Jennifer DeRocchis unseated incumbent Frank Miranda on Tuesday for a seat on the New Hyde Park-Garden City Park Board of Education, while the district’s budget proposal and that of its high school affiliate, Sewanhaka, passed easily.
Voters also approved the Hillside Library budget proposal and re-elected two school board incumbents who ran unopposed.
DeRocchis, a former Manor Oaks Parent Teacher Association vice president, won 54 percent of the vote and secured 548 votes. Miranda, an information technology specialist at Nassau BOCES, received 446 votes.
“I was quite shocked,” DeRocchis said. “I tried not to have any false expectations — I was nervous however the outcome was.”
However, the most important thing about Tuesday, DeRocchis said, was that the voters supported the budget.
“I’m happy it passed,” she said.
New Hyde Park-Garden City Park’s $38.8 million budget proposal passed 750 to 352; Sewanhaka’s $179 million proposal passed 3,533 to 1,432; and the Hillside Library’s $3.1 million proposal passed 747 to 279.
“I’m very happy with the outcome of the vote because it shows that we were able to create a budget that was fiscally responsible and keep all programs and staff in place,” New Hyde Park-Garden City Park Superintendent Robert Katulak said. “It does show that the community’s feeling that New Hyde Park-Garden City Park School District is going in the right direction.”
Board of Education members David Del Santo and James Reddan, both of whom ran unopposed, were re-elected with 750 and 732 votes, respectively.
“I’m thankful for the service Mr. Miranda… has given to the district, and I look forward to working with Ms. DeRocchis,” Katulak said.
New Hyde Park-Garden City Park’s adopted budget is 1.99 percent, or about $719,000, higher than the 2014-15 budget. The budget increases the tax levy by 0.9 percent, or about $265,000, to $29.8 million.
The budget includes funding to maintain all current programming at the district and avoid staff layoffs once again. New Hyde Park-Garden City Park was one of few districts to survive the economic downturn without any teacher layoffs.
The budget also allows the district to replace outdated technology, including printers, projectors and 350 computers and buy new SMART boards.
Sewanhaka’s adopted budget is about $3.5 million, or just under 2 percent, higher than the 2014-15 budget.
Voters from New Hyde Park-Garden City Park voted in favor of the Sewanhaka proposal 690 to 270.
The adopted budget includes funds to restore four teaching positions to “address class size issues in mathematics and foreign language,” Superintendent Ralph Ferrie said at a recent board meeting.
The budget also includes a number of program enhancements, including a talented and gifted program for seventh graders; rewritten seventh-grade curriculum in science, social studies and English; expanded technology for staff; and a number of capital projects.
The Hillside Public Library adopted budget increases spending by 0.87 percent, or less than $27,000, to $3.1 million.
The tax levy would increase by $21,350, or 0.72 percent, to $3 million.
DeRocchis, a former Parent Teacher Association vice president, said Katulak congratulated her following her victory, as did some other board members.
She said she looks forward to working with the board and administrators — they are largely on the same page, she said — to address class sizes, increase security and safety and participate in conversations on the Common Core.
DeRocchis, who has said she ran against Miranda only because she needed to challenge someone, thanked him for his service on the board.
“If nothing else, I want him to know we appreciate everything he has done in his time on the board,” she said. “His contributions, I don’t want to go unnoticed.”
Miranda said “it was a privilege serving on the board.”
“I thought we had a good board. We kept expenses down; we had good quality education for the children; we did lower the class sizes,” he said. “I’m sorry the community felt the way they felt.”
He said that being the final candidate listed on the ballot — candidate order is determined at random — may have hurt his chances for re-election because people may assume the top candidate is the incumbent. He also said that he felt the local papers did not do enough to reflect that he shares many of DeRocchis’ concerns about Common Core, standardized testing and class sizes.
“That didn’t get across,” he said.
Del Santo, who won a fourth three-year term, is one of two board members from New Hyde Park-Garden City Park to sit on the Sewanhaka Board of Education. The Sewanhaka board comprises two representatives from each of its four feeder elementary school districts.
Del Santo is the vice president of both boards.
The New Hyde Park-Garden City Park board appointed Reddan to his seat in 2014 following the resignation of then-Vice President Patricia Rudd, who relocated to Michigan.
