Herricks Community Center gymnasium.
