2010 School board candidates reply to questions from the Coalition

Glen Cove school board candidates Roni Jenkins, Grady Farnan, and Ida McQuair at the April 24th 2010 Coalition Candidates Forum

Grady Farnan:

Describe your qualifications to run for school board and how this will help you to be an effective school board member.

I am a lifelong resident of Glen Cove and was a Regents Diploma recipient in my graduating class of GCHS in 1980. During my tenure, I was Junior Class Vice President and Student Senate President my Senior Year. My extra curricula accomplishments include: LILCO Athlete and Scholar; National Bank of North America award for Outstanding Football; Captain of The Varsity Lacrosse Team; Senior Elections Committee; Mentor to incoming Freshman Classes and received The Glen Cove Chamber of Commerce award for Community Service.

My family ties are strong in our city and all on our family tree are lifelong residents. My father, Ben Farnan, was a teacher who started his career in the Glenwood Landing School District. He was very active in all school programs and sports. He retired as an Assistant of Superintendent in the New Rochelle School District. My mother, Joan Farnan, was a longtime Registered Nurse at the Community Hospital in Glen Cove. My brothers, Kelly and Logan, have children that are enrolled in our great district.

My wife, Camille Farnan, is an active volunteer in many of our excellent school programs and the PTA. Many of you will know and see her around The Landing, Finley Middle Schools and at fund raising events. My three daughters, Remi, Gillian and Shelbie are attending three different schools in our district. They are involved various different programs, activities and can be seen on the playing fields.

For myself, I am currently a Director of Property and Marine Insurance for a highly regarded global Japanese Insurance Company based out of New York City. I was recruited five years ago to promote quality insurance products, customer service and compliance for all facets of lines of business in commercial insurance policies; highly protected risks; inland marine and ocean cargo as well as Japanese personal lines of insurance. My company is an A++ rated by A.M. Best Company. I have over twenty three years of experience in the insurance industry handling all customer service products and policy losses. Many of you may know me as a volunteer of an after school program at Landing School; A coach in one of several city athletic sporting teams; Supporter of the Glen Cove Hall of Fame; Founding Father and Current Treasurer of The Glen Cove Junior Lacrosse; Community Scholarship Chairman for Lacrosse to promote our High School Seniors; Head Usher at St. Patrick’s Church; Committeeman for District #1 The Landing; Life Member at the Glen Cove YMCA; Former Delegate Chair for Nassau County Girl Scouts; Cookie Dad for troop 1243 Girl Scouts and once candidate for the Glen Cove City Council where the election of 2003 will go down as a “what if” in the history books.

My family and strong community relationships in conjunction with career experiences would offer positive and productive qualifications for the school board. My family and career experiences will bring an open door policy for constructive and common sense communication. My career experiences in the insurance field will promote the process in providing continued safe and strong school buildings; premises and fields; health and well being of our personnel and current strong products and fixtures to support great groups of students.

What have you done to familiarize yourself with the school district’s policies, procedures, budgets and educational programs?

The district’s web site is a great vehicle aspect for me with the district’s policies, procedures, budgets, and educational programs. The local and island wide news publications are also another reference support to get appraised of all the current events. I have had the opportunity to attend the school board meetings in person to learn more about the communities concerns and this year’s budget. As always, I have attended the many myriad of programs in and after school events.

What is your current perception of
1) The quality of education provided by the district?
2) The educational staff?
3) The administration?
4) The Superintendent?

The quality of the education provided by the district is top notch! I am especially impressed with the diversity of the educational programs that our district has to offer from the honors, special education courses, home and careers, music and arts. This is a main reason why Camille and I would never let our children miss out of this great opportunity. Many of the educational staff, our family and I, have known for a lifetime, either through being a resident in the community or by meeting them during my years on the campaign trail. Our children are very respectful of their efforts in and out of the school. They provide a good positive promotion of our schools and the students that they serve. I have recently been able to have the opportunity to meet many of the new administration and the Superintendent from different school and sporting events. Our district is going though a rebuilding process and it continues to be a work in progress. I am grateful for the recent efforts to make our school buildings safe and secure. The many fields and playgrounds seem to be on the right track. I am sure that the continued work to make our district better will be on the forefront. The recent resignation announcements of our Superintendent and some administration will provide the board with the opportunity to promote a person from within our district to these capacities and find the right candidate that will invest his or hers future efforts to continue on the positive track to completing all our projects and running the business of our schools. As the saying goes “Rome wasn’t built in a day”.

What do you believe is the single most important issue the district faces? How should the school board address this issue?

