Community, candidates ready for vote on budget and BOE trustees tomorrow, May 18
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The race for two open seats on the NENUFSD Board of Education is nearing an end, with the annual budget vote and election of trustees scheduled for tomorrow, May 18, from 6am to 9pm.
Candidates for trustee are, in ballot order, Warner Frey, Victoria Buscareno, Tammie Topel and Carol Taylor.
This year, campaign strategies varied greatly: Warner Frey and Tammie Topel took to social media to connect with voters while Carol Taylor and Victoria Buscareno preferred in-person interaction with community residents over Facebook engagements.
Whether they relied on community outreach via the PTA forum, or streamed live videos to their constituents, candidates were handed both praise and criticism, mostly on social media, with some threads shining a light on and others losing sight of a trustee’s true duty to the public.
The New York State School Board Association’s “New School Board Member Handbook, A Guide to Surviving Your First Year,” defines a school board member as a representative of the community, and a leader of the district. “You are a steward both of your district’s children and its tax dollars. You are an advocate of public education and an educated public,” reads the 31-page document.
“Generally a school board oversees the district’s affairs (students’ education), personnel and properties. The board has specific responsibilities to approve curriculum, employ a superintendent and submit a proposed budget to the district voters for their approval. Keep in mind the school board’s job is to focus on the ends, while the superintendent focuses on the ways and means to attain the ends. In other words, the board oversees the education of students and is responsible for school district operations, but does not directly run the district’s day-to-day operations.”
It hasn’t been an easy couple of years, for the board of ed or district residents. The Northport-East Northport community has endured one challenge after another, first with the LIPA settlement, then the temporary closing of and controversy surrounding Northport Middle School, then the pandemic, followed by the shuttering of two beloved elementary schools. At this point, most candidates and voters are thinking about where we go next – how we recover and transition while keeping the best interests of the community and its children a priority.
In an attempt to break down how each of the four candidates view major issues within our community, we’ve used candidate quotes and conversations from the last several weeks to compile a final summary of their positions. We hope that this serves as a resource for community members as they go into their voting locations on Tuesday.
Background and Community Involvement
Warner Frey: A retired NYPD captain with 23 years of service, Warner is a father of three sons in the district, former Boy Scout leader, volunteer soccer coach, husband of the Dickinson PTA president and lifelong Northport resident.
Victoria Buscareno: Trustee Buscareno is a special education teacher in the Syosset school district, a mom of four, and lifetime Northport resident. The only incumbent in the race, she has served on the BOE for three years, and is a member of the Ocean Avenue, Northport Middle School, and Northport High School PTAs, and SEPTA.
Tammie Topel: A former BOE trustee, Tammie is a special education advocate with a background in nursing and healthcare administration. She’s a mom of two and has lived in Northport for 29 years. She is the founder and director of K.I.D.S. Plus sports and therapeutic recreation programs for children and young adults with developmental disabilities, and a past PTA and SEPTA president.
Carol Taylor: Carol began her career in the Northport-East Northport school district two decades ago, and has been a third grade teacher at Pulaski Road Elementary School for the past 16 years. She is also the Executive Vice President of United Teachers of Northport. Carol has tendered letters of resignation to both the school district and the union effective June 2021. She is the mother of two district graduates and has been a Northport resident for 20 years.
Purpose
Warner Frey: Warner joined the race for BOE, he said, because he loves the community and feels the board needs somebody who has gained knowledge from the ground up, “someone who went to these schools and has their kids in these schools.” He takes pride in being the only candidate that’s never served as a trustee, or worked as a teacher or administrator. He promises to be an autonomous presence, whose primary duty is to support the community’s students, families, taxpayers, and teachers.
Victoria Buscareno: Trustee Buscareno’s first term included many challenges to the district, from issues at Northport Middle School to the more recent district reorganization. “I feel like I haven’t had a year to start looking closer into the really important things: curriculum, our social-emotional learning, the people in our community and the things that we’re doing to connect with them,” she said. Victoria is looking forward to celebrating the great things happening in the district, like the wide selection of classes and electives offered to students. “We’re looking to make those connections,” she said. “That's going to be really important, especially coming back in after this extraordinary year.”
