Schools
Video: Sachem Meet The Candidates Night
School board candidates talk about key issues in front of community.
A small crowd of close to 50 gathered to “meet the candidates” for the Sachem Board of Education (BOE) Thursday evening. The annual event, which took place at Samoset Middle School, served as a preliminary dialogue between the candidates running for office and the constituents they hope to represent. This year’s election is scheduled for May 17.
All six candidates, including incumbents Christine Lampitelli, , and were in attendance. Isernia, who was appointed to the board in the wake of David Egloff’s October resignation, is running unopposed for the right to finish out the remaining year of Egloff’s term.
Teri Ahearn, gunning for the seat currently occupied by departing Board Vice President Jim LaCarubba, is also running unopposed. Dan Smith is challenging Lampitelli for her seat, while Dorothy Roberts is seeking to oust Licata.
Find out what's happening in Sachemwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The candidates were seated in not only alphabetical but in alternating gender order, with Ahearn on the far left of the stage and Smith on the far right. Seated closest to the moderator’s podium, Ahearn – whose bid for a board seat fell short last year – introduced herself as a 16-year Sachem resident and a mother of three children in the district. A budget advisory committee member with both administrative and programming experience to her name, Ahearn called the creation of a responsible budget “paramount.”
Isernia, a member of Sachem High School’s class of 1981, spoke with humility of his appointment to the Board last October, referencing the district’s history of leaving vacant seats unfilled. Licata, a 1983 alumnus who is concluding his first term, commented on how all six candidates had the same general objective.
Find out what's happening in Sachemwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
“We’re all interested in providing the best opportunities [for our children]… and being sensitive to taxpayers,” he said.
Shared goal in mind, Licata leaned on his three years of board experience – a period which gave rise to both a new superintendant and improved test scores within the district – as a selling point.
Lampitelli, the retired New York City policewoman seeking a second term, didn’t have an introductory speech prepared and spoke off the cuff about the major issue at hand last time she was a candidate – safety in the schools.
Though challengers Roberts and Smith may be new to the races, they are not new to the district. The former, a mom of four with 15 years of business experience who attends board meetings to stay informed and is a member of the district's audit committee, cited the need to balance quality education and taxpayer burden. Smith, a father of two Sachem girls – one in 9th grade and the other in 12th – disagreed with Isernia’s insinuation that the state of the district was on the upswing, expressing his concern for a “leadership slipping away.”
“I want to ensure that [my younger daughter] Marissa and others enjoy the same benefits and advantages as [my older daughter] Sam,” the 16-year Sachem resident said.
The candidates were faced with an array of questions from the audience. While some of the queries garnered similar answers from nearly all of the candidates (why run for a “time consuming and thankless” position on the BOE and what to do about the heroin drug problem) other topics were more hotly contested. (The answers were a desire to give back to the community and the need to increase education and enforcement, respectively.)
No two candidates agreed on a single academic area to be targeted for improvement. Lampitelli named Advanced Placement classes, Licata English test scores, Roberts individual student needs, Isernia “beefing up” Kindergarten, Smith an increase of fun in the classroom and Ahearn special needs students.
However, the majority of the night’s discourse dealt with the financial challenges faced by the district. In 2011-2012, Sachem will be confronted with a near $14 million decline in state aid. While the number of both classes and teachers will be cut, the candidates stressed the need for the quality of both academic and extracurricular activities to be maintained.
Smith appeared the most outwardly frustrated by the budget cuts, speaking of a desire to remove state mandates and become the “master of [one]’s own wallet.
“You send $10 to Albany and get $7 back," he said. "Possibly less."
A proposed 2 percent tax cap was also an unpopular topic, one which Isernia tagged as “suicide for the school district.” The appointed incumbent stated his preference for the community to have an option to choose a budget. Only if the community’s budget were to be shot down, would the 2 percent cap then be imposed.
As for other ways of funding, Roberts and Isernia pointed to grant-giving educational foundations (with the latter also proposing property rentals and space usage fees), Ahearn to grants from the government, and Lampitelli to cutting spending on wasteful expenditures. Licata suggested a search for excesses in the budget and the continuance of the current cash management process, and Smith emphasized the importance of using what they already have.
No candidates have given any real consideration to closing any school buildings, except as “a last resort.”
Sachem Patch will continue to post profiles on all candidates leading up to the May 17 vote.
