By Dan Murphy
“The culture wars that are raging across our country have landed here in Westchester,” emailed one elected official and one of our readers. Newsday’s recent headline reads “Long Island School Board Elections get Nasty.”
Several school board races in Westchester County have competitive races with 30 candidates running for office in four school districts. Giving the voters in those school districts an option to vote for is good in any election. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that the hatred that we have seen at recent school board meetings has spilled over in some of these school board races, with the elections being held May 17, for school board, and to approve your local school district’s budget for the upcoming 2022-2023 school year.
In February, tensions reached a boiling point at a Lakeland School Board meeting, where discussion over the implementation of a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, (DEI), initiative from the NYS Board of Regents turned into unacceptable comments from the public that included calling Superintendent Karen Gagliardi a “n****r lover,” Assistant Superintendent Tracy Norman called an “Uncle Tom,” and accusing School Board President Adam Kaufman of, “being so very German,” when he tried to calm the crowd.
After that meeting, the Lakeland Federation of Teachers, and concerned parents and students attended the next meeting to voice their support, for the DEI initiative, for the Superintendent. Asst. Superintendent, and Board President, and for a committment to providing a postive role model and example young adults and students.
One of those in attendance was Joe Ascanio. Ascanio stepped forward and decided to run for Lakeland School Board and to try and lower the temperature of hostility and push back against the hate. He is running with three other candidates Paul Edwards, Chuck Monsanto and Laura Perozo. The have the support of Lakeland Rise, and Teach the Truth Westchester.
But the hate continues to show itself. On Mother’s Day, after placing a LGBT flag outside of his house, he received a text message that we printed above. “While enjoying a low-key Mothers Day evening with my family, we received the text message included here. And yes, that pride/ally “fruit flag” is in fact proudly displayed outside my house. On the same street to which our own Superintendent was followed home only a few months ago. Obviously this is a masked/faked phone number, and the harasser(s) likely created it specifically to be an immature, antagonistic coward for this very reason. Nonetheless, I filed a police report at approximately 9:50pm with our wonderful and helpful Yorktown PD, who confirmed that they had already just received multiple complaints about the same number, all in similar fashion. I’m sharing this so that people remain aware that there are, in fact, a small minority of aggressively ignorant people trying to impact what good can be done in our community and in our schools. I am sick of the insistence otherwise. My kids now had to finish their weekend with the notion that there is at least one adult in their town who is low enough to stalk by their own home – the evening of Mother’s Day – and send an anonymous, pointless hate message for no other reason than that. As wonderful as our district is, we need to do better. Obviously,” wrote Ascanio.
The second text above, sent by the same fake phone number, came after an exchange of comments on Facebook, that got nasty. The Facebook post and comments have been deleted, but the harassment continued. “Then around 7:30 last night I received a text from a 914 cell phone number. Someone I clearly did not know. This person immediately makes racist remarks about my children. Made it known they drove by my house and down my street. My wife when asked said she saw a Silver Chevy small SUV type care slowly go up and down the block. Stopping at my car. She took notice of this as we live on a cul de sac. My personal experience and that of my wife and children says otherwise. Our experience has been nothing but overwhelmingly warm and welcoming in this great community. And I am certainly not going to let something like this change that. Someone recently posted that “Sunlight is the Best disinfectant” about the elections. Well here is your sunlight.”–said one Lakeland School District resident.
There are three sets of four candidates running for Lakeland School Board. In addition to Ascanio, Monsanto, Edwards and Perozo, there is a slate of four candidates endorsed by the Lakeland Federation of Teachers. Three of these candidates are incumbent members of the Lakeland School Board. They are: Marianne DiSalvo Kolesar, Michael Marchese, Becky Burfeind, and Board President Adam Kaufman.
