Support Glenn LaPolt for the New Paltz Board of Education
My name is Hillary Wilson. I am a mother of two NPCSD students and I am writing to endorse Glenn LaPolt for election to the NPCSD Board of Education.
Unlike many New Paltz natives, I’ve only known Glenn for seven years. My kids and I moved to New Paltz from California in 2011. Glenn quickly demonstrated his commitment to my children’s well-being and character development as their first swim coach on the New Paltz Seahawks. He turns swim practices into life lessons about perseverance and facing our fears. Glenn builds community, works collaboratively and brings people together. Glenn’s central focus is our children’s health, happiness and safety.
As a history teacher in the Wallkill School District, Glenn thrives on helping his students understand how learning from history provides us an opportunity to better shape our collective future. His passion for historical storytelling inspires students to develop a sense of wonder that only an exceptional teacher can achieve.
As a father of three daughters, I’ve come to know Glenn as an open-minded, non-judgmental and unconditionally loving parent. He embraces diversity and supports his daughters in all of their unique interests, hoping only that they will find and pursue their passions.
Glenn LaPolt is in a unique position as a New Paltz native to share a historical perspective while promoting new approaches and challenging the status quo. I am confident Glenn will exceed all expectations as a member of the NPCSD Board of Education and am excited to vote for him in the upcoming election.
Hillary Wilson
New Paltz
Get out and vote on May 15
I am writing to express my support for Diana Armstead, Brian Cournoyer, and Michael O’Donnell for the New Paltz Board of Education, as well as my hope that as many residents as possible will vote in the upcoming election on May 15th.
Brian and Michael have been doing wonderful work on the board, including much that is unseen and fairly thankless. We live in a passionate community of strong opinions. Getting solid work done while taking them all into account is difficult; it takes marvelous balance and even-handedness. But they’re doing it: take the Capital project, for starters. It’s on time and under budget, and has provided for the crucial updates and repairs that all four school buildings need. Our fund balance has increased from under $200K to over $2 million. We have a clean fiscal bill of health. Despite financial pressures, our educational programs have expanded.
Brian and Mike work well together, and we need them both. Mike is the details guy: he is able to pick out and view the minutiae and angles in every situation. He researches and analyzes the data whether it supports his point or not. He personally reviews each and every item in the budget. He attends public policy meetings. He tries to find ways to fund the school without relying on property taxes. He does the homework that none of us want to do, though all of us should.
Brian balances this out with his ability to find the big picture from all of this data and strategize solutions. Through his tenure on the board, he’s become exceptional at understanding the human implications of board decisions. He listens with compassion to community voices and makes sure people get heard. We can’t forget that he was also the guy in charge when the capital bond got passed — in my opinion, this literally saved our schools.
Some change needs to happen in our district, though, and both Brian and Michael understand that (as demonstrated by their support of the Racial Equity Committee). I think Diana Armstead is a perfect agent for that change, as she brings so much experience to the board that we haven’t had before. Her CV is fascinating. In her career as a probation officer, she’s interacted with and assisted people across our community and witnessed first-hand how school support can dramatically help our families. She lectures at a couple of colleges regarding the opioid crisis, as well as on crisis prevention. She supported and helped save the New Paltz Police Department when it was in danger of being disbanded. She has been an education advocate for over 30 years. She is a veteran community organizer who knows how to speak with people. In my opinion, she is exactly who we need to balance out our school board in terms of experience, ability, people-skills and representation. New Paltz can’t afford not to have a voice like hers on our Board of Education.
Being on the board is a difficult job and I am so glad that people are willing to step up and take it on. Me, I want detail-oriented, interpersonally savvy, deeply experienced people in those roles. As such, I’m really hoping that folks vote in Diana, Brian and Mike. But no matter your choice, I urge all New Paltz residents to get out and vote on May 15 for the school Board election.
