CROSS RIVER, N.Y. - Julia Hadlock, the Katonah-Lewisboro school board president, will not seek re-election next month, the second long-serving member to step down this year.
“It has been an honor to serve, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to volunteer on behalf of our students, their families and the community for the past nine years,” Hadlock said in a prepared statement.
With the departure after three terms of both Hadlock and Rory Burke, the new board seated in July will at most have only one trustee who has completed a full three-year first term. Marjorie Schiff, board president for eight years and just as busy and engaged as a member for another five, will be starting only the second year of her fifth term.
By week’s end (April 11), the contest to fill three board seats had attracted only two candidates, both Katonah residents. Incumbent Trustee Jon Poffenberger, an educator, and Arwen Thomas Belloni, a sales strategy support manager, had submitted the nominating petitions needed to acquire a place on the May 20 ballot.
The Katonah-Lewisboro Times will preview the voting in its May 8 edition.
Community members interested in running can obtain candidate packets from Kimberly Monzon, the district clerk, at her Cross River office. Email kmonzon@klschools.org or call 914-763-7020 to schedule an appointment to obtain a packet. Nominating petitions must be signed by at least 33 KLSD residents and filed with the clerk by 5 p.m. on Monday, April 21.
Hadlock was the board’s vice president when she succeeded Schiff as president in 2023, the same year the current v.p., Trustee Lorraine Gallagher, was elected to the board.
In her two years as president, Hadlock oversaw board efforts to achieve two major objectives. In one, she directed the board’s search for a new superintendent, a quest that ultimately brought Dr. Raymond Blanch to Cross River from Somers, where he had led the school district since 2011.
Hadlock also guided the work of a 13-member committee of board trustees, KLSD administrators and district residents weighing the fate of the former Lewisboro Elementary School (LES) on Bouton Road as well as KLSD’s onetime headquarters on Shady Lane, both in South Salem.
LES, a community fixture for almost 85 years, was closed as a school more than a decade ago. The Town of Lewisboro has been a tenant, renting office space and meeting accommodations from the school district.
It took the committee relatively little time to conclude that the Shady Lane building should be demolished and the land preserved for future educational pursuits. The LES question took longer to resolve but in the end the committee recommended the former schoolhouse become the site for all district prekindergarten programs. The town will need to find alternative office space, the board decided.
“I will miss it,” Hadlock said of her board tenure, “and hope to continue to be in service to the community in a different capacity in the future.”
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