Support for the SBNC from Friends of Slate 2010

To the Editor: As past and present leaders of the Joint Committee of the School Board Nominating Committee (which includes this year’s and last year’s Administrative Committees of the SBNC), we are writing to support the School Board nomination and election process that has provided the Scarsdale schools with extraordinary leadership for over four decades. The members of the Joint Committee collectively have over 60 years of experience with this rigorous and effective process. The members of the School Board Nominating Committee know how the School Board operates and work together to evaluate the candidates’ skills in information-gathering, consensus-building, and the other things the candidates need in order to be effective and valuable members of the School Board.

In addition to their annual work on the school budget, each week the school board members must read and understand numerous reports on subjects as varied as lower, middle, and high school curricula, human resources issues (including vital hiring and tenure decisions), special needs programs, student stress, transportation, discipline, narcotics, operations, maintenance, and many other topics involved in the operation of our schools. Each year, the candidates our committee interviews – some self-proposed, some proposed by others – talk to the SBNC about how their skills and experience would enable them to absorb, discuss and form consensus on any of these subjects. The committee goes out into the community and verifies their claims with friends and neighbors and learns their potential strengths and weaknesses as potential school board members. Then the committee selects the most promising candidates it has interviewed for the slate of nominees. It is this process that has given our community a long succession of School Boards made up of dedicated and thoughtful members who in collaboration with one another have provided us with the school system that is one of our community’s greatest assets. We think it deserves the strong support of all of our citizens.

A committee has been formed by a group of people who firmly believe in the process and want to preserve our non-partisan system -- Friends of the Slate 2010. Since the candidates who were nominated this year by the SBNC did not anticipate they would need to campaign, the new committee has taken the lead to provide this effort this year. Look for their palm cards, answer their phone calls, and help them provide absentee ballots or rides to the polls for those in need of such assistance. They also need volunteers to support these activities. Please email [email protected] if you are able to help.

Sincerely
David M. Brodsky – Past Chair of the Joint Commitee
Susan Kessler Ross, Chair of the Joint Committee