Somers Board of Ed candidates make final push before election

SOMERS, N.Y. - Somers school board candidates last week made their eleventh-hour pitches and fielded a wide range of questions from the public.

Topics tackled ranged from the pending bell-to-bell cell phone ban, the use of AI and other technology in the classroom, and communication to their roles as trustees vis-à-vis the district’s administration, school rankings, and the state’s “regionalization” initiative for public schools.

All seven of the folks vying for three open spots were invited to participate in a forum co-sponsored by the Somers P.T.A. Council and the League of Women Voters of Northeast Westchester and held on Monday, May 12, at the Middle School.

Moderating was Alice McNamara from the LWV of the Rivertowns.

Four appeared. They were incumbents Ifay Chang, Amanda Kandel, and Chadwick Olsen, and newcomer Rosalind Gallino.

(Kandel and Olsen are the board’s current president and vice president respectively.)

Not in attendance that evening were hopefuls Michael Rinaldi, Michael Ritacco, and Jozef Vala.

(The forum was live-streamed and recorded. The video is available for watching via the Somers Central School District’s YouTube channel here. 

On Wednesday, May 14, a school board candidate meet-and-greet took place at Crystal Hall in Shenorock.

According to a flyer circulated by its sponsor, the Somers Republican Club, the three who had committed to come were Rinaldi, Ritacco, and Vala, while all seven candidates were publicly invited to attend the event.

There to mingle with the crowd, introduce themselves, and answer questions on various subjects were Rinaldi and Ritacco. Emceeing was the club’s president, Rey Solano.

The “Somers School Board Candidate Meet and Greet” video was posted on Ritacco’s YouTube channel. To watch it, click here.  

To view the full candidates guide in The Somers Record, click here. 

The trustee elections and vote on two propositions -- the $113 budget and a $64 million capital project -- will take place from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Tuesday, May 20, in the Somers Middle School gymnasium. The school is located at 250 Route 202, Somers, N.Y.

Here are a few highlights from the two separate events.

ROLES/RESPONSIBILITIES

Candidates participating in the LWV forum were asked what they thought the board’s responsibilities were in “supporting” the district’s top administrator and how they would balance that “oversight” role while providing the “necessary autonomy for them to lead effectively.”

All four expressed excitement about working with incoming schools Superintendent Dr. Adam Bronstein, who has been spending a lot of time getting to know everybody and building relationships. He officially starts in June.

“That will be key when we do our reorg meeting in July” is to have him sit down with the board as it lays out “its roles as board members and norms and communication and how that’s all going to go down,” said Kandel, who was proud to be part of the search process.

Sometimes folks “have a misconception” about the board’s role and responsibilities, she said, adding that, based on the New York State School Boards Association’s (NYSSBA) definition, it sees itself as a “board of directors” and the superintendent as the “CEO” who “translates those policies.”

Saying it was “no different than onboarding any employee,” Gallino agreed that it was important to sit down with the new superintendent and “express that this is what our community values, this is how our communication works, these are our procedures.”

“It’s also important for the board to hold him accountable, not to rubber stamp things, to support him but also to remind him that this is a district that’s rich in excellence and needs to continue to be so,” she said, noting that that requires “open and transparent communication between him and the community.”

“That’s the best way to make sure he’s a successful leader,” Gallino asserted.

Saying the district was “very lucky” to have hired such a “high-quality” superintendent, Chang recalled that in the “early days” the board had relied less on consultants in their search processes.

“Not that they’re (consultants) not useful, they are. They’re very experienced, but on the other hand, the board itself is missing an opportunity to go through a working experience, to understand what you need in a superintendent, which superintendent can best fit Somers.”

“We’re lucky to have the superintendent and we will work with him,” Chang said.

Luck had very little to do with it, Olsen said, noting that there were “a lot of strong candidates” and the evaluation process was based on in-depth evaluations and “very meaningful feedback from the community.”

“It really dialed us in on what we were looking for and it made that choice easy,” he explained, explaining that trustees do act as a “check and balance” but it’s more of a “teamwork” situation.

“Our responsibility is to help guide him (the superintendent) as he communicates with the community,” Olsen said, adding: “I think he’s off to a great start.”

Saying that the new superintendent “seems to be a fantastic guy,” T.J. McCormack, chair of the Somers Republican Town Committee, asked Rinaldi and Ritacco at the meet-and-greet what they’d do as trustees to improve communication between the school board and the public.

Ritacco responded he thought school boards “should be able to communicate directly with parents” and not have to go through “a filtering process.”

At the LWV forum, Kandel pointed out that the board does set aside time for public comment at its meetings and answers individual concerns via email.

