Candidate for
Member, Board of Education; Greenburgh Central School District

1) Continue improving academic achievement for all students in both elementary and secondary schools. For example:

a) Encourage staff to quickly adapt teaching methods to
pending changes in NYS standardized testing proposed by
the education commissioner;

b) Support "turnkey" teacher training initiatives (a few
teachers learn new techniques and then train the other
teachers in these techniques) both in content areas and
in classroom management skills;

c) Enhance science programs. Many requests I hear from the
community involve improvements to our science programs.
These include restoration of the pull-out science class
at LF Jackson, science fairs at Highview and RJ Bailey,
and more hands on experimentation (with proper safety
protocols enforced) at Woodlands;

d) Enlist Woodlands guidance counselors to teach a course
in college/post-high school survival;

e) Complete implementation of the International
Baccalaureate (IB) Program in all elementary schools;

f) Work to improve our scores on the SAT and other tests
used for college admissions; ______________________________________________________

2) Balancing the educational needs of our students and the burden on taxpayers.

We must maintain quality academic programs, control spending locally, and reform our tax system at the state level. Here are some ideas on local spending control:

a) We need to maintain our open budget process;

b) We are accepting bids for a new transportation contract for next year and hope to save over $600,000 as a result;

c) We should investigate using the services of the Town of Greenburgh to help maintain our facilities;

d) Our buildings are energy inefficient, and we are looking for cost-effective ways of improving this situation.

e) Whenever possible, we should continue bringing special education students back to the district instead of bussing everyone to remote sites. It is less expensive, saves transit time, and is allows students greater opportunities for inclusion in regular education classes;

f) We should continue to support the Response To Intervention (RTI) program. This should reduce the number of students being newly classified as in need of special education by dealing with learning difficulties early;

g) We should explore hosting BOCES and Westchester Community College extension courses on our Woodlands campus in the evenings.

Some issues should be addressed at the state level. The state legislature is currently at an impasse over budgetary issues. Eventually the economy will improve and the log-jam will break.

We need to:

a)Share services with other school districts to save money;

b)Offset property taxes for residents on fixed incomes.

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3) Continue improving communications with district stakeholders.

We need to:

a) Sponsor more forums in which district residents speak to administrators and board members at length;

b) Conduct an updated district-wide survey on the schools strengths and challenges.

c) Further leverage our arts programs to share our students' talents with the community;

d) Improve communications with our WHS alumni, to determine how well we actually prepared them for life beyond high school.