The Mineola Board of Education last Thursday night selected Mineola PTO activist Nicole Metzer to replace board Vice President Terence Hale, who recently resigned after becoming subject of a complaint from outgoing Trustee Irene Parrino to the state education commissioner.
Metzer was sworn the board’s reorganization meeting on Tuesday night along with Patricia Navarra, who defeated Parrino in her re-election bid in May.
“It’s an honor to have been chosen,” Metzer told her fellow board members.
“I’m excited to be working with you. I’ve admired you for a long time. It’s nice to part of the team,” Navarra said. “I’m looking forward to getting off on a positive note.”
At the reorganization meeting, the board unanimously elected Artie Barnett as president and Christine Napolitano as vice president. Barnett replaces Trustee Will Hornberger, who served as president for the past year.
The selection of Metzer followed a closed-door session by the board in which she and Bryan Bradley, a longtime school district finance committee member, were interviewed by board members for the position.
“We thank you for your passion and your interest, Bryan Bradley. We have chosen Nicole Metzer to serve on the board,” Hornberger said.
Bradley and Metzer were the only two people to respond to the board’s invitation to apply to the position after Hale announced his resignation, effective July 2.
“I’m excited at the opportunity. This is the business side and the education side,” Metzer said following her selection to the board.
Metzer recently completed a two-year term as co-president of the Mineola PTO District Council. Prior to that, she had served for two years as president of the Willis Avenue School PTO. She currently teaches catechism classes at St. Aidan Church.
She and her husband, Eric, have two children attending district schools, a son going into seventh grade and a daughter going into fourth grade.
Following the board meeting, Metzer said she had supported the consolidation plan to close the Cross Street School and part of the Willis Avenue School two years ago in the face of the district’s declining student population. Hale was part of the board majority that approved the plan with Parrino joining then board Trustee John McGrath in opposition.
Metzer, who moved to Mineola in 1999, said she had considered running for school board before and decided to respond to the board’s call for candidates as her district council co-presidency was ending.
“I hope that we can start focusing on the district and the students,” Metzer said.
Asked about Hale’s departure, she described him as a “wonderful individual who’s given up his time for the district.”
Bradley, who said he had served on the finance committee for the past eight years, had run against McGrath six years ago.
“I’ve been interested in the affairs of the board all along,” Bradley said.
Barnett welcomed the new board members and exhorted his fellow trustees to focus on the future.
“Let’s not dwell on the past. Let’s be positive and move forward,” Barnet said.
Asked about taking over as president after one year as trustee, Barnett said he wasn’t nervous about the new responsibility.
“They taught me well,” he said of his fellow board members. He said his objectives for the district are to “just keep getting better. Harmony. Unity. Sanity.”
Napolitano, who has previously served as board president and vice president, said it was nice to have a board with a majority of women who have experience as PTO activists.
“I’m very excited and looking forward to working with the new members of the board. I’d like to get back to what’s important,” she said.
Metzer and Navarra said they have worked together on the PTO district council.
After her re-election defeat in May, Parrino had called on the state education commissioner to remove Hale from the board for e-mails sent to fellow board members that she described as violations of law and the school district’s conduct code.
A copy of the complaint later provided to the Williston Times by Parrino included e-mails to fellow board members in April characterized by sarcasm, locker room humor and off-color comments aimed towards Parrino, Mineola Teachers Association President Teresa Hafner, and the Williston Times, among others. The Williston Times obtained the school board’s response from the state Department of Education.
Lawyer Warren Richmond of the Uniondale law firm Harris Beach responded to the state education commissioner on June 14 on behalf of the board saying the board denied Hale’s behavior violated the school district’s code of conduct. Richmond also wrote that Hale’s resignation made Parrino’s appeal for his removal “moot.”
Hale and Parrino both participated in Metzer’s selection as a board trustee in the last official acts of their tenures.
Responding to questions about Parrino’s accusations against Hale, Richmond said he expected the state education commissioner to dismiss the case in light of Hale’s resignation.
“I assume the commissioner will dismiss it as moot. There’s nothing to decide,” Richmond said.
The documents submitted by Richmond in response to Parrino’s accusations included a copy of Hale’s letter of resignation, dated June 11, stating his resignation was effective as of 12:01 a.m. on July 2.
Richmond confirmed the board members’ receipt of Hale’s April 30 e-mail “stating the he was unprofessional and out of line and had no excuse for such ‘unprofessionalism.’”
He also confirmed that board Trustee Christine Napolitano had told Hale to “cease and desist” from sending additional e-mails after an April 20 e-mail in which he said “Id rather use poison ivy to wipe myself than the New York Post or the Williston Times.”
Hale’s e-mail referred to a pre-election article about Parrino in the April 19 edition of the Williston Times.
In other developments:
• Mineola Superintendent of Schools Michael Nagler announced on Tuesday night that the board had selected Janet Gonzalez as new principal for the Jackson Avenue School at an annual salary of $154,029. Gonzalez has been assistant principal of Stratford Elementary School in Garden City.
The school board trustees interviewed Gonzalez for the position in a closed-door session the board held at the conclusion of its reorganization meeting on Thursday night.
• Nagler said new iPads loaded with eSpark educational software will be available in August to students entering grades 3 and 4 at Jackson Avenue. Some of the 600 new iPads the district will be going to eighth graders at Mineola High School as well. Purchase of the new iPads is being enabled by a $50,000 grant secured for the district by state Sen. Jack Martins (R-Mineola).
