Full slate on Rondout school ballot
Ten candidates compete for five school board seats
KYSERIKE, N.Y. » Rondout Valley school district voters on Tuesday, May 15, will choose from among 10 candidates to elect five school board trustees — three serving a three-year term and two filling unexpired terms with a year remaining.
Voting will be from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the district offices next to Rondout Valley High School on Kyserike Road.
On the ballot will be incumbent Trustee Gail Hutchins, Natalysse Stein, Stephanie Diak-Salmonsen, Brian Martin, Kimberly Cohen, incumbent Trustee Nicole Parete, incumbent Trustee Rebecca Versace, Elissa Jury, David Bendell, and Gerald Fornino. Current trustees Wayne Beckerman and Michael Baden are not seeking re-election.
Hutchins, 64, of 2 Romney Way, Cottekill, is a bookkeeper for Schain and Co. who previously served on the board from 2000 to 2012 and was appointed to fill a vacancy in 2017. She has lived in the district since 1996 and with her husband, Bruce, has three children. She graduated from South Brunswick High School in Monmouth Junction, N.J. in 1972, and received her associate’s degree in applied science in fire protection from Delaware Technical and Community College, in Christiana, Delaware, in 1984. She has served as an Ulster County BOCES board member from 2011 to the present.
“I don’t have any specifics,” she said. “I just believe in excellence in education.”
Hutchins added: “We just hired a new superintendent. So I just want to make sure that he fits in well and has a nice transition, and (I want to be) conscientious of the expenses to the taxpayers.”
Stein, 30, of 15 Werner Road, Kerhonkson, is a manger at Walmart and a first-time candidate. She is a lifelong resident of the district and with her husband, Donald, has four children. She graduated from Rondout Valley High School in 2006.
Stein said she supports offering “academic programs for all of our students in areas of technology and growing industries to help make our students the most capable individuals and employable, because the markets are changing. ... (T)hey need good readiness for both the college world and the workforce.”
In the areas of special education, she said she wants to make sure “we are providing the support systems for faculty so they can best aid in providing our students with proper individualized learning, because they all develop in different ways.”
Salmonsen, 41, of 575 county Route 2, Accord, is a part-time personal assistant with Tipsy Buda Garden and a first-time candidate. She has lived in the district for three years and with her husband, Jeremy, has three children. She graduated from G. Ray Bodley High School in Fulton in 1995 and is a member of the district’s Committee on Special Education.
“I’m very concerned about school safety in relation to our special education population,” she said. “More specifically, I’m very concerned that the school active shooter protocol contains no wording specific to our special education population. I think that we can enhance safety throughout our district by doing some simple law cost things that don’t involve waiting for our state or federal government to help us.”
Martin, 55, of 3338 Main St., Stone Ridge, is principal of Edson Elementary School in Kingston and a first-time candidate. He has lived in the district for 25 years and with his wife, Jule, has two children. He graduated from Kenmore East Senior High School in Tonawanda in 1980, and received his bachelor’s degree in secondary social studies from SUNY Fredonia in 1985. He received his master’s degree in secondary social studies from SUNY New Paltz, where he later earned a certificate of advanced studies.
“I want to also look at some ways that we can better connect with the community in terms of having an intern experience for students, providing students with more opportunities to connect with the community by helping out as volunteers,” he said.
“Something that I would really push for is how do we prepare our students to be more career-ready and college-ready,” Martin said. “I feel like sometimes the kids fall through the cracks, especially kids who aren’t going to college.”
Cohen, 42, of 190 Pinebush Road, Stone Ridge, is a faculty member of Western Governors University and previously lost a run for the school board. She has lived in the district for six years and with her husband, Jim Keller, has one child. She graduated from Freeport High School on Long Island in 1993. She received her bachelor’s degree in English from Hofstra University in 1997, her master’s degree in English from SUNY Stony Brook in 1998, and a doctorate in English from the University of Iowa in 2009. She is a member of Quality Matters and the district Health and Wellness Committee.
“(The district) has some outdated policies that don’t conform to what is considered best practice in the field of education,” she said. “For example, the discipline policy is very old. I think it’s been over 11 years since it’s been updated, so it adversely affects I think a lot of populations in our district because of the specific way that it’s written.
