By Hector Flores
The new trustees will be granted the authority to establish policies governing the daily operation of the school district. Their duties include overseeing the spending of the district's school taxes, charting a yearly budget, selecting a new superintendent and working out new contracts with the district's seven unions.
This work is not easy, and the new trustees will need the support of the community to get the job done. Below, we profile the office seekers and their stances on the issues the district faces. A total of three seats are up for grabs, and vying for them are seven dedicated residents who have one thing in common: to make the well being and interest of the children of East Meadow their highest priority.
Joe Parisi
The first seat up for grabs is incumbent Joe Parisi's, who is coming to the end of his first term in office and is hoping to be re-elected. Parisi and his wife, Grace, are 25-year residents of East Meadow, with four children enrolled in the district. Two attend East Meadow High School, one goes to Woodland Middle School and the youngest is enrolled in McVey Elementary.
Parisi received his undergraduate degree and a Master's in business administration from St. John's University. He is a senior vice president at Citigroup, working in the Markets and Securities Technology group.
During his tenure on the board and as chairman of the Business and Technology Committee, he has seen the board negotiate long-term contracts with five of the seven unions in the district. In addition, Parisi is proud of the role he played in helping the district win national awards for budgeting and financial disclosure two years in a row.
"My role as a banker in the technology group has helped me fulfill my role as a trustee," he said. "Not only must I know technology, I must know business, budgeting and staffing. My professional career has enabled me to understand business and how it works, and apply it to the district."
Parisi added that as a board member, he has the ability to cut costs. "I get involved in working with vendors - for example, when a bid goes out for waste management," he said. "We must interview the vendors, and there is a biding process."
As a concerned parent, Parisi believes that the district needs to develop a long-term solution to the problem of how to fund education and schools other than by way of homeowners' property taxes.
As for bridging the divide that currently exists between the district and the teachers' union, which has been working without a new contract since August 2004, Parisi is asking that teachers be more involved in the negotiation process and have more of a say in the negotiating process.
Parisi faces two challengers for his seat, educator Peggy McQuade-Kaplan and software designer David Rosenberg.
Peggy McQuade-Kaplan
McQuade-Kaplan, who was born in Queens, has lived in East Meadow with her husband, Lenny, and their two children - a son, Sean, and a daughter, Casey - for last 12 years. Both children attended McVey Elementary and Woodland Middle School.
McQuade-Kaplan earned an undergraduate degree and a Master's in science education from Queens College. She also attended New York University and the Parsons School of Design.
Since 1981, she has been a special-education teacher in New York City. She is state-certified to teach special education and holds a New York city license in art. She has also taught in the Safe Harbor after-school recreation program, which has providing a safe haven for "latchkey" children for 17 years.
"I was a teacher of ceramics and clay in the CAPE program in East Meadow," she said. "I am a past member of the McVey PTA and a current member of the Woodland PTA."
McQuade-Kaplan also served as an education lobbyist in Albany for 18 years, fighting for smaller class sizes and increased funding for New York City schools. She has been a member of the city's School Leadership Team for over a decade, helping to develop a school safety plan for city schools.
Now she want to bring her experience as an educator and advocate to East Meadow. She is confident that her experience with the teachers' union in New York City will help her put an end in the stalled negotiations in East Meadow. "Good teachers only want a fair contract, and they will leave without one," she said. "Home values in East Meadow are falling because of the districts' contract dispute. No one is looking to buy into a poor school system. Even the residents who no longer want children still need good teachers to maintain their home values."
McQuade-Kaplan believes that peer pressure will eventually bring both sides back to the negotiating table. "Even if you're a board member, you can call on the community to put pressure on the board and superintendent to bargain in good faith for the schoolchildren," she said.
Although McQuade-Kaplan admits to not having a thorough knowledge of the district's finances, she is well versed in education programs and their worth. "I also know in a budget where to trim the fat," she said.
David Rosenberg
Rosenberg, 49, and his family have been living in East Meadow since 1999. Born in Bayside Queens, he attended Stony Brook University and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Computers. He is currently a lead application architect for Avis Budget Group, where he has worked for the last 15 years.