Of course, the single most important issue the district is facing is passing our proposed next school budget. The financial support from our state government is a major road block in our next year’s budget. As you all know, there is a short fall of 11.22% in the amount of aid to be received by the state. We are also well aware that this amounts to $882,683. The school board will need to continue to present all of the common sense solutions on saving on this budget. They should explore and petition our elected leaders in the State Senate and Assembly to assist us in obtaining any funds available through grants and our local City Hall to partner in on sharing some of the maintenance services. It may be a good idea to see if anyone in our community can offer their time and assist by volunteering where they can in the concerns needing the most attention. I am sure that the school board and the Teachers Union President will agree to terms in their contract for merit raises that will benefit the teachers as well as the school budget. It is not the time for counterproductive debate.

How can the board work to strengthen
a. The public’s perception of the Glen Cove Schools?
b. Community support for the budget and bond referendums?
c. A positive working relationship with the teachers and staff?

The board should continue to promote to the public the proven school’s reputation for providing a quality curriculum to its students. Many of our graduating students are accepted to the universities and colleges based on this point. Their continued promotion of the homes and careers opportunities for the trades for those graduating students who have decided that entering that capacity is the right fit for them. The board can continue to promote that great success of have a great music, drama and arts departments. There is growing support and popularity of the strings program that was spearheaded by a board member. Additional promotion can be made to showcase the many ongoing improvements and betterments that have been started on the school buildings and grounds. The promotion of the our Booster Club will inform our public of their efforts to build a “All Sport” concession stand that not only will continue to serve our guests with great treats on the main high school field but on all the adjoining fields on the proposed home on the north side of the main field. This positive promotion should reinforce our communities support for the budget and bond referendums. The board can continue to an open door communication process with teachers and staff. Many of the 600 employee employed at our schools already have a good working relationship with our President, Vice President and members. A great way to strengthen any of these aspects on this topic is having our board available for any concerns, questions or productive comments form our supporting public to be discussed and answered in a positive way.

Roni Jenkins

Describe your qualifications to run for school board and how this will help you to be an effective school board member.

I have managed annual advertising budgets in excess of $60.0MM for Fortune 500 Clients and have negotiated multi-year/ multi-million dollar contracts with large internet publishers such AOL, Google, Yahoo, and MSN on behalf of those clients. Because of this, I have the financial skills to manage an operating budget the size of the school budget.

I have lived in Glen Cove for 35 years and attended Deasy, Middle and Glen Cove High School (class of ‘86) and my children are the third generation in my family to attend our schools. I have a B.S. in Finance from SUNY Old Westbury and was a recipient of the Wall Street Journal Award of Academic Excellence. I am married to David Jenkins and we have three children: Kylie, a 2nd grader at Gribbin School, Finn age 4, who will attend Kindergarten in the fall at Gribbin and Dylan, age 3.

In my current role as Partner in the marketing consultancy, 747 Marketing, I am particularly proud of the work I have done on advertising campaigns for non-profits such as: Teen Suicide Prevention, Childhood Obesity Prevention, Autism Awareness, Underage Drinking Prevention, High School Drop Out Prevention, and Arts in Educationhttp://www.americansforthearts.org/, to name a few.

I am also a partner in a start-up website called www.thethreetomatoes.com. I serve as the Marketing Director, writer, radio moderator and Jane-of-all-trades. I have articles published on numerous websites and blogs and know how to generate PR and grow a user base on a shoestring budget.

I am very dedicated to giving back to the community. My School/ Community Service work includes:
· Current President of the Gribbin School PTA
· Past Treasurer Gribbin PTA
· Cheerleading and Softball coach for the City of Glen Cove’s Junior sports leagues
· Member of the Board of Directors for the Long Island Music Hall of Fame and a Co-Chair of the Marketing Committee
· Committee Member of the Diabetes Research Institute, an organization devoted to finding a cure for diabetes
· Marketing and Social Media Committee Member for the New York Metro Chapter of UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women)

What have you done to familiarize yourself with the school district’s policies, procedures, budgets and educational programs?

As an active volunteer community member, including serving as Gribbin SchooI’s PTA treasurer and current President, I have had the opportunity to listen and work with parents, teachers, and the administration on issues impacting our children. I attend Board of Education meetings, PTA Unit meetings and PTA Council meetings so I can hear the challenges faced at all schools, not just Gribbin. I have spoken to local community leaders and teachers about the challenges they face in this tough economic environment. I try to stay current with national educational issues, and think it important to look outside our district and learn from others who have successfully faced similar challenges. We cannot afford to sit back and accept the status quo.

What is your current perception of
1) The quality of education provided by the district?
2) The educational staff?
3) The administration?
4) The Superintendent?

I believe the educational staff is well qualified to give our children the best possible education that they can receive, but they are hindered in that capacity by the limitations in the programs available to them. How can we expect our teachers to provide the best education to our children, when they don’t have technological resources such as computer labs at the elementary level? How can we expect them to keep our high school students ahead in science when they have a science lab that is over 20 years old? These are just a couple of examples of how our teachers are at a disadvantage compared to teachers in other districts where these resources are readily available.

