NyackNewsAndViews invited each of the eight candidates running for the Nyack Schools Board of Education to post information. Candidates who supplied content on their candidacy are listed below. Please click on each link to learn more about these candidates.
| Bryan Burrell Jeff Hindin |
Claudette Jimerson Tom LaColla Vic Czajkowksi |
Jen Marraccino Rick Tannenbaum |
Dr. Fletcher Johnson, an incumbent candidate, did not provide any information to NyackNewsAndViews.
Don’t forget to mark your calendars for the election on Tuesday, May 20th.
cliffweathers says:
I asked a question at last Monday’s “Meet the Candidates Night” at Nyack High School. My question concerned the epidemic of children with disorders on the Autism spectrum and how the school district was dealing with them.
It has been my experience, and the experience of other parents with Autistic children, that the school district is slow to identify, slow to react, and not always capable of making thoughtful decisions regarding such children. I believe that the Nyack District’s Committee on Special Education has been arbitrary, capricious, and possibly neglectful at all stages of assisting mine and other child. In my particular case, we were forced to fight against the district to get proper educational supports for him.
The district’s programs available for my child were mostly mainstreaming programs that don’t properly meet his needs. Originally, they didn’t even know what to do with my son and after Christmas break, the Principal sent him home from Upper Nyack Elementary and asked that he not to return to his class. They did not provide him any educational support. He was home a month before they supplied, at our request, a tutor and it was three months until they placed him in a BOCES program, where he stayed for a little more than two years.
But things didn’t go well at all when the choice of a middle school arose. The center-based programs used by the district, mostly BOCES programs, try to shoehorn children with various disabilities together. For example, a program that includes both children that “act out” and fragile children with high levels of anxiety are not acceptable. Other programs mix children that are unclassified, or don’t necessarily have a disorder on the autistic spectrum, with autistic children. In other words, the programs offered end up being snake pits where autistic children, and other children that don’t fit in a regular classroom, are dumped.
I had to fight with the CSE to get my son a proper placement in an alternative center-based program that was safe and appropriate for my son. Proving our case cost my family thousands of dollars, lost income, and countless hours of lost sleep—hardships that we could not afford at the time. In all ways, I feel the CSE acted in the best interest of the district and not of my child; some of the actions of administrators were beyond contempt, slipshod, and negligent. Only with the real threat of legal action, and outsmarting them at every turn, brought them to consider our needs.
But after a long battle, my son now has the education he needs (at least for two more school years), but I felt compelled to ask my question to help families like us going forward. These are families that will need the aid of the Nyack School District; they don’t need to battle it.
My question was to all the candidates, asking them what they would do that would insure the district would help these families.
I wasn’t entirely impressed with all of the answers, but I do understand that they only had 90 seconds. All of them seemed sympathetic, but my family doesn’t need sympathy. The families of children with autism need real change.
Here’s my assessment of the individual answers:
Tannenbaum’s answer was lawyerly and he suggested that we take the legal route if necessary. The whole idea is that I don’t think that parents should be forced to take legal action against the district.
LaColla, Hindin, and Jimerson’s answers were basically: “I don’t know.” I know that they’re not incumbents and haven’t had to wrestle much with this issue, so I won’t criticize them for their honesty. They did both say that this is something that they would be interested in looking into, which I appreciate. Hindin said one thing that I like, which was that special education is not something that districts should skimp on.
Marrraccino mentioned that there was a child with autism in her extended family, so she has an idea of what I’m going through. She did mention the idea of creating a task force or a panel to look into this problem. While I wasn’t very impressed with most of her answers during the evening, I appreciated her desire to act on this issue.
Dr. Fletcher Johnson was the board member that could really answer my question in detail. He’s Nyack’s representative to the Rockland BOCES school board. He would know exactly how to address these frustrations, I would think. Unfortunately, Dr. Johnson did not attend this very important night; I think this will affect my vote.
I would have to say that I was not impressed by Czajkowski’s willingness to pass the buck “to the correct people [administrators] that can help you” and that this was something board members did not handle. My question was prefaced that there were problems with the system. I would assume that Czajkowski either did not understand my question correctly or doesn’t really think there’s a problem that the school board could help with. I was hoping for a better answer from such a long-term incumbent who says he’s on the school board because he loves children.
Burrell admitted that there have been problems and that the district was trying to adapt. He cited his work on other boards and that this was something that many districts are trying to come to terms with. He also said that he had much more to say than in the 1-½ minutes that he was allotted. In addition, Burrell reminded everyone there that this is our school district, our tax money and we should not be afraid to make changes to it. Burrell backed up his 90 seconds by calling me back the next morning to talk more with me about my concerns. I do think that Burrell really cares and he has acknowledged that there are problems. However, I think that he needed to acknowledge that surrounding school districts—South Orangetown and Clarkstown Central—are being much more progressive and creative in dealing with this issue than Nyack has been. Nonetheless, Mr. Burrell is very open, very well spoken on the matter, and I believe he really cares.
My feeling is that this district is going through a crisis in regards to Special Education. I think that school board members must reevaluate the districts efforts in the regards to children with Autistic spectrum disorders. They may have to go as far as inspect the practices of the administrators and possibly look into reassigning assets and even personnel.
It’s important to me to select the candidates that I feel will do the best in insuring that only best practices, best intentions, and the most progressive solutions are used by Nyack’s Committee on Special Education.
Please consider when voting on May 20.
May 17th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
concerned says:
Everyone should be aware of an extreme conflict of interest in the race for school board. These three candidates are being supported by the Nyack Teachers Union: Bryan Burrell, Tom LaColla and Claudette Jimerson, a retired district music teacher. The Teacher’s union has never supported a candidate in the last 35 years that I have been a resident. The teacher’s contract is up for negations this year. It can only be assumed that they feel these candidates will be most advantageous to giving them the best contract. Our teachers are paid very well and our community can no longer sustain the outrageous tax increases. Many people have not gotten a years in years and some, me included have had to take a 33% cut in pay 5 years ago and since then have gotten a total of a 3% raise. It is time the Nyack teachers forgo a raise in this contract and these three candidates that they are supporting will not agree. I urge you to cast your vote for any of the other candidates.
May 19th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
r.tannenbaum says:
I circulated an email on the conflict issue after phone calls were placed by the union supporting these three candidates. I received angry respones from teachers and PTA members. Yesterday in my mail, I received postcards from all three of these candidates, all sent by the same mail permit (likely at the expense of the teachers’ union). In my mind, this is a horrible situation. These folks have accepted the benefit of the unions’ largesse to the tune of thousands of dollars each. If they win, they will be asked to pay that back through favorable contract terms. This is a blatant conflict and problem, and I hope voters see this risk and reject these candidates. Salaries and benefits are 75-80% of the budget.
May 20th, 2008 at 10:23 am