Valley Stream incumbents to face challenges

There will be contested races for Board of Education seats in all three Valley Stream elementary school districts next month. Nominating petitions were due on Monday afternoon.

There are 10 candidates for six seats among the three boards in the elections, which will be held on May 21.

The Central High School District Board is not directly elected, but comprises select members of the elementary school boards.

District 24

Voters in District 24 will choose among four candidates for three open seats. The top three vote getters will win. Trustees’ terms are three years.

Incumbents Tony Iadevaio and Larry Trogel are both seeking re-election. The third open seat is available because longtime board member Frank Nuara is stepping down. Besides the two incumbents, John Maier and Stephen Rubenstein are running for seats on the board.

Iadevaio is running for his 12th term and Trogel for his fifth. Both also serve as high school board members. Maier is the PTA co-president at the William L. Buck School. Rubenstein is a past PTA president at the Brooklyn Avenue School.

District 13

There are four candidates in District 13, which has two seats up this year. This is not an at-large election, as in District 24.

At least one newcomer will be elected to the board, as incumbent Joan Gartner is not seeking re-election. A PTA leader and a teacher are vying for Gartner’s seat.

Patty Farrell, co-president of the Central/Memorial PTSA and a former PTA leader at the Wheeler Avenue School, is running. Her competitor is Toni Pomerantz, a third-grade teacher at the Howell Road School. Because Pomerantz is retiring at the end of the school year, she will be eligible to serve on the board as of July 1.

Farrell lives in the Village of Valley Stream. Pomerantz is in the Franklin Square section of the district. Both are officers with the District 13 Educational Foundation.
For the second seat, two-term incumbent Joseph DiSibio is seeking re-election. His challenger is Patrick Heaney.

DiSibio, of Franklin Square, was first elected to the Board of Education in 2007. He is currently serving his first year on the high school board. Heaney, of Malverne, has children who graduated from the James A. Dever School.

Both seats in District 13 are for three years.

District 30

There is one seat up for election on the five-member District 30 board. Incumbent Elise Antonelli, who was appointed to fill a vacancy in late 2007 and won a full term the following May, is seeking re-election. She will be opposed by Valley Stream resident Oneca Heath-Phillip.

Antonelli served as District 30’s board president from 2010 to 2012 and is currently vice president of the high school board. The winner of the seat will have a five-year term.

Board of Education elections will be held along with the school budget votes.