Shari Lynn Goldstein
New Paltz
Michael O’Donnell, Brian Cournoyer and Diana Armstead fit the bill
I am writing to convey my support for Michael O’Donnell, Brian Cournoyer and Diana Armstead in their bid to serve on the New Paltz School Board.
I have been an educator, education activist and teacher union President (not in New Paltz) for nearly two decades. Over the years, I have watched the changes in the nature of the issues school boards must grapple with. I have seen how the state has put devastating restrictions and reductions in school funding mechanisms, while dumping standards and assessments into our schools that have proven damaging to our children. Throughout Michael and Brian’s time on the BOE, I have always appreciated how they both view protecting and serving our students and school communities as both a local and statewide issue. This is critical. The biggest threats to our children’s education do not come from within our community, but rather from deeply flawed New York State education policies and regulations.
Despite the tax cap, Brian and Michael have managed to increase our instructional and athletic programs while putting the district on a more secure financial footing. The current board has increased our fund balance from $188,000 to $2,000,000. These funds represent critical insurance to guarantee the quality of education for the children of New Paltz moving forward. Protecting programs and building financial security, it must be emphasized, does not happen by accident. These successes are the result of hard work and the ability to make difficult decisions.
Diana’s experience in law enforcement, her commitment to anti-bullying initiatives, child-centered education and her experience teaching young people about the dangers of heroin make her an asset to this district and our children.
The next board of education will ultimately most likely be responsible for hiring at least three administrators. We need experience and thoughtful leadership for this process, and Michael O’Donnell, Brian Cournoyer and Diana Armstead fit the bill perfectly. Vote for O’Donnell, Cournoyer, and Armstead on May 15.
Michael Lillis
New Paltz
Michael O’Donnell, Brian Cournoyer and Diana Armstead meet the criteria to serve on the BOE
I am writing in support of Michael O’Donnell, Brian Cournoyer and Diana Armstead for the New Paltz BOE.
We are indeed a community of rich resources, to have six candidates that are well qualified; want to listen to community, parents and students; are kind and caring people who have a track record of community service and involvement. For me, these are foundational qualifications to be a BOE candidate: however in the current context, they are not enough.
The reality is that we are in the midst of deep and profound institutional, cultural and normative changes at all levels of government. Our BOE will need to be able to manage the district in this context. The policy challenges that the BOE will confront are much greater than the 2% tax cap and Common Core, perhaps as profound as students with disabilities no longer having the right to a free and appropriate education and public education through individual vouchers becoming a means for private companies to make a profit off public education. In addition, there are contextual challenges that the BOE will need to consider as they attend to the policy, procedures and budget of the New Paltz School District: the loss of public confidence in common institutions; the opioid epidemic; the need to insure equity and access for all students; the loss of the State and Local Tax deduction on Federal income tax returns and the profound and wide struggles of all our children and youth. Which BOE candidates will be able to manage our school district in such a challenging context? Which candidates can demonstrate a complexity of analysis, the commitment of action and a wide and long vision? Which candidates actively support an aspirational vision of our country, state and school district where supporting and advocating for the students who are struggling most, supports all the students in the school? Which candidates have the vision to address multiple issues at the same time, competing needs and not focus primarily on a single issue? Which candidates will be willing to understand and address issues that are far beyond New Paltz, because that is where the issues originate? Thinking practically, I wonder which candidates will have the time, not only to attend the multitude of BOE meetings, but also to stay current on all of the aforementioned complexities; to do the research and subsequent hard thinking to differentiate true facts from opinions and feelings.
The candidates who meet these criteria for me are Michael O’Donnell, Brian Cournoyer and Diana Armstead.
Jacqueline Reed
Gardiner
Support all students and stop tribalism
I recently wrote to the New Paltz Times noting that the national wave of civic engagement had produced positive results with our Board of Education. Now I write in support of three New Paltz School Board candidates: Diana Armstead, Brian Cournoyer and Michael O’Donnell.