I believe our most of our teachers are willing and capable of overcoming those obstacles. In fact, at a recent BOE meeting, one teacher I spoke with is committed to helping keep the honors program at the Middle school level and is willing to work with a team of colleagues to create a curriculum and cut costs by using textbooks that were published in 2009 and the internet. Although it is not the optimal solution and the textbooks may be viewed as being a year old, the teachers will supplement with the most up to date information available to them so the kids can continue receiving honors classes.

I have the highest regard for the education my daughter has received so far. Her current teacher goes above and beyond the standard way of teaching English by using customized spelling words that meets each and every students needs. This creates a tremendous amount of work for her, but the children benefit because they receive individual instruction. Unfortunately, the students are disadvantaged in technology due to the lack of a computer lab.

There is a stalemate in the negotiations between the teachers and the administration and they both need to work harder to mend the rift. Since the public is not privy to these discussions, all that is heard is that “the teachers won’t agree to a pay freeze and because of THEM, the teachers will sacrifice their own and the children/ programs of this community”. I do not believe our teachers would willingly allow colleagues to get pink slips and have kids sacrifice education, but the administration and teachers union must come to an agreement and agree to a freeze in order to maintain jobs. This has already been agreed to by teachers in other districts such as Roslyn and Port Washington. In the private sector people have gone without pay raises for years; bottom line is that we need to save jobs.

Our schools would be better served if the budgets and teacher negotiations were more transparent. The current budget issue needs to be resolved for the good of our children. We need to be made aware of the cost of salaries, benefits, substitutes, grants and consultants fees—not summed up as a line item. We need to understand capital expenditures. It appears that both camps, the superintendent and the teachers’ union, are at a stalemate in this budget negotiation and the taxpayers are in the dark as to the issues, which is leading parents to ask questions, such as “why is a guidance counselor being eliminated and a dump truck added as a capital improvement?”

What do you believe is the single most important issue the district faces? How should the school board address this issue?

The single biggest issue is property owners’ reluctance to tax increases. This is even more prevalent in our community where a disproportionate amount of home and business owners bear the tax burden of supporting our public schools. These property owners, when faced with tax levies in an already difficult economy, are reluctant to approve increases in any budgets. There is also a perception among many in the community that the school budgets are not managed effectively and that the school board is not listening to their concerns. So our challenge is to a better job of listening, educating and informing our community on the importance of supporting our schools and the impact of better performing schools on property values. And we have to do a better job of explaining our school budgets to the public and publicizing the budget to the general public. In short we need to listen to the community, take their concerns into consideration, and do a better of communicating how we’re spending their money and why.

I believe the school board should be managed like a socially and fiscally responsible corporation, and that my professional, personal and community work and experience, demonstrate that I have the leadership, financial skills, dedication, and passion to be an effective board member.

How can the board work to strengthen a. The public’s perception of the Glen Cove Schools?
b. Community support for the budget and bond referendums?
c. A positive working relationship with the teachers and staff?

The board needs to be more actively involved in promoting the numerous accomplishments of the schools in more proactive and creative ways to the residents of Glen Cove and then the larger Long Island community. Perception needs to be improved first in Glen Cove, before we can change it elsewhere. Board members need to be seen at school events and reaching out to the community. We need to be courting the news media for more coverage of Glen Cove School accomplishments and we need to create public opportunities to showcase our schools and students accomplishments. For example, having our award winning high school jazz band perform in some of our public spaces - i.e., Village Square, Morgan’s Park, etc.

As I stated elsewhere, support of the budget and bond referendums requires that we do a better job of listening, educating and informing our community on the importance of supporting our schools and the impact of better performing schools on property values. And we have to do a better job of explaining our school budgets to the public and publicizing the budget to the general public. In short we need to listen to the community, take their concerns into consideration, and do a better job of communicating how we’re spending their money and why.

Relationships are based on trust. The school board can help foster a more open and transparent dialog between teachers and the administration by encouraging more open forums for joint discussions on educational issues. For example, the board of ed could host a public forum featuring a panel discussion with panelists who include teachers and administrators who come together to discuss important educational issues, such as the new standards in testing, computers in the class room and other topics of interest to the community.

Ida McQuair

Describe your qualifications to run for school board and how this will help you to be an effective school board member.

I received my BBA in Accounting from Hofstra University School of Business and a Masters of Science in Education (Mathematics grades 7-12) from Long Island University, C.W. Post Campus. For 8 years I worked as an auditor for the accounting firm of Deloitte and Touche. Interacting with management and auditing the books and records for both the public and private sector have provided me with the requisite knowledge and experience to assist our school district in navigating through these tough and difficult financial times.