It also recently created a community Q&A on its website, helping to close “the loop” by letting the general public check out responses to questions asked at a board meeting, she said.

Meetings are primarily intended for the conduction of the district’s business and “not really a place to interact back and forth,” Kandel explained, adding that trustees do pay close attention to all questions and concerns raised.

(The board follows a set policy, including the forbidding of the naming of special personnel, staff, or students for both legal and privacy reasons.)

Ritacco added that sometimes he can’t tell if responses are coming “from the superintendent, board president, the board as a whole, or their lawyer” and that can feel “extremely unauthentic.”

He thought a “better system” needed to be created.”

Rinaldi agreed that “communication could and should be better.”

“The only thing I’ll add is that there are times I can’t tell the difference between the board and the administration and that, to me, is a problem because they should be two separate, independent things,” he said.  “They should make those hard decisions, seek transparency, and seek communication.”

TECHNOLOGY TODAY

The state’s new “bell-to-bell” cell phone ban and the use of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in the classroom were also hot topics.

Taking effect this fall, it prohibits all students in public and charter schools from using smartphones and other internet-enabled personal devices during the school day.

Still allowed would be phones without internet access as well as school-provided laptops or tablets needed for lessons.

School districts will develop their own ways to implement the ban, including how to store phones and $13.5 million in state funding will be available to them buy storage solutions.

They also must provide parents with a way to contact their children during the day and district stakeholders should be involved in developing local policies.

Somers is a step ahead, having put its own version in place last year.

Olsen thought it was “very sensible” that students can bring their phones to school as long as they follow guidelines for their use, such as storing them in magnetic pouches during class.

As for the state edict?

“I think it should be our decision. I don’t think it’s something that needs to come from the state. This is something that we’re doing a good job (on) on our own,” he said, adding that so far feedback has been positive.

Noting that she was comfortable with students K-8th grade having to keep their phones in their lockers, Kandel however was not “really in favor of a bell-to-bell ban” at the high school.

However, she was waiting for more guidance from the state before passing judgment.

“I like the way we’re doing it now,” Kandel added, explaining that this is an opportunity for youngsters themselves to learn how to responsibly use cell phones.

Gallino wasn’t sure if a ban can be effectively enforced or if it’s really what teachers and students want.

“We need to speak to the people who are directly involved in order the make sure the decision that’s being made is one that’s in the best interest of all of the people involved,” she said.

To Chang, a retired IBMer with an extensive background in computer science, cell phones are part of daily life and the issue of their use in the schools really boils down to one of “discipline” on the students’ part.

Rinaldi and Ritacco were asked if they believed AI tools such as ChatGPT should be “banned, restricted, or embraced” in classrooms?

“AI is absolutely a revolution; it’s not going away,” responded Rinaldi, the managing director of a global finance firm, responded, calling it something that educators need to “teach, learn, and understand.”

However, it doesn’t replace “the need for fundamental skills and critical thinking.”

It needs to be “managed properly and controlled” and students can’t be allowed to become “dependent” on it, he added.

Ritacco, a 20-year career educator who’s now director of technology for Port Chester Schools, was adamant that if schools are not teaching kids how to appropriately use AI then they’re doing them a “disservice.”

While jobs may get lost to the technology, many more will be created by it, and those will go to those who can use AI, he said.

Insisting that no one wants students to “lose that productive struggle,” Ritacco predicted that AI could benefit them if it’s used “appropriately, ethically, and without compromising academic integrity.”

Teachers should be supported with professional training too, he said.

REGIONALIZATION

Candidates at the LWV forum were also asked Monday about the concept of “regionalization.”

As explained by the state Education Department, the initiative is a “collaborative regional planning approach for local districts to communicate what they need in order to ensure equitable educational opportunities for all students, leveraging the state's existing capabilities, talent, and infrastructure.”

Saying he found the term “vague,” Chang thought that even though there’s been a lot of discussion on the topic this past year, more was needed so that the school community knows exactly what it’s getting into.

“It’s really important to understand what it is and what it isn’t,” said Olsen when it was his turn.

“There’s a lot of representation that some people are making that regionalization means we’re going to take the good things we do and give them away to our neighboring districts or give away our local control and have a regional board running our district. That is NOT what regionalization is,” he explained, adding that it’s about finding “opportunities” to work together once certain needs are identified.

“For starters, it’s a horrible name,” because it leads some people to mistakenly think that “we’re consolidating our school districts into one region,” Kandel said, “It’s not that.”