Tammie Topel: Tammie is no stranger to the board, having served two nonconsecutive terms as trustee as recently as 2018. She is seeking election for the younger crowd, parents who may be too busy to get involved, or to keep up with the inner workings of the district, as well as those with children in the district who may fear retribution for speaking up. She promises “total transparency” and explained, “I do not waver in the face of adversity. I hold true to what is fair and equitable for all.”
Carol Taylor: Carol describes herself as pragmatic, open-minded and eager to communicate with district residents. She is running not as an indictment of current members whose terms are up, but because she wants to be part of the dialogue. If she is elected to the BOE, she said, she will be “a vocal extension of the community who votes me in,” and is committed to listening to what parents want. “I love our district and feel strongly that I can contribute to the conversation.”
Student Transitions
Warner Frey: Warner has a fourth grader at Dickinson Avenue Elementary School who will be directly impacted by the reorganization. “To have these students moved up to the middle school is going to be challenging, and it’s going to impact the social-emotional learning aspect that we’ve been dealing with over the last year,” he said. He commends the district for the adjustments they’ve had to make so far though, and trusts that this will be a very smooth transition.
Victoria Buscareno: Trustee Buscareno was one of two board members to vote against Adapted Scenario A earlier this month, and pushed for a pause. Now that the plan is in place, she said, it is important to move forward. Her goal is to have all kids return to full in-person instruction five days a week. “Our kids are drowning at home,” she said. “This virtual learning does not work. We have got to get them in the buildings.” When she voted against Adapted Scenario A, she urged the board to consider what effects the pandemic has had on students and said the district wouldn’t be able to achieve its high standard of excellence and quality “if the basic needs of students are not being met.”
Tammie Topel: Tammie has been a vocal proponent of a pause for months. She believes Covid should have been taken into consideration when studying Adapted Scenario A, from early on, including in the EIS statement. She too believes children should be back in school full-time but is in favor of offering remote services to students for any reason, including health and/or social-emotional concerns.
Carol Taylor: “I’m happy there will be support systems, support mechanisms put in place for our fifth graders because they’re still babies and I can’t imagine seeing them going off to middle school,” said Carol, who has also voiced support for a pause on numerous occasions. She hopes for new school orientations and tours for children and families, and wants children back in school full time. In the past, remote learning was used for emergency purposes only, “and that’s where it should stay,” she said.
Northport Middle School
Warner Frey: Warner believes the community needs a board that “uses science and facts.” When it comes to Northport Middle School, Warner says the school is safe and there is no reason for people to think differently. “I couldn’t believe all this stuff that was brought out when the science showed otherwise,” he said. “I think the district and BOE did everything they could have done. They stuck to the belief that we follow the facts, that we follow reason and we get to the answer.”
Victoria Buscareno: Trustee Buscareno explained how she took part in the subcommittee for the safety of Northport Middle School and spent a lot of time with P.W. Grosser Consulting, Inc. (the firm hired to perform an investigation of potential environmental concerns at the school). She trusts the local and state agencies that said the school was safe to occupy. “I have a seventh grader who is there now and if that school wasn’t safe in my opinion, she would not be there,” she said.
Tammie Topel: Regarding Northport Middle School, Tammie said, “I think we can’t make the same mistake twice and the data is out there that supports that there were findings, toxic findings, in the soil.” She added that although it was found to be safe to keep the school open, it was never proven that the ground is 100 percent safe now, or that it will be in the future.
“Time will tell,” she said. “Kids haven’t been in the school that much [this year] but people are healthy so far. And that’s really all that matters to me, is the health and safety of our students and staff.”
Carol Taylor: Carol explained that she felt satisfied that the district did what it needed to do to “test and test and test, and remediate.” She said that if similar issues would arise again, the district would likely address it in a more timely fashion given the experience with Northport Middle School.