I have utilized my masters in mathematics education by doing several leave replacements in the Glen Cove Schools as well as Friend’s Academy School. I have been a private math tutor for both Regents and non-Regents mathematics for all grade levels for the past 6 years.

I was elected to the Glen Cove School Board in 2007. I have served as Vice President and I am serving as its current President. My accounting and educational background coupled with my three years of service as a trustee have provided me with the tools to promote sound fiscal policy without sacrificing the educational needs of our children.

What have you done to familiarize yourself with the school district’s policies, procedures, budgets and educational programs?

One of the most important responsibilities a school board has is making policy. Over the past three years I have been involved in many opportunities to create policy and amend existing policy concerning the accountability of all district employees, the safety of our students and the educational issues facing them. I have realized how important it is for all board members to familiarize themselves with the education law in order to create effective policy.

Working on budgets is second nature to me. I used to make a living auditing balance sheets and income statements for multi billion dollar organizations. I understand how the different components of financial statements come together and have the skill set to be able to analyze and ask intuitive questions about transactions that take place during the course of the year. I am currently on the audit committee and interact with all of the districts accountants (internal and external). We speak the same language and I actually enjoy this part of my job very much.

Concerning the educational component of our district, I have worked toward improving the honors program in our district and making it available to more students. There are many other educational programs that I hope to be involved in creating that would benefit even more children. I truly believe that every child has his own special gift. Wouldn’t it be great if the schools could discover that gift for each child and help cultivate it?

3) What is your current perception of
a. The quality of education provided by the district?
b. The educational staff?
The administration?
d. The Superintendent?

The quality of education provided by the district is very good but there is always room for improvement. The administration and the teachers have done an excellent job of implementing Readers and Writers workshop in the elementary schools. The improvements in the performance of our ELA and Math state exams prove it. However, we still have more work to do. Continued effort to improve the overall performance on AP exams and the SAT’s is high on the radar. Improving our sports programs in conjunction with our academic programs to allow more opportunities for students to get scholarships to colleges is also very important. We are definitely on the right track but still have quite a bit to go.

My older son, Charles, age 9, has had the most outstanding teachers since he began his education career back in kindergarten. I have always found the teachers of this district to go above and beyond the call of duty for their students. I am so pleased.

We have some exceptional talent in this district and we are so fortunate. My interaction with every administrator in our district has been a true learning experience. Having a Masters degree in math education has enabled me to have interesting and enlightening conversations with some of the brightest individuals I have ever met in education. My younger son, Vincent, age 6, has autism. Unfortunately, because of the severe nature of his autism he had to be placed in a school outside of Glen Cove. My son’s disability motivated me to learn everything I could about the best educational methods used to teach children with autism. Our special education department is knowledgeable about the latest research and education methods used for every disability facing our children.

I have enjoyed a very good relationship with our Superintendent. Our Superintendent’s experience in curriculum is incomparable. I have learned a great deal from him over the last three years and especially over the last year while I have been President. He was the force that started turning this district around and I greatly appreciate it.

What do you believe is the single most important issue the district faces? How should the school board address this issue?

One of the most important issues this district faces is the amount of money in State aid, which it receives from Albany. In the past, the District could count on this money in formulating a proposed budget. The uncertainty in the amount of State aid which is to be received by the District makes it very difficult to formulate a budget that in the end does not sacrifice the educational needs of our children.

The uncertainty of state aid and the burden placed on the district concerning the refund of school tax certioraris must be resolved. Glen Cove is the only school district in the State of New York that is required to budget and moreover refund its own school tax certioraris. In all other school districts, throughout the state, the refund to the taxpayer is paid by the county containing the school district.

The Glen Cove resident is strapped with the burden of paying for the refunds of its own district while paying for the refunds of other districts as a county tax payer. This places a financial strain on the district requiring it to allocate money in its budget for school tax refunds when said money could be used toward furthering the education of our own children.

The district and the residents of our City need to lobby the City, County and State government to change this inequitable law for the better of every Glen Cove resident and student of the district.

How can the board work to strengthen
a. The public’s perception of the Glen Cove Schools?
b. Community support for the budget and bond referendums?
c. A positive working relationship with the teachers and staff?

I tend to be a positive person who always tries to find the good even in the most upsetting situations. I think if more of us did that we would see a huge improvement in the public’s perception of our schools. There is not a single school district that is perfect. We could spend all the money in the world to promote our district, but it will not matter if the community is not on board and being the leaders in spreading the good word. We really have a great deal of good news to spread and be proud about.

We need to do a better job of reaching out to more people in our community and educating them on budgets and any future bond referendums. Transparency is critical when delivering this information.

Communication is vital to developing good relationships with the teachers and staff. I feel we are heading in the right direction but need to make greater efforts to find more opportunities to listen to our teachers and staff.