Back then, I wrote to thank the board for establishing a Board Advisory Committee on Racial Equity, finally enabling stable and reasoned focus on the long-standing disenfranchisement of our community of color. Then, Diana Armstead, I and a large cross-section of our school community dialogued with all BOE members, the entire school administration team in public forums and smaller superintendent community forums. Therein, we addressed the concerns of white and non-white families of color whose children were being emotionally and psychologically traumatized by insidious bigotry, racism and bullying incidents in our schools. Our kids and families clearly felt unsafe and anxious. Parents, students and their peers did not know how to support each other, especially in the context of the unleashed tribalism of our national climate. Courageously, the compassionate and informed leaders of the Board of Education, Michael O’Donnell and Brian Cournoyer, rationally led the BOE to a unanimous vote to create a BOE Advisory Committee on Racial Equity.
With this giant step forward, my initial hope was that here in New Paltz, tribalism and personality politics need not enter the fray for what soon clearly would be an important civic engagement time period. Our district and greater school community clearly would be facing many local, state and national elections, significant district administration changes, obvious economic uncertainty due to projected federal and state revenue uncertainty and important concerns of related to the socio-emotional health and physical well-being of our students.
Within the next year or two, our BOE will likely need to address federal and state revenue reductions due to the projected impact of the recent tax give away to multinational corporate America and the rich. The current incumbents, Michael O’Donnell and Brian Cournoyer, have demonstrated effective, compassionate and reasoned leadership by taking our district from the throws of economic uncertainty and state education fiscal warnings to a position of economic strength and relative affordability. They have worked hard at effectively balancing our budget without directly undermining the academic and social emotional needs of any particular group of students while considering the needs all students.
The district will also be challenged to create and implement a strategic plan for recruiting and hiring top level administration and instructional and support staff, who should have a complimentary and robust vision for our district’s school community. As incumbents, Michael O’Donnell and Brian Cournoyer have demonstrated their commitment and skills to a broad-based, equitable and balanced mission for our school community. With their unique informed perspective, they can lead the district forward in addressing this forthcoming leadership challenge.
Additionally, in the next three years our school community will be combating our tribalistic national climate. We cannot normalize a national tendency to co-opt and exploit in order to obtain a narrowly focused agenda using the rhetoric of inclusion, false dichotomies and smoke screens.
However, local tribalism has resurfaced and time-honored Board of Education decorum and processes are being undermined in a transparent attempt to railroad a single mission, a vested interest to place the interest of high school student athletes above the interest of all students. This parallels the change that occurred some 20 years ago with the middle school music program. At that time, our middle school schedule was changed for all students to start significantly earlier because some parents complained that their children in band had to get up earlier than their non-musician peers in order to be in school for practice held before the regular school. At that time some parents had clout and had a superintendent who was a musician himself. That change was done almost overnight. Our board led by Michael O’Donnell and Brian Cournoyer have not done that.
Our voters should not accept what appears to be the disingenuous platform espoused by Teresa Thompson and her allies in the last edition of the New Paltz Times. These allies may be well-meaning and committed individuals but both their love for sports and the sports community has led them to present privately one way (i.e. concern for sports) and publicly another (i.e. concern for the social-emotional health of all).
The New Paltz school community should not accept a repeat of history, wherein a monolithic group advocated for an original bond vote in 2010 to rebuild a middle school without equitably considering the conditions of all other school buildings. This also happened in another economically uncertain time frame. In our current time frame, the sports agenda of a wellness center and its complimentary resistance to reasoned consideration of the impact of school start time has blinded well-meaning candidates and the current board member to resort to what could be considered patronizing comments about support for equity within our school community.
