A great injustice has been seeping into Great Neck for some time, and few have ever called attention to it.
In fact, in all of the ideas I have shared with the Great Neck News over its 11-year run, only once have I scratched the surface of this mounting issue — something more important than village elections or ill-equipped local politicians or the disrepair of our downtown.
In a letter I wrote in August 2020, I offered my opinion of the Great Neck Board of Education and their “we know better than you” approach to any and all issues that touch upon the school district.
At the time, I set out to take a stand on the board’s dreadful delivery of remote learning in spring 2020 and my concerns for how the new school year would begin.
I wrote that piece with the best of intentions and shared my observations as a devoted supporter of our school system.
I noted at the time that I had previously spent two years serving on the Board of Education’s Citizen Advisory Committee and that I was someone with deep roots in this community as a volunteer board member and former president of the Gold Coast Arts Center.
Little did I recognize at the time, but those of us who served on the Citizen’s Advisory Committee were mere window dressing so the Board of Education could claim they had addressed the need for desired community engagement following the challenges they faced in the earlier bond referendum.
Simply put, I can’t remember a single issue that the Committee was asked to address that led to meaningful change.
Though my letter ruffled a few feathers within the district, the response I received was encouraging and motivated me to do what I could to learn more about the Board of Education and how the school district is governed.
To be a devoted supporter of our school system, one must appreciate, as many of us do, that our children have enormous resources at their disposal, funded by tax dollars and presented in real time by well-educated and well-meaning teachers.
I recognize that our children are also fortunate to have some outstanding leadership among those who run the actual schools themselves—the principals and their administrations.
Along the road of information gathering, it became abundantly clear that this community, perhaps like many others, often fails to appreciate that the district is a business and this business requires nearly a quarter billion dollars of local tax money each and every year to function.
As I took more of an interest in the business of the district, I wasn’t terribly surprised to learn that the individual members of the Board of Education lack a level of financial expertise and direct management experience: a set of skills that would help ensure Board members are qualified to serve as good fiduciaries of public trust and our hard-earned public dollars.
When looking at the make-up of the Board of Education, most are reelected each term through an organized effort to allow apathy and a continued commitment to promote blind trust.
Perhaps it won’t surprise anyone to learn that the upcoming election for the board will ask the community to once again elect two individuals who haven’t had children in the district for decades and decades. In fact, generations of Great Neck school children have come through a system led by individuals far removed from the events of the day.
If nothing changes, this next election will ask the community to re-elect board members who first took their seat before the internet existed, before cell phones or personal computers were staples of every household, before text messaging was possible, before social media could attempt to destroy the liberties we take for granted, or before the Berlin Wall fell.
Though these board members are part of a generation that learned to hide under desks to avert nuclear attacks during the Cold War, they didn’t experience the anxiety of sending one’s child to school during the rise of devastating school shootings that recent generations have had to endure.
While I commend anyone who serves, particularly those with a genuine interest in improving the community, it’s time that the Board reconstitutes itself to meet the interests of a modern society where our children are blessed and cursed by the consequences of technology.
As this community slowly emerges from the exhaustion of this public health crisis and the long strange political moment that has dominated our psyche, the district must face the harsh reality that we are going to confront a significant financial upheaval as a result of the pandemic, a prolonged spend-down of district reserves – with a board not equipped to meet today’s needs.
From a practical standpoint, the destruction of Great Neck’s commercial centers, the reduction of tax revenue, the precarious financial position of New York State, the ballooning pension and medical costs for district employees and retirees, the escalating divide between groups within the community, and the ineffectiveness of nine autonomous village governments, will ultimately affect real estate values.
A domino effect of sorts.
With each passing meeting of the Board of Education, those in the community who log-on to participate are often told how hard the board works, by the board.
We are reminded that this is a well-oiled machine and that the Board doesn’t see any reason to change. We are told that the Board is fully transparent and committed to transparency, so long as the questions asked don’t get in the way of the status quo.
With each passing meeting, we are told that the Board makes decisions in the interest of our children and that they are forward-looking and resourceful.
Yet, in the many, many decades that some of these board members have held a gavel, they haven’t discussed how their decisions from 10 or 20 or 30 years ago have adversely affected the district.
Pre-pandemic, one didn’t have to go much further than a classroom or two, in any building, to see how infrastructure scenario planning, visioning and student-first policies have been neglected.
Last spring, Great Neck certainly wasn’t the only district to hit a wall and disappoint its community. However, regarding these quasi-lifetime-appointed “power brokers” who have served on the board, shouldn’t the community have demanded more?
The board, in its current makeup, is complacent. They are an impediment to progress and growth, and we as a community are experiencing a malfunctioning of leadership.
Great Neck’s abhorrent failure to provide our children with an education last spring is a direct result of the Board of Education’s failure to lead, failure to develop a vision, and failure to invest.
The system is broken, even as Great Neck maintains a significant academic advantage. Deliberate decisions by some members of the board to silence parents over the years has caused considerable apathy and community ignorance.
No longer. Now it’s time to pass the torch and take a bow. It’s time to make room for those who understand modern society and the need for financial oversight, and who have directly experienced raising children in a world that is no longer analog.
A Board dominated by people who don’t have children in the schools only exacerbates the challenges and the limitations of capacity. In a community steeped in professional achievement across every known industry and trade, we are unfortunately left to be led by those who are simply ordinary.
Ordinary in their thinking. Ordinary in their ambition. Ordinary in their abilities.
It’s incumbent upon us to step up Great Neck. The school bell is about to ring and this community needs a change.
The process for running for the Board of Education will soon open up and this community needs leaders to advocate and guide the future of the district. Our children’s education is what matters most.
As parents of children in the district, past and present, as well as enthusiastic residents of the community who believe deeply in the power of public education and the need to invest in the best of what it has to offer, let’s help Great Neck break the cycle of sabotaging its future through apathy.
This is our moment.
Michael S. Glickman
Great Neck
