P.C. school board race uncontested, for now
April 25, 2024 at 1:46 a.m.
For the first time since at least 2007—and likely longer—the upcoming Port Chester Board of Education election seems to be uncontested.
But though candidacy petitions were due at 5 p.m. on Monday, Apr. 22, the nature of who’s running may change over the next few weeks.
Voters will head to the polls on Tuesday, May 21, and at this point, they will only have two options available as they select who will fill the vacancies currently held by Board of Education President Lou Russo and Vice President Sharon Burke.
Candidacy petitions were due to the district clerk by 5 p.m. on Monday, Apr. 22. A few minutes after the deadline, the official list revealed three names in the race: Burke, JoAnne Ferrara and Kendra Varbero. Russo, after serving two terms, has chosen not to throw his hat in the ring again.
Just before this newspaper’s Wednesday evening press time, however, Varbero confirmed in an email, “I’ve decided to withdraw my name from consideration.” Thus, it seems there is no decision for the community to make come May, aside from whether to accept or reject the $147.5 million budget proposal on the ballot—but that may not be the case.
Three years ago, in Spring 2021, candidate at the time Joe Carvin dropped out of a highly competitive Board of Education race a week after filing his nominating petitions. At the time, the district issued a statement indicating education law mandates they must extend the deadline to allow other candidates the opportunity to join the race.
At the time, the Westmore News reported new potential candidates had two weeks to file petitions as of the date Carvin withdrew.
Both candidates currently in the running offer different, yet expansive, experiences to the school board. And both made clear a pivotal motivation: to make the Port Chester School District the best it can be for all students.
Sharon Burke
As the only incumbent on the ballot, Sharon Burke’s motivation for serving remains the same as it was when she initially ran three years ago: to provide more opportunities that are accessible to all students. But with experience under her belt, she feels she’s in a better position to continue with that mission.
“What it comes down to for me is, I want to improve the lives of our students,” Burke said. “We’ve been able to work with stakeholders and the community to improve academic, cultural, athletic and emotional lives through our schools. And I want to keep doing that work. I feel we’ve been able to give students opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have, and for Port Chester students especially, I want them to know there are opportunities out there available to them.”
The Board of Education and budget vote will take place on Tuesday, May 21.
Giving students opportunities “is something I think about a lot,” she said. There’s more work to be done in that regard, she added, and there’s a two-pronged approach to that stride—supporting both students and staff.
Burke, a 55-year-old Fairhaven Lane resident, has three children enrolled at Port Chester High School—sophomore twins, and a senior preparing for college. She’s a Meals on Wheels coordinator working in the Mamaroneck and Larchmont communities, a job she was able to pick up now that her children have become more independent.
“I think being in the community and serving on the board, having children that have gone through all levels of the district, it’s really given me valuable insights into things we do very well in Port Chester,” she said. “And it’s also given insight into things that perhaps need improvement.”
With an optimistic spin, Burke said she sees challenges as opportunities to continue improving. And if elected, she has concerns she’d like to address by bringing them to the table for discussion over the next three years.
“Sometimes it feels like there are a lot of challenges,” she said. “But when I distill it down, I think we have an ongoing need to improve students’ academic outcomes, from our youngest to our oldest.”
Academic achievement, she said, is the school board’s primary responsibility. She referred to the regular STAR Assessment score updates the Board of Education annually receives, describing it as a way for the cohort to stay on top of the progress. And while she emphasized that assessments can’t be seen as an end-all-be-all in evaluating success, she does think of them as a useful tool helping them gauge how the district is doing.
Enhancing the district largely comes down to supporting teachers, Burke said.
“I want to make sure the supports we provide our students, that we’re also providing for teachers,” she said. “Sometimes as a parent it’s easy to focus on students, and I think we all need to remember that our staff members went through everything our students did, too, like with COVID. Everyone is dealing with it in a different way, but I want to make sure our teachers have as much support as they need from the board.”
There are also financial priorities Burke has on her radar. She’s concerned about the state of athletics at Port Chester Schools, which she said despite having needs has not seen much growth over the last few years. And she said it’s crucial for the district to continue investing in capital—the maintenance and repairs of the plant.
“I want to make sure we’re continuing to ensure they’re as safe as they can be for students and staff,” she said, referring to the buildings. “Our buildings get a lot of use, and we need to make sure we’re taking care of them.”
JoAnne Ferrara
When Dr. JoAnne Ferrara felt the inspiration to start raising a family 33 years ago, she found Port Chester, moving into her Layfette Drive home from Manhattan.
“We wanted to move to the suburbs. We were introduced to Port Chester and fell in love with the vibe and just settled in,” she said. And now, she’s at a point where she wants to give back to her community by running for a seat on the Board of Education. “It’s about service. You reach a certain stage in life where you want to give back, and I feel like I’m qualified to put my hat in for office and see what happens.”
Ferrara’s daughters, now 31 and 27 years old and living in Massachusetts, graduated from Rye High School and School of the Holy Child. Yet, though her daughters did not fully experience the Port Chester Schools trajectory, she has a depth of understanding about the district through abundant time spent there.
“I worked at Edison Elementary School for 20 years as a university partner,” Ferrara explained. “I was the professor in residence, employed by Manhattanville College.”
Ferrara, 68, is an academic in the field of education. Though she is now a professor emeritus at Manhattanville University—semi-retired after 30 years in higher education—her professional studies have been around studying community-partnership models in public schools, which the Port Chester School District has embraced for decades.
In essence, the model embodies a whole community approach to schooling. “It’s about leveraging your partnerships and looking at needs,” she said. “Looking at assets of the school, needs of the school, assets of the community and needs of the community. How do we leverage partnerships to work alongside one other to support everyone—students, families and teachers.”
Manhattanville University (the name was only recently changed from Manhattanville College) is one of Port Chester Schools’ partners. Ferrara said she started the institution’s first university-school partnership in her work with Edison Elementary School, which has since grown to include 18 different schools. The program saw Manhattanville students coming to the district to learn how to teach, under Ferrara’s supervision, and in return she also helped local teachers through professional development opportunities.
“I really believe in collaboration, you can’t do this alone,” she said. “It was about us, both institutions, rolling up their sleeves and saying: ‘What are the needs of students? What are the needs of pre-service teachers? What are the needs of practicing teachers? What are the needs of university faculty and school administration? And then figuring out how we can work together to meet each other’s needs.”
The community schools approach has defined Ferrara’s thinking about education—she even published a book about Edison School, “Whole Child, Whole School,” describing it as a successful case study. And she believes that perspective, along with her professional experience, would be an asset on the Board of Education, as it naturally drives her to think about balance.
While she was hesitant to share specific philosophies or priorities driving her campaign, she noted her recognition of issues conflicting the field of education across the nation, including in Port Chester.
“Schools across the country are struggling with test scores, post-COVID issues, chronic attendance issues, those sorts of things,” she said. If elected, “I’d look at, what does the data say, where should we be going with that? What is the superintendent’s vision? What does the community want? What do the teachers want? What do the families want? How do we move forward in a way that helps all stakeholders?”
“I’m about consensus building,” she concluded. “What’s good for children, for families, and what’s good for members of the community, that’s where my heart is.”
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