MONROE: Growth and Overcrowding tops BOE candidates issues

By Jenine Clancy, Special Writer
MONROE — With developers increasingly building in town, growth has become a dominant campaign issue for the handful of candidates competing for the town’s school board.
With three seats on Monroe’s Board of Education up for election on Nov. 4, seven candidates are vying to have a say in the public school system. Each term would be for three years.
Among the candidates is just one Incumbent, Board President Kathy Kalupanowich. Past Board President, and member since 1992, Amy Antelis and Board member since 2008 Ken Chiarella have chosen not to seek re-election.
Perhaps the biggest issue currently facing the Monroe Board of Education and one that seemingly cuts across party lines, is that of school overcrowding and talks of possible redistricting from the current board.
"It’s inevitable," said 71-year-old Mr. George Tatoris, a former electronic manufacturing director. "There is a lot growth in the southern end of the community, and in the northern part not so much. It’s a quick fix to get education to each child properly, you don’t want 30 kids in one class and 20 in another. There needs to be a balance."
Mr. Tatoris, who has a degree in industrial engineering, says the increasing growth in town is what propelled him to run, and that how to handle it is one of the biggest challenges facing the district in the next three years. Redistricting and improvements to the sciences and math are also on his list.
"With all the construction and new students coming in, we have to think how are we gong to deal with that effectively and efficiently and provide kids with cutting edge education," said 67-year-old Steven Riback, who worked for 37 years in the New York public school system.
Mr. Riback said all his experiences along the way, including his time as an assistant principal and principal, have given him a passion that he says he couldn’t just let go after he retired. His biggest challenges facing the district in the next three years include growth in town, quality education and taxes.
"I live in one of the adult communities and there is a misconception out there that all they care about is taxes, and we as seniors want to cut things and it could be nothing further from the truth," Mr. Riback said.
Forty-eight-year-old Jill DeMaio, a stay-at-home mother who currently has two children in the Monroe School District, said the number one challenge facing the district is finding a new superintendent. Right now, the district has an interim superintendent until the end of next school year.
Ms. DeMaio said she chose to run because she got heavily involved in the organization Save Our Schools, after Monroe’s state aid was slashed to only $200,00 in 2010. Through the Save our Schools organization, she has gotten involved in education policy at the state level.
"I needed to take some of that and get involved in my own town and get on the board," Mrs. DeMaio said. Mrs. DeMaio’s also sees growth as a major challenge and managing the budget while providing a quality education.
Current board president Kathy Kalupanowich, 60, has served 15 years on the board and 10 of those years she has served as either vice president or president of the board.
"I feel I saw where we were at in 1996 when my oldest child started high school, and where we are today and we’ve made enormous strides," Ms. Kalupanowich said. "There’s a lot of talk in our district if certain groups get on the board there will be cuts to different programs, its very easy for me to turn around and say I don’t want to do this again, but I cant let the district take steps backwards."
Ms. Kalupanowich said the three biggest issues facing the school district in her term if elected, are finding a new superintendent, the growth in town and thusly, finding where to place all of the students.
"We need to look at the option of redistricting," she said. "We knew when we built that high school it would be at capacity 2-3 years past into the opening of that school, and it has, its at capacity."
Frank Russo, 58, who has been living in the town for 17 years and has two kids who graduated from Monroe High School, said what got him interested in running was because taxes in town have increased, in what he calls "substantially" and feels there is a lack of transparency from the board.
"I have noticed there is something lacking on the board, and that is there is no leadership on the board," Mr. Russo, who has worked for the United Nations for 33 years, he said.
"I determined all roads lead to the board president who is not capable, she doesn’t have the background performing in the leadership role," Mr. Russo said from attending several board meetings.
Mr. Russo says the biggest challenge the board will face is developing that proper leadership, communicating better to the public and growth in town.
Louis Masters, 43, who works in software and currently has kids in the district, had served one-three-year term already on the board, and really likes the business side of education.
Mr. Masters, who wife is a teacher said while he was on the board they made the decision to bring in an i-book initiative, which he said is the best decision the board has ever made.
Mr. Masters said the biggest challenges in the next three years are the lax attitude people in general have about education, growth and Common Core, which was relatively split on how candidates felt about the mandatory standards.
"I think the formulation was terrible, if you look who’s backing it, if you trace through it, there are some big banks involved," Mr. Masters said. "This is a big business and political decision, they are pushing this so they can make money off of it."
"The idea is a great idea, we get kids college ready and teacher high learning level of thinking, but they cant say that is actually ever going to happen because they never tested it," said Ms. DeMaio.
"They created the standards, and the government did it with their key people and included teachers at the feedback stage when they should have included teachers in the developmental stage, but I do support conceptually," said Mr. Riback.
The seventh candidate, Richard Gibbons was reached but was not able to interview.