Uncontested Mineola school board candidate Cheryl Lampasona promised to work for the district’s students and parents at Monday night’s “Meet the Candidate” event at Mineola High School.
“I will work endlessly for the 2,905 students within our district, I will be guidance for every parent within our district, and I will sit on the board for every taxpayer in our community,” she said.
Lampasona, co-president of the Hampton Street School PTA, has taught in New York City schools for 10 years and teaches third grade in Woodside, Queens, but said her first year on the school board will have a learning curve.
She is running unopposed for a three-year term to replace Mineola school board Vice President Patricia Navarra, who decided not to run for re-election after one term.
During a brief and informal question-and-answer session, voters asked Lampasona a series of questions about educational policy issues, such as opting out of state tests, teacher hiring processes and the controversial Common Core curriculum.
Lampasona said she likes the Common Core curriculum as an educator and a parent.
She said she will know more about the question of whether parents should opt their children out of state tests next year, when her oldest child enters the third grade and takes state tests for the first time.
District Superintendent Michael Nagler has said about 25 percent of Mineola students eligible to take the English exam opted out this year, up from 18.3 percent last year; and about 24 percent of eligible students opted out of the math exam.
In an earlier interview with the Williston Times, Lampasona said she would not have opted her older child out of tests this year, but she thinks it is good that parents have a choice in the matter.
Lampasona said there is a stark contrast in the resources available to New York City schools and those available in Mineola schools.
“I count my blessings that we can live where we live and not where I teach,” she said. “I am an excellent teacher, don’t mistake that.”
Responding to a question about how “the local community has not been energized” by Mineola schools’ international recognition for the use of educational technology, Lampasona said she thinks “we’re doing wonderful things and we do incorporate the community.”
She added that she is excited to visit other schools and “see what we can do all together.”
Lampasona holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and accounting and state certifications in general education, special education, and English as a new language.
“I have the business and educational background, I’ve never meshed the two together,” she said. “I’m really excited to learn everything I need to know. By my third year I am excited to see what I have accomplished within (the) district.”
Mineola’s six PTAs also voted Monday in favor of the 2016-2017 district budget the school board adopted April 21.
The district’s $91.2 million budget reflects a 1.73-percent increase over the current year and a decrease in the tax levy of 0.012 percent, or about $10,000, required by the state’s tax cap law.
Every household will receive a check for $136 from the state as a result of the lowered tax levy, Nagler said.
The budget funds several capital projects with a boost in state aid and $900,000 appropriated fund balance, officials said Monday night.
Every curricular, extracurricular and co-curricular program will be maintained next year, including professional staff development and a technology plan, Nagler said.
Nagler said Thursday’s school budget hearing will discuss specific additions and reductions in the adopted budget.
