Updated Blog from Monday Night's Meet and Greet with the League of Women Voters

This is a new Blog as an update from Monday night’s meet and greet. First of all, thank you to the Wantagh Community for spending over 2 hours of your evening listening to all 7 of us discuss our positions and why each one of us wants to be elected to the School Board. In addition, thank you to the League of Women Voters for their help and aid. There exist a number of things that I didn't post in my previous blog and didn't get to discuss Monday night. I am reposting them now for those who were unable to attend. First of all, in my previous blog I mentioned increasing the security levels in the Elementary Schools but I didn't indicate how and why. This information came from the Chief of Police in Ohio. He is perfectly on track and these are his suggestions which all work and need to be implemented. He states that he would never arm the principle or the teachers as he spends each and every day having to deal with that issue of shoot or don't shoot. Clearly that is not something we want our teachers to have to deal with. The bigger and more important issues are that every school should have a secure room with a vestibule where parents, conferences and meeting should take place. There should not be anyone in the building during the day except for the school staff. There must be locked doors where people come in and locked doors on the other side of the vestibule so no one can come and go. Perimeter cameras are a must so you can see who is coming and going. This money should be forcefully received from the State and Federal Government. Lobbyists, fracking studies and methane gas tests on cows are all paid for. If we push hard enough we will be able to get the money to make sure our children will be safe. There exists nothing more important than the safety of our children. We can make this happen and we will. In addition, we only have 4 foot high fences around the school and they need to be raised higher. We cannot allow strangers access to the property during the daytime. Monday night we discussed the budget and problems with it. To reiterate we are under the cap with the cap being 4%. However that isn't good enough. Even with a 75,000,000 budget (it is actually around 74 million) 4% equates to 3 million dollars. Each year the budget will go higher and higher and each year the taxes will go up and up. Now is the time to change that. We need to find the ways to make this happen and we can. We cannot take money from our bonds to make the budget look better as that money will eventually disappear. This is why as a Certified Public Accountant my budget experience works. In addition, by being a salesman the one thing I have learned is everything is negotiable. We need to find ways to get grants and money into the schools and rent out facilities to generate money. If we do not get the budget under control there will be nothing left years from now and people will not come to our district. 10 years back Wantagh was a school district of high regard we cannot say the same today. Granted we say 98% of our students graduate with regent’s diplomas but that isn't good enough. GPA scores and getting into good colleges are of major importance. When I graduated in 1978 and up to 10 years others local districts could not compare to us. Douglas MacArthur High School now has better college admission and higher GPA scores then us. We need to get back to where we were and we can. It will take some effort but it is all doable. We also need to get the inclusion classes back at all the Elementary Schools not just in one. As I stated in my closing statement last night, when my now 17 year old daughter was in 5th Grade at Forest Lake she had the inclusion class with her. What she learned was amazing. She learned that everyone was not the same and there exists a different world than just the one she knew. It is the main reason that now at 17 she already knows that she will be a Social Worker and is hunting down schools that have a 5 year Master Social Work Program. I believe all children need to learn this experience as it teaches them so much along with learning how to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. Has anyone wondered why we went through so many Superintendents and why one of them took a lesser paying job at Boces? Don’t get me wrong as I am glad to have Mrs. Goldberg but that isn’t the point. The point is as Trustees on the Board of Education we must allow the Administrators to Administrate, and allow the principals and teachers the freedom to do their jobs. The Trustees are the voice of the community and should get involved in issues only when parents are not being able to resolve issues at the schools. That is when we need to get involved and solve the problems. It doesn’t mean that every single issue can be resolved but it does mean that we need to listen and try to help. Come out and Vote on the 21st of May and the best of luck to the 7 of us running for 2 spots.