I am neither opposed to nor in support of changing school times. I have no vested interest beyond the overall well-being of all students. As a former special education administrator in the district, school board member, parent of students who lived through the district’s current school schedule, and as a teacher in a high school at one time, I experienced what the impact of the natural biological time clock has on students. Young students naturally get up very early, often with vim and vigor and ready to go. Their older siblings do not. As an educator, I know that reputable scientific research clearly demonstrates that high school-age students’ performance is significantly and negatively affected by early arousal. Biologically, they need different sleep patterns than their younger peers. Therefore, I commend that Board of Education’s effort to seriously further study this and any proposal, be it a Health and Wellness Center for all students, a Racial Equity Committee or any well thought out proposal for our students.
I believe that Michael O’Donnell and Brian Cournoyer should be re-elected to assure stability, informed decision-making and compassionate concern for all students. Diana would bring much-needed skills, experience and perspective to the board. None should become the sacrificial lambs of other well-meaning candidates and their allies who have a narrow and limited focus, history and experience working with the Board of Education. We need them now!!!
Maggie Veve
New Paltz
Letter of endorsement for Diana Armstead, Brian Cournoyer and Michael O’Donnell
On May 15, the members of the New Paltz Central School District community will have the opportunity to vote for three Board of Education members. The job of a Board of Education is twofold; to present a budget that best meets the needs of all students that taxpayers can bear, and to set policy that aligns with research-based best practices. This is a difficult task as decisions and actions must also be made within the confines of existing state and federal law. Members must always endeavor to understand and rely on all relevant data to inform policy in keeping with the district’s mission and vision. Members do not get to choose when or what data to consider. They do not get to choose which policy decisions will be informed by research. The process must be the same for all decisions. Members do not get to place their own opinions, beliefs or wants above proven effectiveness. Ever. With this in mind, I will be eagerly casting my votes for Diana Armstead, Brian Cournoyer and Michael O’Donnell.
Diana Armstead has a strong record of community service with education, collaboration and listening to the needs of the community as central themes. Diana has participated as a member of the New Paltz Youth Commission. In this role, Diana worked closely with the Youth Center director and Town Board to serve our youth and their families. After being appointed to participate on the Police Study Committee at a time when the Town of New Paltz was considering eliminating the New Paltz Police Department, Diana’s work included collaboration with SUNY New Paltz to undertake an in-depth study to determine whether or not residents wanted the NPPD to remain intact. Diana has already proven herself a valuable asset when it comes to decisions affecting the community. We would be so fortunate to have Diana’s voice at the Board of Education table.
Brian Cournoyer has served for six years on the Board of Ed. I had the honor of serving with Brian for three years. Brian is a deep thinker and incredibly passionate about the promise and responsibility of public education to children. Brian has keen understanding of NY State’s systematic defunding of public education and the ramifications of the Common Core curriculum (high-stakes testing) and the impacts of both to our district. Brian has attended and spoken out at public events and in rallies against both. Brian is a person of few words, and does not talk unnecessarily. When he does, it is powerful. This past March, it was Brian’s voice that brought the Board of Education back to the table to begin the hard work of creating a new ad-hoc Racial Equity Committee. Brian’s commitment to advocating and protecting students and teachers is undeniable, effective and necessary.
Michael O’Donnell has served on the Board of Education for the past three years. I have had the privilege of serving with Michael for two years. Michael is committed to engaging in rational, fiscally responsible decisions making. As a matter of course, Michael engages an honest review of all available information for all decisions. Michael’s exceptional ability to identify trends and outliers is unmatched. Michael’s dedication compels him to conduct an annual review of every line item in the budget. Every year. Michael maintains his own personal database of budget data, cross-referenced against local and statewide expenditure files and analyzed in an enrollment-adjusted context vs. other local districts. Michael’s research leads him to activism. He has advocated for NYS to move away from funding schools through property taxes and he opposed a damaging change to requirements for graduation that would have left some students without a diploma.
