By:REBECCA SHALOMOFF
An overflow crowd of more than 100 jammed into the Woodmere Firehouse on short notice Monday night to continue a long-standing tradition of Candidates' Night, when those vying for the Hewlett-Woodmere School Board square off on district issues prior to the May vote.
PTA Central Council, which traditionally organizes the event, announced on April 24 that it was canceling it for this year because hardly anyone ever showed up, including candidates.
Angered by the cancellation, district residents banded together and organized it themselves. And the turnout Monday night set a new precedent for Candidates' Night, with record-breaking attendance that comprised a mixture of members of the school board and PTA and plenty of other district residents, who were either veterans or newcomers to school meetings.
"This is the largest Candidates' Night turnout in the past 10 years. Every segment of the community is here," said Bruce Kavitsky, a parent from North Woodmere.
Kavitsky, among other community members, asked representatives from the League of Women's Voters, a political but non-partisan organization, to not only moderate the event, as it does each year, but to also sponsor it.
Last Friday, the League officially agreed to do it and announced that the forum would be in the Woodmere Firehouse. With only a few days to inform the public, active parents and other residents, such as Teena Korman and Corinne Boni, spread the word that the canceled event was back on.
"I think it worked out really well," Boni said at the end of the night.
Although the last-minute announcement of the event might have prevented the crowd from being even larger than it was, many people who attended were relieved to have been able to meet the candidates.
To replace Candidates' Night, PTA Central Council had suggested the five candidates in the May 15 election, incumbents Richard Braverman and Stephanie Gould, and challengers Mary DeSetta, Dari Ellman and Mark Gottlieb, fill out a questionnaire that would then be given to students to bring home to parents and made available at schools and the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library.
Central Council co-president Jill Stern said the questionnaire would allow the candidates to reach a much larger audience than historically attended the annual forum.
Yet, candidates complained that the questions - about the budget, structural problems of the Woodmere Middle School, the role of a public school in serving a community and how the candidates feel they could contribute to the district - were generic and that canceling Candidates' Night prevented the community from posing other questions and getting to know each of them in a way the written word could not convey.
The only drawback to the forum was the absence of Richard Braverman, the board president, who is seeking re-election. He agreed to attend but could not because he and his wife, Judi, were in Manhattan awaiting the birth of their first grandchild.
Nevertheless, all who attended got an opportunity to see and hear from the other candidates, most of whom are running for the first time.
During the night, audience members posed written questions to the candidates. Some people, however, were upset that their questions were not asked or that they couldn't speak directly with the candidates.
"I wish it were an open forum," one parent said.
The next morning, a Mara Jacobowitz sent a letter to the editor of the Nassau Herald, in which she wrote: "I heard over and over again at Candidates' Night how the candidates want to listen to the community. However, there was one problem, questions were left unanswered. My question was left unanswered. Every question should have been asked and answered just like they do at board meetings."
Among questions asked of the candidates were what they thought about the portable rooms for the Woodmere Middle School on the 2001-02 ballot, building a new middle school, role the school board should play in monitoring special ed and most pressing issue in the district.
For the most part, the candidates were in agreement and dealt with each other cordially and respectfully. All saw the portables as the only current choice to resolve overcrowding at the middle school. Ellman and Gottlieb favor building a new school, while DeSetta and Gould favor investigating the best possible solution to give the community more choices.
All candidates favor the school board being more involved in special education and agreed that the most pressing issue is providing a good education for all students. And DeSetta and Gottlieb also stressed that bickering at school-board meetings must be resolved.
Overall, many people said they left with a better sense of the candidates.
And a school-board trustee, Howie Weinick, expressed hope that people would continue to turn out in large numbers to discuss school matters. "I would be thrilled if more people would show up to school meetings," Weinick said. "We need more community involvement."
