Five candidates will vie for three available Board of Education positions on Tuesday, May 19. The Port Washington News has invited each of the candidates to submit a statement introducing themselves to the community.
James Ansel
My wife and I are 25 year residents with three children throughout the schools. For 45 years, I have managed construction; 19 years in schools. We love Port Washington. I am appalled with the misrepresentations used to foist the construction bond upon our community. We are in a fix!
Every year, regardless that each budget is built over the previous, funding is insufficient. The outcome is increases that average over twice the rate of inflation. Over the years, we have fallen into a bad pattern. Despite the rhetoric, the children are increasingly being left behind. The school electorate is a narrow constituency. Parents and district employees are the core voters. School employees vote increases to pay for their own increases. Thus, we have a convergence driving teachers, administrators and parents to approve school budgets. Absent of the truth and lacking a turnout of the greater community, the narrow electorate rules.
Special interests are able to select the trustees. Those to be managed select their managers! This is disastrous! Trustees so selected negotiate away our rights and will not oppose teacher demands. As a result, we suffer give-away contracts and spiraling runaway costs! This skewed system is corrupted away from the interests of the children, education and greater community.
In this election, we have two no-change incumbents and a yes parent. All three, in their deceptive promotion of the $70 million construction bond, victimized Port Washington with $36 million in interest alone and another $18 million in unnecessary work. Reject these three. If you stay home, nothing will change. On May 19, vote only for James Ansel.
Larry Greenstein
Larry Greenstein has lived in Port Washington for nearly 30 years. He and his wife Star Anthony have two sons, both of whom graduated from Port schools. Larry has served on the school board since 2006. Before that, he was an active member of the Daly and Weber HSAs, President of SEPTA, and Treasurer of Parents Council. Larry is a past board member of Residents for a More Beautiful Port Washington and currently sits on their Chairman’s Circle. He is the district representative to their Energy & Sustainability Committee.
Larry views every policy through the lens of “What is best for the kids?” Every child has strengths and challenges; Larry believes that the district’s job is to challenge the former and strengthen the latter. Larry has been instrumental in getting more special-needs children educated in-district, which saves money while providing better socialization. He has fought to expand access and adjust criteria so more students can take advanced and AP coursework, as well as to preserve Port’s many extracurricular activities. Looking forward, Larry wants to expand opportunities for all students through: interest-based Core Extension at Weber, project-based collaborative learning at the elementary level, and more Technology and Computer Science opportunities district-wide.
An advocate by nature and training (graduating from N.Y.S. Partner in Policymaking in 2004), Larry has experience working collaboratively to innovate and move ideas forward. He has given formal testimony before a N.Y. State Assembly Committee and meets regularly with elected officials on both sides of the aisle as well as with Education officials. Larry is a member of the Executive Board of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association and has been a delegate to the National Advocacy Institute of the National School Boards Association in Washington D.C.
Nora Johnson
The district’s goal is to ensure excellence and equity in every student’s education. As a board member, I’m proud of our success and my contribution in fulfilling this goal. We work collaboratively and relentlessly to deliver the best possible opportunities for every student, despite the outside obstacles: unfunded mandates, decreasing state aid, and the tax cap. We are sensitive to the economic stresses so many face. Working with our educators and parents, we’ve preserved and improved programming on a budget that’s been consistently under the cap. Our recently approved capital bond is fiscally responsible and benefits everyone by bringing our facilities into the 21st century. We work with legislators to push for support and funding for public education, which is more critical than ever.
I serve as Board Vice President, an honor that reflects my fellow trustee’s faith in my leadership. As Policy Committee chairperson, I use my legal expertise to improve policies that guide our district. We updated our Code of Conduct, which now addresses social media and cyberbulling, and added a financial need component to a long standing scholarship award. I’m on the Curriculum Committee, where we work to improve our rich course offerings, including finding creative ways to deliver more effective differentiated education and increased use and teaching of technology. The Diversity Sub-Committee, which I co-chair, spearheaded a wonderful mentoring program at Manorhaven that is growing.
Board members agree it takes at least two years to get up to speed. I feel like I’m just reaching my stride. I look forward to another three years of service.
David Sattinger
Port Washington Resident Since 2004
Proud parent of a 7th grade student at Weber Middle School
Graduate Roslyn High School 1981
BA Political Science Binghamton University 1985
Profession: Garment Sales and Production
When building any successful team or organization, it is imperative to have a team that respects and recognizes community diversity. To create the partnership for change and improve the overall institutional health. This is exactly what I will bring to the Board of Education.
Our district is facing serious challenges. Budget deficits are adversely impacting class sizes and curriculum. Soaring taxes threatens Port’s wonderful diversity, disproportionately affecting our seniors and poor. Since 2002, school budgets have risen over twice the rate of inflation, 5.5% per year. This does not include the recent $70 million dollar bond, where I propose a Community Oversight Panel to protect our investment.
Our curriculum must be overhauled to embrace technology and globalization to meet students’ needs. We must commit to foreign language with bi-lingual opportunities in elementary schools; computer literacy and technology program, and gifted and talented education program.
I have been the only candidate to propose a modern educational vision while pledging to contain costs. Dartmouth President Phillip Hanlon states the importance of educational innovation, but to control costs, we must avoid just educational addition. We must look at educational substitution. I agree.
Collectively our board has acquiesced to the status quo, leading to recent unanimous votes cutting Foreign Language, PEP, and Arts, while overriding class size limits. This is wrong.
Let us embrace a modern education. I pledge to work cooperatively with the administration, Board, teachers and employees, with transparency for our community. Let’s put Port on the pathway to greatness again.
I would be honored to have your vote on Tuesday, May 19.
Elizabeth Weisburd
My children are the fourth generation of the “Nelsen Family” born in Port Washington. In 1997, my husband and I bought our first house here. I left my work as a behavioral therapist for children with autism when my oldest daughter was born. I began my involvement in education in Port Washington teaching a Mommy and Me class at the Parent Resource Center and have been involved in our schools since Salem’s opening in 2004. I was an active member of the Salem HSA, working countless hours helping to raise money and bring additional resources to our kids to provide things that fell outside the constraints of the school budgets. My membership and involvement in Septa has helped me understand the many needs in the district. As a PYA lacrosse coach from 2004-2013, and member of the board of the Athletic Association of Port Washington, the importance of athletics to our children is very clear. In my current position as co-president of the Weber HSA, I have heard the concerns of both parents and staff and acted upon them when I was able. I was an active member of the school district community committee for the bond. That experience taught me how important it is to reach out to all community stakeholders and hear and attempt to address the needs of everyone while serving our children to the best of our ability.
Over the years, I have built a very successful working relationship with administrators, teachers, directors, and staff throughout the district and I have earned their respect. My ability to collaborate with all stakeholders in the community is well demonstrated. I believe that a strong Board of Education, capable of working together, can implement the vision I have for the schools. Equity across the district in curriculum and delivery is a critical piece of that vision and needs to remain at the forefront. Supporting all students as individual learners, and ensuring that each reaches their full potential should always be the number one goal. Creating a space where all students are included and supported socially and emotionally is something we need to continue to work on and strive for. Many of the larger issues affecting education in Port Washington are currently being decided at the state and federal level. I plan to continue my quest to gain all the knowledge I can on these issues and work hard to lobby our representatives to make changes that are reflective of the needs and beliefs of our community. I am committed to ensuring that Port Washington is a place my children will be both want to and be able to return to raise their own children and that I am able to follow in my grandmother’s footsteps and live the remainder of my life in Port Washington.