Our district faces several potential and significant changes in leadership in the upcoming years. Diana, Brian and Michael are committed to advocating for leaders with an inclusive, student-centered focus to education which would include working to improve district recruitment and hiring policies and practices in order to attract and retain a diverse and talented pool of staff. There is much at stake in this election and it is important to keep the big picture in mind and not get caught up in agendas that could prove short-sighted. There is too much to lose.
Aimee Gertler Hemminger
New Paltz
Support the incumbents
I am writing in support of the incumbent New Paltz Central School District board candidates Michael O’Donnell and Brian Cournoyer. While serving on the board, they have shown concern for the well being of all students, have competently and diligently managed the finances and operations of the district and have performed their duties without political drama.
The issue of school start times appears to be a major issue in this election: Mr. O’Donnell and Mr. Cournoyer have taken great care to listen to the community and to thoughtfully seek solutions that will not negatively impact students’ ability to participate in athletic and extracurricular activities.
I also support the candidacy of Diana Armstead, who has a long history of service in our community.
Zelig Kurland
New Paltz
Goodnow for school board
I would like to introduce myself to everyone, as I am running as a candidate for the New Paltz School District Board of Education. My name is Meghan Goodnow and I have been a seven-year resident of Gardiner with my husband and our children. Our family history goes back over 40 years in Gardiner with our family business of the Gardiner Animal Hospital. I am a 1999 graduate of the Onteora High School and attended Ulster County Community College. Currently, I am the practice administrator of Gardiner Animal Hospital and previously was an emergency department supervisor at Health Alliance Hospital, working with the youth at the YMCA of Kingston and Ulster County. My husband Matthew and I also own Goodnow Family Farm, located in Gardiner, NY. I have been helping our local communities as a certified emergency medical technician for 12 years for Mobile Life Support Services and the Gardiner Fire Department. Matthew, my husband, is the chief of the New Paltz Rescue Squad and the Gardiner Fire Department. Over the past few years, I have been very involved in many different boards in the New Paltz Middle School and high school. These positions I have held include both president and treasurer. I also have been very active in the New Paltz Athletic Association as a treasurer and a parent. Our household is vibrantly thriving with five children in the New Paltz Central School District; a daughter, Jasmine, who is a graduating senior this year and will be attending Mount Saint Mary College in the fall, a son, Jordan, who is a freshman at New Paltz High School, a daughter, Maddison, who is a fourth grader at Lenape Elementary School and twin daughters, Grace and Hope, who are first graders at Duzine Elementary School.
Our family is a biracial home, where we have taught values, morals, responsibility and compassion in the raising of our children. Our society is so complex and busy that it is important for us to be an example for our children and to demonstrate how to treat others fairly, especially when we don’t see eye to eye, because this is what makes us individuals and unique. As parents, it is so important to teach compassion towards others regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, etc., to strive for an environment of mindfulness and not to tolerate violence towards others, including bullying. I live my life by the motto of “Lead by example.” Listening is my strong suit, as I try to hear all aspects and angles of every situation and then work to make the best decisions possible with the information given. Our home is filled with different challenges of learning disabilities including navigating sensory processing disorders, mental health and a child on the spectrum. Therefore, being flexible, understanding and constantly re-adapting are very important for me daily.
I have always been a strong advocate for children with special needs and mental health issues, and believe in a student-centered approach that includes listening to and supporting every child in our district. I feel that we need to add more follow-through in our special education system, so that those students that need services are helped and are able to get them easier. As our students get older, our district needs to be more proactive in monitoring them academically. Instead of high schoolers falling behind and not being noticed until the end of the school year, they need to be noticed and re-evaluated sooner. We need to make sure that students are appropriately nurtured to further develop their academic and social learning.
