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Four candidates are vying for three open seats on the Board of Education: incumbent Vincent Nadile, Carol Banino, John Paine and Jennifer Liddy Green.
See previous questionnaires from John Paine, Vincent Nadile and Jennifer Liddy Green.
Carol Banino is a Sleepy Hollow resident with two children enrolled in the Public Schools of the Tarrytowns. A former corporate attorney, she now works as a stay-at-home mother. She previously served as Board President, as well as co-chair of the Fundraising Committee, for the Torbank Nursery School in Ossining.
What qualifies you to be a school board member? I imagine my best contribution to the Board of Education would come from my first-hand experiences these past six years in the Tarrytown Public Schools. Each year I volunteer in the classroom and at school events (the school play, field day, the book fair, etc.). I also facilitate lunchtime book clubs for students each winter, and I co-lead two Tarrytown Girl Scout Troops. This “on the ground” participation provides me with a unique perspective on the school environment and affords me the chance to speak with a wide range of parents regarding what each is looking for from our school system.
What are the three biggest issues facing the school today? The parents I speak with highlight for me one of the biggest challenges facing our school system today: our diverse student body with its varied list of needs and wants. Yet that diversity is the reason so many of us chose to make Tarrytown our home to begin with; and at the end of the day, our goals for our children are pretty much the same. This leads to a second challenge: finding ways to fund it all, especially considering the unfunded state mandates – a third challenge to our school system.
If elected what would you do about them? I believe we can continue to maintain the programs that are most important to us all while staying under (preferably well under) the state mandated tax cap. By continuing to streamline and rework our current way of managing operations we can run all of our programs more efficiently. While lobbying the state for relief from the unfunded mandates, we should also investigate the possibility of raising revenue from our growing number of innovative programs.
I am encouraged by the school board’s recent attempts to solicit opinions from the community regarding student use of technology and building maintenance issues. I hope to continue to find ways to open communication between the Board and the community.
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