This past Tuesday over 2900 people came to the John Lewis Childs School and the Floral Park-Bellerose School on a rainy day to cast ballots in our school board and budget vote elections.This was certainly the largest turnout in more than a decade. I want to thank our communities for turning out as they did and passing both the elementary school and high school budgets. On behalf of the Boards of Education at both the Floral Park-Bellerose and Sewanhaka Central High School Districts, I want to promise that we’ll work to continue to provide a top quality educational experience for all our children at as reasonable a cost as possible.
I also want to particularly thank our parents, students, administrators, teachers, staff and my fellow board members for their hard work on the budgets this year.
There was tremendous negativity in the days leading up to the vote, with anonymous fliers with half-truths being placed in mailboxes throughout our communities and an Elmont civic leader urging a no vote on News 12 to “send a message.” I believe a message was delivered. People in our communities value the education being provided and believe it to be a worthy and necessary expense even in these trying, tight economic times. They made a conscious choice that our children come first and it’s important to maintain our schools and their programs.
Finally, thank you also to all of the PTAs, civic groups, organizations and individuals that permitted our elementary school superintendent Dr. Pombonyo, as well as our high school superintendent Mr. Meierdiercks and/or Assistant Superintendent for Business Ms. Kenney, to make presentations to them within the past months and get the word out to the public.
David T. Fowler
President
Floral Park-Bellerose
Board of Education
Vice-President
Sewanhaka Central
High School District
Board of Education