There are complex issues at work in our district that I believe we need to solve. I am against the changing of our current school start times. At 8 a.m., New Paltz High School already has one of the latest school start times in New York State. I feel we need to finally let this issue rest for a while, while we tackle more pertinent issues. I believe it would be much more beneficial to our students to put effort into avenues such as the proposal of a new Health and Wellness Center that can be built at the high school. This will help students have a place to learn and achieve wellness both mentally and physically and decrease stress, anxiety and depression. By sending our high school students in later, we may face the diminishment or elimination of amazing opportunities for our students. It is important that we as a district support all students in all of their endeavors, whether it be sports, music, art, drama, clubs and more. We are facing epidemic proportions of increased mental stress in our teenagers, and now more than ever they need our support and guidance in choosing activities that may help them increase their self-esteem and self-confidence. Currently, our school start time is working efficiently for most, and students are able to participate in things that are important to them. Our district also has many students that get accepted into the BOCES New Visions Programs. These classes run in the mornings and afternoons, however clinics and study groups often go much later and may also be impacted by starting school later in the day. There are so many complexities to this issue, and I feel we need to not create more stress on families and students by continuing this discussion until such time as other neighboring districts can collaborate with us on such a venture.
I also believe that school safety is critical for every student that is in the NPCSD. Unfortunately, as we watch violence unfold around our world, we notice that much of the targets are innocent children, teachers and staff in schools. This reality is horrible, and as a district, we should do absolutely everything we can to ensure that no matter what, we have put 100% effort in ensuring our schools and everyone inside all of our buildings are always protected. We want our children to feel safe and secure and able to learn without fear of danger. Talking to the students and seeing what they feel would help, along with listening to their parents for their concerns and suggestions is imperative. Without listening and working together with those in our schools and district, we cannot be successful.
My plan as a Board of Education member is simple… listen, communicate, respect each other, learn from our differences and advocate for our kids! I am a mom that advocates and supports my children and husband daily and want to have the opportunity to help advocate for you and your children!
I hope that you will support me on May 15 along with voting YES for the New Paltz Central School District 2018-2019 budget and the ancillary bus referendum.
Meghan Goodnow
Gardiner
Good listeners
We are writing a letter to support the candidates who will listen to the parents and students of this district, not by way of a survey or by way of social media but to genuinely listen to their multitude of concerns (school start times, mental health, school safety, etc). Trending on Facebook lately seems to be the Racial Equity Initiative and winning votes based on your position for primarily this. We would hope that we voters will vote on way more than this topic alone. We will admit that our votes will not go to package deal candidates. And by for voting for one, doesn’t necessarily mean we vote for three. When did this become a three vs. three race? We want to vote for candidates that are genuinely looking for the best interest of all and equity for all. When we read through the Racial Equity Initiative, our takeaway is this. AN (read, ONE) incident occurred, where the administration deemed it necessary to invite the Department of Justice in for an evaluation and found “some students experienced issues.” Issues related to race, socioeconomic status and religion. So to move forward and create a Racial Equity Initiative hardly seems warranted. For a district so focused on data and numbers, where are the numbers — how many students experienced how many issues and how many times? Are these repeat offenses and is there genuinely a trend?
The summary of the initiative states the following:
Addressing Institutional Racism by Creating a Culture of Racial and Cultural Proficiency: As a District, we aim to learn about, and use, tools that will help ensure that any personal biases we may have do not interfere with student learning.
As parents of older students, we know this to be false as our kids can tell you without batting an eye, personal biases that their teachers hold, especially in regards to politics and in some cases, religion. Your argument may be that this is not race related, and you would be correct. It simply goes to argue my point that equity for all needs to be the initiative, not race alone.
Do our kids feel like their education was therefore lacking because of a teachers personal opinion? Hardly. We trust that we built a strong foundation in our home for them to stand solid on their beliefs. Will they compromise, we hope not. Will they respectfully disagree sometimes, we would hope so. What is apparent to them is that they are a minority for a myriad of reasons, with race never being one of them. They’ve felt slighted in that their interests (athletics) were underfunded, and sometimes unrecognized, and their Christian faith dismissed and left out of any winter concert in their elementary and middle school years — zero equity as a Hanukkah, a Kwanzaa , a festive winter and a pop song were sung at noted concerts.
