Candidate for
Member, Board of Education; Ardsley Union Free School District

I believe that actions speak louder than words. While others talk the talk and issue endless political promises, I walk the walk and live by my word. I've learned that a few well placed phone calls can do more than endless debate. That a focused person can move mountains with the support of their community. I know all our local politicians and have very good working relations with them. I believe that its not just what you know but its who you know that gets things done. And I believe in giving back to my community. I volunteer once a month to feed the hungry in the city with Midnight Run. I also work with the Westchester Darfur Coalition to help end the genocide there.

A school board must be accountable to the community it serves. It should never see itself as being above and apart from that community. There should be term limits on a school board to prevent people from staying too long. As Lord Acton so famously said, "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." People should only serve two terms. After that they become jaded and are less willing to revisit issues.

There is no reason to accept the adage that our taxes must always go up. We need to work to find better ways to staunch the hemorrhaging in our taxes. Its time to stop allowing the granting of endless expensive tax certioraris that sap huge sums of money from the school budget each and every year. I have found legislation that will end this and am currently working with our political leaders in Albany to change the law.

We need to put together a panel of accountants, business people, CEOs, and others to write a totally new school budget from the ground up and compare it to the one we get from the school Administration. People who run businesses actually feel accountable and can make a budget work. We need a new perspective and new ideas.

Our schools fail the gifted, those at risk, children with special needs, and gives short shrift to those in the middle. Homework is out of control. There should never be three tests in the same week. Education does not need to be punishment.

We need to listen to the community on all issues before decisions are made. A district that hires a Principal only to see them go a few years later is a district that needs to make better choices. We are facing the loss of two principals this coming year. There is talk that we may also be seeing other major changes. This does not bode well for our district. It is time we take better control of our choices and stop making excuses.

We must work harder on our technology. It is our future. The world of tomorrow that our children will face will be dominated by technology. Either we can move forward or surely we will fall behind and witness our children living a life of less than we now have. We are no longer competing with neighboring school districts. We now are competing with India and China in a race for the future. Do we want to sit back and turn out degrees that will not prepare our children for the competition they will face.

I believe we live in a wonderful community. The quality of our schools is more a result of who we are than what we have made of our schools. We need to do a much better job.