The 37 regional BOCES are facilitating discussions based on the “strengths and needs” surveys filled out by school districts, each of which has the “flexibility” to decide the extent of their involvement.

“Somers continues to have a seat at the table for now,” Kandel said, pointing out that the plan is still in flux and districts aren’t being asked to commit to any particular collaborative efforts until October.

Gallino agreed that not enough is known yet to be able to definitively say if regionalization would be a boon or bane for Somers.

However, it would be “foolish” to pass up the opportunity to learn more, she said.

One of the reasons Somers is such a good district is that it’s been willing to “rethink” and “remodel” what it’s done when necessary, Gallino said, asserting that it would be “disingenuous” for any district that “values collaboration to think that regionalization -- as such -- was automatically a bad idea.”

The subject of local control also came up when Rinaldi and Ritacco were asked Wednesday how they felt about the Trump administration’s move to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, which plays a crucial role in distributing federal funds to states and schools, including initiatives that support special education and financial aid. 

“A lot of people are concerned that those are going to go away. Those are not going to go away. We’re not going to lose that funding. The federal government has already said that’s going to get diverted to another department, which means the red tape is actually going to decrease and local districts should have more control over their funding,” Ritacco said, adding that he also sees fewer restrictions on testing.

“My biggest problem with regionalization is that when it comes to that, we’re already doing it,” he said later in the evening, referring to the Port Chester district where, for example, technology folks meet regularly to share “best practices.”

Athletic directors and administrators also collaborate, he said, adding: “When it comes to shared services, these avenues already exist.”

Up next, Rinaldi thought that if it the Department of Education went away, it might result in more “more local control” for individual districts.

It reminded him of another hot button issue: regionalization.

Conceding that it’s a new concept and there’s “more to be understood about it,” Rinaldi said that for now, to him, it seems like a step toward “potentially giving up local decision making” as well as “sharing our tax dollars” with, or subsidizing, other school districts.

Rinaldi promised to keep an open mind but, at present, he was against it.

MISCELLANEOUS MODE

There were several important areas where questions posed at the LWV forum and candidate meet-and-greet did not overlap.

At the former venue, candidates were asked how they felt about the district’s International Baccalaureate (IB) Programme and Middle Years Programme and whether they should be continued.

Both are not about “what we teach and learn but rather how we teach and learn,” according to the district’s website.

All four LWV participants said Monday that they were firmly on the pro side.

“The options that it’s given to our students is terrific,” said Olsen, pointing out that “other schools have come in and observed and been really excited by what they’ve seen in the classroom.”

Explaining that the MYP is for sixth-through 10th-graders and it not a “feeder” program into an IB Diploma for high school juniors and seniors, Kandel said she’s “a big supporter of both.”

“IB is wonderful. You can also just take individual classes. Most kids take a mixture of IB and AP (Advanced Placement), it depends on their style of learning and schedules,” she said, adding that reading skills have improved since the programs were introduced.

Believing that both the IB and the MYP programs have “broadened intellectual, creative, and educational opportunities” for students, Gallino promised to “always support them.”

Chang agreed that the IB program has worked well, but felt, like any educational initiative, it “needs time to show results, to prove its worth.”

As its “reputation for excellence” grows, more and more students will be drawn to it, he said.

The thorny subject of school “rankings” came up at the meet and greet.

How important are they?

“Very important. It’s how we are perceived, it’s how people see our district,” Ritacco responded.

And why should that matter to us?

For parents wanting to know more about a school's overall quality, the internet is full of performance scores on sites such as Niche and U.S. News & World Report.

According to Ritacco, “the average family  is not moving to Westchester County for any other reason than exceptional schools” and they only look at two things: rankings and housing costs.

“Why would I move here if the other district has better schools and lower housing costs?” he asked rhetorically.

Declining enrollment only adds to the problem.

It’s been an issue in Somers for the “better part of a decade now,” he said, adding that it’s not slowing down but accelerating.

“One of the biggest driving forces of this? New York state is a very expensive place to live” and “more people are moving out of the state than any other place,” Ritacco said.

The problem is our budget is directly connected to head count. The more students we lose, the lower our budget, the more we start to lose programs and start to lay off staff. Nobody wants to see that happen,” he said.

The district should be doing whatever it takes to “combat this,” he said.

Ditto, said Rinaldi.

Rankings are an indicator of not only how well kids are doing in school, but how well the district is “preparing them for the real world” whether that entails going to college, learning a trade, or finding a good job, he said.

“When someone’s moving here, especially in my little world, they get a list of schools in Westchester and if you’re not in the Top 10, you’re not even considered,” Rinaldi said, also noting that rankings can either deflate or bolster property values.