Creating a Comprehensive K-12 Racial Equity Curriculum and Implementation of Related Instructional Practices: We plan to integrate a racial equity curriculum into our social studies instruction and to expand it, as feasible, into our humanities classes, and to ensure our faculty and staff have the knowledge and confidence to be effective in its delivery.
Before we are criticized in next week’s letters, we will share one of our own experiences. Following what seemed like a month-long curriculum of Martin Luther King Jr. and the kindness and justice ‘challenge’, our youngest was once told he could not use the bathroom as it was for ‘whites only’. To which he went to the bathroom anyway and carried on. He nonchalantly mentioned this to us during dinner. We made a phone call to both his teacher and the principal and to their credit, they acted quickly. Do we think the kid who said this is racist? No. Were the parents apologetic? Yes. Is our son and this boy, friends? Yes. Does this mean to accept it as okay? By no means. He will, and has continue(d) to love, unconditionally. We are certain this is not a result of institutional racism. Ironically, we believe it happened as a result of over teaching of what ideally would be common sense … to be kind and just regardless.
We believe too much responsibility is put on the schools to raise good children and good citizens … that responsibility needs to be put back into the homes. The board is in place to help teach those good children, not raise those good children.
We do not need to be persuaded that racial equity is important; we need to be persuaded that it is more important than something else.
Tanya and Omar Santos
New Paltz
Hello New Paltz School District voters
Well we are gearing up for quite the election. An election that has us more of a united front than we are accustomed. It feels good.
I no longer have a horse in the race, a child in the district. Both my sons left the district at 15, per their request and with my support. My older son is autistic and after ten years of trying to make New Paltz work, he said no mas. He went to Dutchess Community College for two years and then transferred to Northwestern University. My younger son, after a series of experiences, left the district and academically is enjoying a high school education with STEM (science, tech, engineering, math) opportunities. Both of my sons, athletes and academics.
I experienced the New Paltz district as incredibly antiquated. Administrators that were ignoring existential depression, issues of race, gender and modern-day concerns around extensive bullying, social media ignorance, drugs and neurological/psychological difference. I found staff members that were excellent, but with their hands tied. But also a bottom-up philosophy that rarely notified the higher ups of the goings on. Making it difficult for our super and our board to be effective.
When I attended board meetings in the past, I was offended by the hubris. And I’m sure the members/attendees were offended by mine, and my expectations for more, for better.
There are a lot of people content with our district and focused on problems that to me, serve some long time locals vs. our whole community. As far as athletics are concerned, certain parents are over involved, and while there is plenty of room for improvement — I feel that should be tied to our new athletic director and coaches. For years we had an inflexible AD that catered to admin and, in my opinion, missed the whole community boat. Historically the board’s tactic has been to threaten sports in an effort to get parents worried, to get them to fund raise and get the budget passed. It worked. The last several years funds from many directions have flowed toward sports. We need a sports program not beholden to small local goals. We are a vibrant community of many. The glory days are over.
I’ve done my research, met people out of town in a wig and sunglasses — and reached out to those that I respect, not always like, and this is my take.
A group of incumbents with great intentions have banded together, whereas our community has informally banded the other three, as we are concerned about block voting on the board vs. individuals voting as said — a historical problem that has lamed efforts to grow and change with the times. Brian Cournoyer, Michael O’Donnell and Diana Armstead are the candidates I am supporting as their goals and the intelligence and integrity they bring are aligned with my wants for our district to excel and grow. The tide has finally started to change in favor of all kids, making required admin changes, and having visionaries at the helm. Please also know, as far as late start times, there is no decision in the works. I will hold these three accountable and make sure they recognize the importance bestowed upon them, and to represent our district, despite our many differences with dignity and grace.
It’s time we all identify more with the empath than the bully — as only our kids can teach. Kids first, our egos second.
Joanne Secky
New Paltz