Rosenberg said, "I design software system for all the different aspect of the rental business: accounting, reservation, rental and fleet management."
Rosenberg has three children, a 19-year-old who graduated from Clarke High School last year and is now attending college, a 16-year-old sophomore in Clarke, and a 13-year-old in middle school.
Rosenberg's community activities include NFL flag football coach, Little League assistant coach, president and vice president of the Clarke Theatre Arts Parents Association and Cub Scout leader for the past six years.
Rosenberg want to create the best educational environment for the children in East Meadow. "I'm running basically to improve communication between the district, teachers, community and the board itself," he said. "I have been in many meetings and the board seems at odds with the members of the community. I feel that the current situation with the way board meetings are run does not show respect to the community and teachers. In fact, it shows a lack of respect. I would like to change that."
His first priority is to settle the teachers' contract dispute, by balancing the concerns and desires of teachers with the concerns and priorities of taxpayers. In addition, he hopes to improve the dialogue between the school board and the community by using tools such as the district's new automated announcement system and Internet-based blogs, community forums and podcasts.
Abby Rothschild-Kaplan
Vying for the vacant seat left by outgoing board member Debra Kirsh are Abby Rothschild-Kaplan and Steven Wallstedt.
Rothschild-Kaplan was born and raised in East Meadow, and attended Prospect Elementary, Woodland Middle School and East Meadow High School. She went on to study theater at New York University, and then education and psychology at Adelphi University.
Rothschild-Kaplan's children, Rachel and Jonathan, also received their education in East Meadow. Both attended Barnum Woods Elementary, Woodland Middle School and East Meadow High School. Rachel is now a junior at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Jonathan is a senior at East Meadow High.
During her children's education, Rothschild-Kaplan became active in PTA in Barnum Woods. During her tenure, she has held many positions, including corresponding secretary, recording secretary, second vice president and first vice president. She has also been a member of the PTA's committee for Founder's Day, Transportation and Child Safety.
She has also worked with community children, teaching at Gymboree and volunteering for three years with a local Girl Scout troop.
In addition to her involvement in Barnum Woods, she has also held many positions at Woodland, such as vice-president, co-president, and member of the transportation, child safety and human dignity committees. Rothschild-Kaplan has also been a member of PTSA at East Meadow High, serving as president for two years.
She said that she is running for Board of Education because she wants to continue her involvement with the district. "This is the next logical step," she said. "I love East Meadow, and lines of communications [between the district and the teachers' union] must be reopened. We need to come to an agreement with the teachers' union and end this conflict without having an impact on taxpayers."
Steven Wallstedt
Wallstedt, 38, was born and raised in Brooklyn. After he married his wife, Lori, who is originally from Baldwin, in 1995, the couple moved to East Meadow.
Wallstedt and his wife have two children, Ryan, 8, and Kayla, 6, who are enrolled at McVey Elementary School.
He received a Bachelor of Science degree from New York Institute of Technology in 1992, and is currently a senior vice president at Citigroup. "I'm the information security officer for the global consumer bank," he said. "My responsibility is to implement policy and procedures and manage the programs, and to ensure that the business itself complies with the policy."
Wallstedt added that his career has given him experience with managing budgets and staff. "My main priority is to ensure compliance to rules and regulations that govern the financial institution I work for," he said. "We write the policy and review procedure, somewhat of a quasi-auditing of ourselves."
In his spare time, Wallstedt coaches his son's baseball team or his daughter's softball team for the East Meadow Baseball/Softball Association. "I'm also on the board of directors for the association," he said. "We make sure that the Little League's rules and regulations are abided by. Once the season begins, we set up the draft, teams, run clinics, winter clinics and perform field maintenance."
Wallstedt is also a member of the Spartan Lodge Free and Accepted Masons in Baldwin, and serves as a trustee of the Spartan Masonic Education Fund, which provides college scholarships for Masonic Youth.
Having two young children in the schools, I want to have a say in our district and help our kids, and make sure that they are getting the best education possible so they can become the leaders of tomorrow," he said. As for the ongoing dispute between the teachers' union and the district, Wallstedt said, "There are many sides of the story, and somewhere in the middle we must find a solution."
Comments about this story? HFlores@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 283.
