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RVCUFSD Board of Education Candidate Summary
Vote: Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Recently, Chris D’Ambrosio,
Lesli Deninno and Viri Pettersen met with BOE candidate Lynda Rubino. Rubino works as a CPA for Ernst &
Young. Her children are enrolled in private
schools. She has served on various school
boards, including St. Marks Nursery School and St. Agnes (past president), and
is a member of Rockville Centre’s Citizen’s Budget Advisory Board. Ms Rubino hails from East Rockaway and told us
that she and her husband were very happy to move to Rockville Centre. She said she decided to run because she
wanted to fully understand her school taxes.
Furthermore, she expressed a desire to increase transparency for
community residents and communicate what she learned about our district’s
school taxes to them in order to alleviate confusion. During our meeting, we told Ms. Rubino that
we gave back three-days’ salary for the 2012-2013 school year in order to
retain our students’ educational community, our members and our programs. She was unaware of the Greenhouse program and
its contribution to the needs of at-risk students. When asked, Ms. Rubino indicated that she was
a proponent of our arts and music programs.
In a recent Patch op-ed piece,
she stated, “I
will bring an objective view to the Board and will ensure academic excellence
in a fiscally responsible environment. I will be a Board member that will
question, challenge and be accountable to our residents.” Ms. Rubino said that new programs would
require investigation and that, if implemented, could well mean replacement of
other programs. When asked her thoughts
about class size, comparing a class of 40 in some private schools to that of a
much smaller classroom environment in our public schools, she indicated that
she much preferred the smaller class size in that it provided students and
their teachers with the opportunity to know each other. A recent Herald
interview included the following statement: “One unfunded mandate I would
repeal is the Triborough Amendment of the Taylor Law. The Triborough Amendment
requires that all terms of an expired contract remain in place, including
continued salary increases, and must be paid despite expiration of the
contract. This creates little or no incentive for re-negotiation of an expired
contract.” Lastly, she confirmed that
she wanted our students to be college and career ready, but reflected back on
the expenses associated with this goal. From
the Patch: “If we are truly committed
to our children we will teach them now that all members of our community have a
right to a voice and that choices, although different from our own, must be
respected. In order to be a strong community, we must be a united one.”
Today,
the Executive Council met with John O’Shea to gain greater insight into his
candidacy. Mr. O’Shea is a landscaping
contractor with his own business in Rockville Centre. His children are enrolled in our district’s
public schools. He has served on
Riverside’s PTA and was a past president.
Mr. O’Shea is the incumbent, having served a three-year term on the
District’s Board of Education and is well-versed in the various facets of
running the district. He is a lifelong
resident of Rockville Centre. Mr. O’Shea
has been actively involved in establishing and promoting this year’s bond vote
and has been equally active in developing this year’s budget, and feels that,
over his three-year tenure, he has worked hard to increase transparency to
residents. He feels that unfunded
mandates are a major problem within the school community and that they should
be addressed with our state and local legislators. In a recent Herald article, he states, “Unfunded mandates are a burden for our
school district and its taxpayers. Some mandates have merit, so the struggle to
pay for them seems worthwhile. Far too many mandates create more bureaucracy
and red tape without addressing the issue in front of them.” He cited APPR and state testing as examples
of mandates that are draining the district financially, causing increases in
school taxes. “With the budget
challenges of unfunded mandates, I will ask our citizens to rally with me to
have our legislators reform unfunded mandates. I will continue to look for
savings in each and every line of future budgets.” When asked his thoughts
about the Triborough Amendment, he stated that it should to be revisited. We conveyed our feelings about our three-day
salary cut, indicating that we negotiated the agreement to retain the integrity
of our district and our members. He
acknowledged that our agreement succeeded in accomplishing both goals. When asked, Mr. O’Shea indicated that he was a
proponent of our arts and music programs, as well as our athletic programs,
saying that students need more than just academics in their days. Mr. O’Shea expressed a desire to
have our students college and career ready and said that the district and our
members are doing a fine job in preparing our children for the future. From the
Herald: “I believe it is our responsibility to provide an education that
will enable our children to achieve success in their future. If we don’t
provide the avenue for success now, we as a society will pay dearly for it in
the future.”
