Three Port Ed Board members seek re-election

Luke Torrance
Clockwise from left: Nora Johnson, Larry Greenstein, Beth Weisburd. (Courtesy of PWSD)

Three members of the Port Washington Board of Education will be seeking re-election in May: Vice President Nora Johnson, Larry Greenstein and Elizabeth Weisburd.

As of Monday’s filing deadline, no other candidates had joined the race, which means the three current board members will be running uncontested.

Greenstein serves on the curriculum committee and has been a member of the board since 2004. He previously served as the president of a special education parent-teacher association, which he said inspired him to advocate for students at the margins.

“I thought at that point, the board really needed a voice for people on the edges,” he said of his decision to run for the board 14 years ago. “The kids who were outliers were sort of being left behind.”

Greenstein’s children went through the Port Washington schools and have  graduated. He said he gives the board the unique perspective of someone whose children are no longer in the schools and also advocates for students who might otherwise be forgotten.

“We have more kids going to Nassau Community College than any other school, and a lot of them are the first people in their family to ever go to college,” he said. “That fact that we can instill that desire to continue their education is great and a sign we’re doing the right things.”

As someone who advocated for special education in the past, he said that the district’s revamping of its own special education program over the last decade is his proudest accomplishment.

“The fact that we’ve gone from being sort of notorious in special ed to being sought after … and having one of the best programs in the state … that was big,” he said.

Weisburd is finishing her first term. She serves on the curriculum committee with Greenstein and on the budget and facilities committee.

She said she ran in the first place to have a positive impact on the community and that she wanted to run for re-election because she enjoyed working with her fellow board members.

“I wanted to make sure that we continue to offer the quality of education here in Port Washington that we’ve offered as long as I’ve been here, and that’s a very, very long time,” she said.

Weisburd said her time on the budget and facilities committee has made her well versed in the finances of the district.

“I think I was pretty instrumental in helping this budget come in,” she said of the district’s 2018-19 budget, which was approved by the board at Tuesday’s meeting.

In addition to serving as the board’s vice president, Johnson is a member of the policy and personnel committee. Efforts to reach her were unavailing.

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