“This election is taking place in an era of unprecedented animus and unacceptable language hurled at our Board of Education meetings. In fact, a couple of months ago, it was necessary to bring the membership of the LFT to a BOE meeting to stand in the defense of decency,” writes the LFT in their endorsement letter. “Two of the slates are supportive of our schools, programs, students and educators. The third slate is made up of candidates that have shown a disregard for what it means to offer a high quality education, and offers nothing more than continued disonnance should they get elected.”
The third set of candidates, running under United 4 Lakeland, are Erin O’Grady, Genie Muller, Beth Dee, and Maggie Perlman. This slate of candidates responded to LFT President Michael Lillis regarding the teacher’s union letter, stating, “The Board sat quietly as Brendon Lyons (former Superintendent) pushed through CRT, under the guise of NYS CRSE framework (The New York State Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education), through the equity team, later calling it DEI.”
The letter from United 4 Lakeland continues, “Where was Mr. Lillis when our children were kept away from their classrooms for 18 months during 2020-2021?” This portion of the letter references the time during COVID when all schools were closed throughout NY State.
The LFT does express one fear about the outcome of the Lakeland School Board elections that we share. That with two slates of candidates running on one side of the debate, and with United 4 Lakeland on the other side, two slates could split their votes.
We asked Ascanio about splitting the vote. “I don’t believe that we are splitting vote because that February meeting got us to the point of having to run for school board. For whatever reason the current board didn’t manage the meetings and didn’t put its foot down when they should have. We need new voices and new inspiration and ideas. We won’t be afraid to stand up to obnoxious voices, and from the group of candidates who want to turn back the clocks.”
Turnout will be the key in this race, as thousands of more Lakeland taxpayers are expected to come out on May 17.
In Yorktown, two slates of three candidates are running for three seats on the Yorktown Board of Education. Three current members of the Yorktown School Board are running for re-election. They are Reshmi Bose, Cheryl Reynolds, and Lisa Rolle. The three challengers are Michael Capalbo, Richard Giannasca, and Frank Panebianco. There’s not a lot of information available on the challengers in this contest.
We endorse Joe Ascanio, Paul Edwards, Chuck Monsanto and Laura Perozo in Lakeland and Reshmi Bose, Cheryl Reynolds, and Lisa Rolle in Yorktown. Threats against other candidates and racial slurs at school board meetings have no place in either school district. We urge a vote against the candidates of hate and fear.
In Southern Westchester, competitive school board races are underway in New Rochelle, Eastchester and Mount Vernon. In New Rochelle, three candidates are running for two seats on the New Rochelle Board of Education.
They are: Adam Cooper, Stephen Mayo and David Peters. The three participated in a forum that can be watched online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIA_thfT_T8&t=112s.
Mayo has made news in Northern Westchester, in both the Lakeland and Yorktown school board meetings where he has commented and tabled outside, in support of the SOS agenda. While not placing any signs for his race in New Rochelle, Mayor did post of Facebook, “Friends and neighbors, I am running for the New Rochelle School Board. Elections are on May 17th. Please tell your New Rochelle friends that this is an important election as there are many critical issues facing our kids and their educators.”
In Eastchester, 8 candidates are running for 4 seats on the Board of Education: Cheryl Smith, Steve Projansky, Stan Thangaraj and Cardi Smith are running on a 4thestudents slate. Running on the Eagles Upward slate for the Eastchester Board of Education are Christine Lombardi, Matthew Fanelli, Laurie Giacobbe, and Michele Lawlor. Projansky and Cherly Smith are current members of the school board.
In Mount Vernon, a slate of three candidates for school board is actively campaigning, and urging a NO vote on the upcoming school budget vote, also on May 17. Candidates Lorna Kirwan, Adriane Saunders and Marc Lenci, claim that the proposed Mt. Vernon School Budget has a tax increase that is not necessary. Also running are Melissa Munoz Patterson, Marc Stuckey, Warren Mitchell and Diane Roger-Arroya. Munoz-Patterson, Mitchell and Rogers-Arroya are also running on a slate.
Stuckey is running on his own and said, “Other candidates do not wish to run with me due to the fact that I do not hold back on speaking the truth.”
