Write-ins make impression in Lakeland school board vote

In addition to the budget, two propositions were also approved. A bus and vehicle bond measure passed 825 to 423, while Proposition 3, which established a capital reserve fund, was approved 814 to 435.

Incumbents Adam Kaufman (732 votes), Michael Marchese (747), and Marianne DiSalvo Kolesar (766)—who ran uncontested on the ballot—were reelected to three-year terms on the Board of Education. However, a write-in campaign, mounted as a protest against the current board, drew support for Joe Ascanio (338 votes), Laura Ferrelli (335), and James Hedberg (319).

Kaufman, the BOE president, told Yorktown News that the board “would like to thank the voters who turned out to approve the school budget, and both bond propositions by a wide margin. Those same voters overwhelmingly re-elected three incumbents for new terms.”

Write-in 'sends message'

While write-in campaigns are not new to the school district, Kaufman said he believes Lakeland Residents in Support of Education, the political advocacy group known on social media as Lakeland Rise, “orchestrated this year’s failed campaign” and “has unsuccessfully run campaigns in the past.”

However, members of Rise, which was founded in 2021, said it is “dedicated to promoting school board candidates who are forward-thinking and will increase transparency in the district.” According to organizers, the group has around 650 followers on Facebook, with about 60 people on its Slack channel.

Write-in candidate Ferrelli said she would consider mounting a more formal run for school board in the future, but decided to wage a write-in campaign in response to the district’s 2025–26 budget presentation.

The “straw that broke the camel’s back,” she said, was the district’s decision not to fund Destination Imagination next year. The organization has students work together in teams to solve open-ended STEAM challenges.

In the past, a handful of teams went to the global finals. Ferrelli, who lives in Mahopac and is the mother of two young children, including her 8-year-old son, called the STEAM competition her “son’s team.” She spoke to Yorktown News before her son’s May 29 speech to the school board, where he addressed the importance of this kind of funding.

“I think you should pay for stuff you don’t pay for anymore,” the second grader at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School told the school board. That includes Destination Imagination, which he said he enjoys because he “likes to put on shows” as well as “build things” with his friends.

Those behind the write-in campaign said the goal wasn’t to win an election but to, as Ferrelli put it, “send a message.” She said she is looking for justification on how the district is spending its money and allocating its funds.

Leading up to the election, Ferrelli reached out to friends via text message, letting them know about her and the other two write-in candidates’ plans. She said she hoped for consideration and cited the removal of “student-facing programs” such as Destination Imagination, music, and others, while noting what she described as an increase in “funding for publicity and administrator salaries.”

While the write-in campaign received hundreds of votes, Kaufman said write-in candidates don’t go through the same vetting process as those who appear on the ballot.

“To appear on the school ballot, candidates must verify their eligibility, collect a minimum number of signatures on a nominating petition and submit affidavits as to how they funded their campaign,” Kaufman said. “Most importantly, all legitimate candidates are afforded the opportunity to publicly present where they stand on the critical issues facing the district.”

Kaufman added that he believes when a group “intentionally circumvents the system to run a write-in campaign via social media, they remove all transparency from the process. Funding sources are not disclosed. There is no opportunity to correct inaccuracies purported on private social media sites and most importantly the public is deprived of the opportunity to meet the candidates in person to assess their true motivation for running.”

Ferrelli, in response, told Yorktown News, “nothing was circumvented, as having space for write-in candidates is in fact part of the election process itself. It sounds as if he feels threatened because the people have spoken, and are clearly unhappy with the direction the district is heading.”

A school district spokesperson declined to comment about the write-in campaign and referred Yorktown News to BOE President Kaufman’s responses.

Organizers acknowledged from the start that a write-in is not a traditional campaign—and Karen Haines Pressman, a co-founder of Lakeland Rise, said they never claimed it was.

“The other three campaigns we ran have been very traditional, and we’ve done all the things that [Kaufman’s] saying that we didn’t do this year, but we have always done them,” said Pressman, a former school board member from 2015 to 2021. The organization was successful when it elected Bryan Hoben to the board, whose current term expires in 2026.

Pressman said some of Lakeland Rise’s concern stemmed from a resolution the board passed at its April 10 meeting certifying compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in its decisions and policies, in accordance with the Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard College (2023).

According to the Rise Facebook page, “the resolution was the district’s response to the April 3, 2025, directive from the U.S. Department of Education demanding that state education departments ‘certify’ within 10 days that their school systems won’t engage in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices.”

Pressman said the resolution wasn’t on the original April 10 agenda (though it does appear as an amended item on the April 10 agenda posted on the district's BoardDocs page) and noted that it came just before spring break. After the break, Lakeland Rise shared a post about it on its Facebook page.

The reaction, she said, led several residents to speak out at the April 24 board meeting and motivated the write-in effort.

“This was not a traditional campaign by any means,” Pressman said. “It would have never happened had they not signed that certification from Trump. We were going to take a pass this year—we weren’t going to run.”

In an April 25 text to the district community regarding the resolution, which Kaufman shared with Yorktown News, the school board said it “adopted a resolution at the request of the U.S. Department of Education and in consultation with legal counsel.”

The board added that it wanted to “clearly and unequivocally state that this resolution does not eliminate, reduce, or undermine the district’s commitment to any of our initiatives for our students. The resolution is a legal and procedural step that ensures our policies are consistent with federal law and court rulings, and it does not represent a policy shift or change in priorities.

“There is a lot of misinformation out there about this politically charged matter, and we undertook a resolution that was aimed to protect the district from potential loss of federal funds.”

Kaufman told Yorktown News that the Board of Education “has no intention of engaging in a public debate with Lakeland Rise or any specific group.” He added that the focus of the board “remains on fulfilling our responsibilities to the district and serving the best interests of all students, families and staff.”