“Another key issue that I hear a lot of parents talking about is the amount of time that students are given for lunch and for recess,” she said. “Right now I think the kids are really only getting about 20 minutes to do both, and that’s really hard on them . ... I think we can look at what a lot of other districts are doing in terms of how they set up their day.”
Parete, 36, of 37 Cindy Lane, Stone Ridge, is principal at Grove Street Academy and ran unsuccessfully for the Ulster County Legislature in 2009 before winning her current school board seat in 2015. She has lived in the district since 2010 and with her husband, Robert, has two children. She graduated from Saugerties High School in 2000, received her bachelor’s degree in history from Western New England University in 2004 and received her master’s degree in education from SUNY New Paltz in 2009. She is seeking an advanced certificate in school leadership from SUNY New Paltz.
“My greatest concern last year and going into this year is transportation,” she said. “We paid the lowest amount in the county for our transportation services but the company wasn’t providing what they said they would in their contract. They were short bus drivers. We had to combine our runs; we had two bus runs on one bus; there were three kids to every seat; there were some rumors that sometimes kids had to sit on the floor.”
Parete added that new bus company has been hired.
“We went out to bid and, yes, we’re paying a lot more money, but what I’m happy about is we have a new company coming in who has guaranteed us new buses, drivers, they’re paying their drivers better ... and I’m really hopeful that this company will solve a lot of our transportation issues,” she said.
Parete said she is also concerned about the cost of after-school child care.
“Right now we bring in the Y to come in,” she said. “We contract with them to provide that service for us and it’s very expensive. And then there is the issue of them not being able to utilize all of the resources in the school. I think we can do better.”
Versace, 46, of 14 Church Hill Road, High Falls, was an elementary school teacher with the Poughkeepsie school district and is seeking a third term on the board. She has lived in the district for 14 years and with her husband, Kevin, has two children. She graduated from Roy C. Ketcham High School in Wappingers Falls in 1990, received her associate’s degree in liberal arts from Dutchess County Community College in 1993 and a bachelor’s degree in teaching from SUNY New Paltz in 1996.
“We have a couple of outstanding bargaining agreements with the district,” she said. “So we have some contracts that need to be settled.”
“We are coming out of a time with the community ... (dealing with) this Common Core implementation and then the high-stakes testing,” she said. “We’ve gone through that work...so now we really need to focus on looking at we’ve done this for a few years how has it impacted achievement.”
Jury, 67, of 28 Pompey’s Cave Road, High Falls, is a retired teacher from the Rondout Valley school district and a first-time candidate. She has lived in the district for 35 years and with her husband, Robert, has two children. She graduated from Mount St. Mary Academy in North Plainfield, N.J., in 1968, received a bachelor’s degree in biology from Montclair State College in New Jersey in 1972 and a master’s degree in education from SUNY New Paltz in 1999.
“We have excellent programing and I would hope to keep that,” she said. “Also, communications both on the website, with teachers, positive team building — those are the things I’d like to see more of.”
Bendell, 48, of 6118 Route 209, High Falls, is a teacher at Benjamin Cosor Elementary School in the Fallsburg school district and a first-time candidate. She is a lifelong resident of the district and with his wife, Nicole, has three children. He graduated from Rondout Valley High School in 1987, and received an associate’s degree from Ulster County Community College, a bachelor’s degree in psychology from SUNY New Paltz, a master’s degree in instructional technology from AIU in Chicago and an administrative certificate from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams, Mass. He is a member of the Kerhonkson-Accord First Aid Squad.
“We have a new superintendent that’s coming in so I think it’s ... a good time to evaluate program review, a good time to evaluate the direction that we’re going, and strengths and weaknesses,” he said.
Fornino, 64, of 19 Deer Tail Trail, Accord, is retired from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and was unsuccessful in a 2015 contest for the board. He has lived in the district for about 40 years and with his wife, Cindy, a Rochester Town Board member, has one child. He graduated from Susan Wagner High School in Staten Island in 1971 and earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from John Jay College in New York City in 1976. He is a hunter safety instructor for the state Department of Environmental Conservation and emergency management director for the town of Rochester.
“Security to me is the utmost necessity because I simply want our youth to have a safe place to learn,” he said. “I intend to see what we have and how we can make it better. I cannot be specific without seeing first-hand what we have.”