Covid-19 and Vaccine Mandates
Warner Frey: When asked about his support for Covid-19 mandated vaccines, Warner said, “If the state mandates that we have to do something, it doesn’t matter whether I agree or disagree with it, or anybody else. It’s the law and we have to do it.” He said that he understands that vaccines have become controversial and noted that he chose to get the Covid-19 vaccine and plans for his children to get them. He added, “What my views are, I’m not going to impose on people, but understand that if the state is mandating us to do something, we have to do it.”
Warner also noted that if the district were put in charge of deciding on a mandate, he would listen to the facts to make a decision and wouldn’t be swayed by his personal opinion.
Victoria Buscareno: Trustee Buscareno does not support mandated Covid vaccines for students to return to school, and said “Covid is not spreading in our schools, our children do not need to be vaccinated with Covid vaccines right now, and I would really do anything I could to advocate for that.”
Tammie Topel: In regards to the Covid vaccine, Tammie said that “In all instances, government should not overrule or override parental rights.” She said that when it comes to school-age children, for any medical instance, especially putting a vaccine into your body, that parents should have the right to make a decision for their child.
Carol Taylor: Carol referred to a letter written by the district expressing to state government officials its opposition to mandated vaccinations for HPV and influenza. The letter, she said, was written at a time when the district erroneously believed it could sway the governor’s decision. “Districts didn’t have a choice then and I don’t believe the district will have a choice now,” she said. “If it’s a law, we have no choice but to follow it.”
Anti-Racist Curriculum and Culture
Warner Frey: When asked about diversifying the curriculum and staff within the district, Warner said that having a more diverse staff is a start. Allowing students to learn from and about adults who don’t look like them is an important learning experience, he added.
Regarding the swastikas and racial slurs found at Dickinson Avenue Elementary School last July, Warner said it’s “absolutely horrific that here, in 2021, we still have people painting such hateful images on a school building. It’s disgusting. We shouldn’t just wait for incidents to happen. We need to constantly have ongoing outreach with the community to bring people in from different backgrounds.”
Victoria Buscareno: On the subject of Critical Race Theory (CRT), Trustee Buscareno said it would be crucial to look at current data to discover inequities within the district. She said inclusivity is our job and for new policies to incorporate this issue, we need to create an environment where students are not excluded based on their gender, race, class, sexuality or disability.
“That would be really important and as an English teacher, I also find that there are ways we can add to our curriculum and the books that we choose to read,” she said. “I would hate to wait for the state to tell me that I should be looking at my library and making sure it’s reflective of the community and people that live here because it’s all about bringing us together and learning from each other.”
Tammie Topel: Tammie thinks that our district is inclusive, but there’s “always room for growth.” She said increasing inclusivity and reaching out to stakeholders in every area, and providing them with opportunities to participate in the conversation is extremely important.
Tammie said CRT is up to the community and can be implemented in schools by local governments without waiting on state approval. She said there should be community stakeholders everywhere having a say in this issue.
Carol Taylor: Regarding CRT, Carol explained that it has to be handled perfectly. It can’t be rushed or canned. She said, “If we could return to a policy that was abandoned after the last administration, we would have all stakeholders around a table: teachers, administrators, parents, everyone around the table to discuss it and come to a binding consensus.”
Carol thinks that if it’s the community’s wish to embrace certain curricular changes, then it would be a binding decision and no one can change that. She said that as a trustee, she’d be “pushing for something like that.”
Fiscal Responsibility
Warner Frey: “What I think the building closures represent is the first step into new thinking. We cannot cling to the past and hope to use the past to solve problems in the future,” Warner said. “We don’t have the student population to justify the amount of buildings we have operating. We have to make a change.”
To Warner, the future study was about finding a way to put every dollar that we could into student services, so the district had no choice but to go through with the school closures. If spending had to be reduced, he said, he hopes that student programs and extracurricular activities would be the last things cut.
