Westbury school district voters will see a new name on their May 20 ballot.
Mateo Flores, the director of the Hempstead Community Action Program and a resident of Westbury since 1981, who has lived there since immigrating to the United States from El Salvador, is running unopposed for a seat that opened when Pedro Quintanilla resigned after being elected to the village’s board of trustees in March.
Flores, who graduated from Westbury High School in 1987, has three children in the district: two daughters who recently graduated and one son in 11th grade.
He said he’s running because he wants to give back to the schools and community that he said he feels have done so much for him.
“I want to run because I want to give back to the community that has been so good to me and my family,” said Flores, who’s also the founder of the Westbury Hispanic Association. “Westbury is my home. I have raised my kids in Westbury. I think that running for the board is a way to give back to our community. If there’s anything that I can do to enhance what is being done in the district at the current time, I’d definitely like to chip in.”
Flores is running alongside two unopposed incumbents, board Vice President Floyd Ewing, who’s lived in Westbury for over 50 years and has served the board for over 15 years, and President Robert Troiano, a longtime resident who’s been on the board for five total terms and also serves the Town of North Hempstead as a council member.
Ewing, who graduated from the district the same year as Flores, holds degrees from Columbia University and Notre Dame and has worked as an attorney and a commercial finance consultant for small businesses, things he’s said have provided him with valuable experience when working on the district’s budget and managing school personnel.
He first served on the board between 1999 and 2010 and again since 2019. Ewing said he stepped down in 2010 because he wanted to devote more time to his children, a set of twins who graduated out of the district last year and ran to return to office in 2019, once they were a bit older.
“I wanted to see continued improvement in the schools,” Ewing said on why he returned to the board. “I wanted to make sure that I was a part of that.”
He said he’s spent his time on the board working to bring IB courses to the school, upgrade the district’s facilities, and expand the district’s athletic programs and sports teams, something he feels passionately about as a former three-sport varsity athlete.
In his next term, he said he wanted to continue this work, alongside enhancing the district’s college partnerships, which allow students to take courses for dual enrollment and earn university credits in high school.
Ewing said he’s driven to continue serving on the board out of a deep devotion to his community, which was instilled in him during his time at Westbury High School.
“All throughout my high school experience, Westbury High School made it a priority to instill in us that giving back to your community was not only something you should do, but something you must do,” said Ewing.
He added that he felt he owed his sense of purpose, self-confidence, and successes to the district.
“I felt that being on the school board was a way for me to be able to do that,” he said.
Troiano said that his 16 years on the school board, which he’s served between 1991 and 1994, 1996 and 2002 and 2018 onward, have been characterized by work to iron out previously dysfunctional management, improve educational opportunities and on the district’s lawsuit against the state that resulted in increased funding for Westbury and an alteration in the way foundation aid is distributed to districts across the county.
“Westbury schools didn’t have enough money to educate our kids to make their dreams come true, to get enough academic enrichment, as well as enrichment in the sports and arts,” said Troiano.
He said that the district’s hard-fought legal battle, which he led as president, helped them win their Foundation Aid lawsuit against the state, receive more funds, and lower taxes.
“Since we started receiving more financial aid, we began investing in education programs by adding curriculum, by adding staff, all in the hopes of increasing the overall academic performance of our students and providing them with exposure to programs that might be considered to be outside the normal academic program,” he added.
If re-elected, Troiano, who graduated from the district’s high school in 1971, said he’ll use this next term to continue working to upgrade the district’s safety and security infrastructure and collect data on the educational advancements the district has made over the past few years to assess what’s working and what’s not.
He said his MBA, prior work in finance and previous certification as a CPA have helped him in his work on the school’s budget and his other elected roles have provided him with knowledge of how to leverage government effectively and expertise in leading and bringing different people and ideas together effectively, something which he said the board has been in great need of at various points over the past few decades.
Flores also said he feels his past community work has prepared him to serve on the school board.
He said his work with the Hempstead Community Action Program, which involves him helping to provide direct services to the community like rental assistance, emergency food distribution and senior programs, has given him the opportunity to work one-on-one with many community members, something he feels is relevant experience.
“I’m a trusted individual in the community,” Flores said. “I’m someone that is concerned for the education of our students, and I bring a lot of expertise. I hope people will vote for me because they know me, trust me and I’m someone that cares for our students.”
If elected, Flores, who’s also the chairperson of the Westbury Youth Soccer Club, said he’d hope to work to continue enhancing the district’s extracurricular and sports programs on the board.
“I have always believed that education must have additional programs that can help our students accomplish their goals after school,” he said. “I will work hard to find things that will make Westbury a greater place, a better place to learn and enhance the curriculum of the school district. I want to make sure that our kids get the best education possible.”
Troiano said he fully supported Flores joining the board.
“It’s good to bring new blood in and to hear their ideas and their perspectives. I look forward to hopefully having Mateo on the board,” Troiano said. “I’m very sorry to see Pedro Quintanilla go, but I’m glad we’ve found someone who can try to fill his shoes.”
Residents will be going to the polls on May 20 to vote on the trustee elections and the district’s $201 million budget. The election will be held from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the Westbury Middle School, Park Avenue School, Dryden Street School and Drexel Avenue Elementary School.
