School board races are off

The race for a seat on the Board of Education in Island Park kicked off last week, with two challengers running for current trustee Barbara Speight's seat, a five-year member of the board who is stepping down. In Oceanside, current board members Maryanne Lehrer and Robert Transom are running unopposed.

In Island Park, Speight, a chemistry and physics teacher in the Oceanside School District said a new full-time teaching position she accepted would interfere with her duties as a board member, not to mention her work as a mother of three children.

Richard Schurin, an attorney, and Richard Hayes, a kennel supervisor for the Wantagh Animal Shelter, are running to fill Speight's seat.

The race comes at a time when the district faces a reduction in state aid, decreased revenues and increased costs, challenges that many schools across the state are grappling with. Both Schurin and Hayes said they have a pulse on the community and are aware of the challenges in the district.

"I will bring an independent and informed perspective to the table," said Schurin, a Manhattan-based attorney specializing in intellectual property law.  "I have attended nearly every school board meeting for the last 3 years, so I am thoroughly aware with the challenges faced by our district."

Hayes,a lifelong Island Park resident and graduate of the middle school and West Hempstead High School, said he has a pulse on the community that would serve the board and district well.

Hayes said that he supports the proposed 2010-11 school budget, and that School Superintendent Dr. Rosemarie Bovino has been doing a good job.

"I'm a parent who understands what it is to be paying taxes and paying bills," Hayes said. "I do think that the board is going in the right direction, and I want to continue that. I want to be that person who can bring information from the public back to the school board."

For his part Schurin said the board is doing a better job than they did two or three years ago, but said that much more needs to be done, and that he would make tough decisions that "are necessary to continue to provide the best education."

"If elected to the board, I will continue to aggressively challenge any past practice that does not benefit our children or the taxpayers of Island Park, and will continue to promote new initiatives like FLES," Schurin said.

Both candidates will have a chance to discuss their backgrounds and issues at a PTA Candidate's Forum scheduled for Tuesday, May 4 at 7:30 p.m. at the Island Park Conference Center on Radcliffe Road.