Victoria Buscareno: “I 100% support our budget,” said Trustee Buscareno. As a current BOE member, she attested to the amount of time, energy and research that went into it, and said that taking the strains the community has had to deal with into consideration, a $58 increase a year is impressive and “to provide the kind of education, extracurricular sports, music, arts, that we give our students is really exceptional.” She would like to see if Covid contingency money, if not utilized, can be put toward buildings and would like to “maybe find a way to get a little back to our taxpayers.”
Tammie Topel: Tammie has been committed from the beginning of her campaign to an anti-budget stance, and says that it was the April 8 BOE meeting on the budget, and more specifically the board’s lack of transparency regarding critical issues surrounding the budget, that motivated her to run for trustee. “I’m voting no to the budget,” she said. “There does not need to be an increase.” She has also questioned the timing and appropriateness of Proposition 2, stating numerous times that she does not support establishing a capital reserve fund.
Carol Taylor: “Yes, I support the budget with the proviso that if there’s surplus at the end of the year that it gets returned to the community and not folded into reserves,” said Carol. She believes this year is not the year to put money into a capital reserve fund, citing families who have lost work because of Covid, and the impact of LIPA on property taxes, as reasons to try to support the budget but “hope the surplus is returned to us.” Carol also said she’d like to return to the more transparent budget process the district used to have, back “when you voted for a budget it was informed consent.”
In Closing:
Warner Frey: “I want to really convey my love for this district, this community and its people. We've been through an awful lot together... I think blue skies are ahead. I do think we are heading in the right direction. We have an amazing group of people and I want to continue to grow it, and build this, and make an outstanding district even better.”
Victoria Buscareno: “We have so many challenges going on in our district and for me it’s so important to provide a voice for all of our community… Going forward I just hope that everyone always comes to the table with an open mind, open to listen to people’s different perspectives. So please, let’s all remember to be kind to each other, our intentions are always so good, we are all looking out for our children – we are their advocates – and for our community.”
Tammie Topel: “If I am elected, I will fight harder than ever before to give you what you deserve from the board of education and that is truth, transparency and exceptional communication. My objective would be to listen to your concerns, really hear what you are saying, and be your voice.”
Carol Taylor: “I am so proud to say I want to continue to serve our district in some capacity. We have an amazing district… I have two amazing daughters that are professionals because of the education that they received here, so this is my way of paying back. I want to be your voice, I have been your voice, and I hope to continue to be your voice.”
The annual budget vote and election of trustees is tomorrow, May 18, from 6am to 9pm. Voting will take place at the William J. Brosnan building, Fifth Avenue Elementary and Dickinson Avenue Elementary; all residents must vote at their designated polling places (see below for a link with more information). Absentee ballots are available at the district clerk’s office at the Brosnan building.
In addition to the election of trustees, tomorrow’s vote includes the following:
Proposition 1: The proposed budget carries a spending increase of 1.13% and a tax levy increase of 0.75%. It includes a $1.9M Covid-19 contingency fund. If passed, it will add approximately $58 in taxes this year for properties assessed at $3,800 (with a market value of $500,000.)
Proposition 2: Seeks to establish a capital reserve fund not to exceed $20 million over a 10-year period. This capital reserve is established to finance future building renovations and potential infrastructure needs. Note: expending the reserve would require a separate voter proposition, at a later date.
Proposition 3: Seeks to modify the district’s transportation eligibility, effective the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, to provide transportation for students in grades 6-8 from the existing 1.0 mile limit to a new 0.75 mile limit, and students in grades 9-12 from the current 1.5 mile limit to a new 1.0 mile limit.
Resources:
The Northport Journal’s detailed article on the budget, including the public hearing and comments from candidates: https://northportjournal.com/schools/residents-and-boe-candidates-voice-their-opinions-on-proposed-budget-ahead-of-may-18-vote
The school newsletter regarding the budget, including voter information on polling places and absentee ballots can be found here:
