Abramson-Brooks and Beys elected to board; $160.5M budget passes

Jessica Parks
Incumbent Emily Beys (left) and Deborah Abramson-Brooks were elected to the Port Washington school board on Tuesday. (Photo courtesy of Dave Kerpen)

Deborah Abramson-Brooks was elected to the Port Washington Board of Education on Tuesday with 2,119 votes.

Incumbent Emily Beys was the highest vote-getter of all four candidates with 2,252 votes to be re-elected to her second term.

Both were elected to three-year terms.

The $160.5 million budget was also approved with 2,517 in favor and 747 votes against it.

Jonathan Geisler received 745 votes and Robert Young received 550 votes in the contest for seats on the board.

Abramson-Brooks is a lawyer and a prominent voice in the opt-out movement. She is a proponent of a whole-child education.

“I will continue to work to strengthen a whole child education for all children by fighting against mandates and policies that harm our children,” Abramson-Brooks said via email.

She was appointed to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Common Core Task Force and has said the curriculum was written by college professors and business people without a single K-12 teacher on either the standard writing or validation committees.

In an earlier candidates forum, she called the curriculum “the antithesis of a whole-child education.”

In the email, she said she is looking forward to bringing her “knowledge, experience, and state and national advocacy to my hometown.”

Abramson-Brooks said she will also fight for increased state aid and will use her “fiscally conservative nature to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent in a most efficient and effective way.”

She said she looks forward to working with her fellow board members, the new superintendent and all those who work in the schools and support Port Washington children. She thanked all those who voted for her and the other candidates who stepped up to run.

“Our system of government works best when citizens engage,” the newly elected board member said.

Beys worked in advertising and marketing and was president of the Parents Council, Schreiber Home-School Association and Weber Home-School Association before sitting on the school board.

She is a member of the district’s Legislative Task Force, which works to advocate with state legislators and has successfully obtained increases in the district’s foundation aid.

Beys said she is looking forward to Abramson-Brooks joining the school board and thanked the other two candidates who ran and hopes they remain involved with the school district.

“I am grateful for the opportunity to continue serving the Port Washington School District community,” she said via email. “My next term will begin as our district also welcomes a new superintendent. I look forward to being part of that transition.”

The approved budget will take effect on July 1 and is a 2.96 percent increase from the current budget. School taxes will increase by 2.88 percent.

“On behalf of the BOE and District Administration, I wish to express my deep gratitude to the entire Port Washington community for their overwhelming support of the proposed 2019-2020 school budget,” Port Washington Superintendent of Schools Kathleen Mooney said in an email. “This approval allows the District to continue to provide our students with the high-quality education they deserve.”

She congratulated Beys and Abramson-Brooks on their elections to the board and said she is “confident that they will work diligently on behalf of all students in the Port Washington School District.”

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