Next Schenectady school chief is focus of forum

Unlike last year, only a few dozen people showed up for Thursday’s question-and-answer forum with the candidates for Schenectady’s school board. And they asked so few questions that the forum ended more than half an hour early.

But the questions they did ask got right to the point: Candidates had to explain how they would select the next superintendent and how they’d reduce teen pregnancy.

The winners will vote on hiring the next superintendent and they differed sharply on how they’d make their choice.

Incumbent Gary Farkas, running for his second term, said interim Superintendent John Yagielski demonstrated the best traits needed in the district’s next leader.

When the board and the superintendent are wrestling with controversial issues, Farkas said, the next leader must “do it in a respectful way so he doesn’t just blow us off like other superintendents used to.”

Incumbent Ron Lindsay, who won a one-year term last year and is now running for a full term, also spoke highly of Yagielski.

Like Yagielski, Lindsay said, the next superintendent should have a business background as well as an educational background.

And the decision shouldn’t be made by the board alone.

“We have to make sure the community is directly involved,” Lindsay said.

Newcomer Barbara Metcalfe, the only candidate from last year who was not elected but chose to run again, said she’s more impressed by a superintendent who can roll up his sleeves with a PTO. She recalled a day that Yagielski helped scoop ice cream for children at a PTO-sponsored social.

“I would hope we’d get a superintendent who would purchase a home in this community and be one of us,” she said.

Cheryl Nechamen, who has never run for election before, said she’ll ask superintendent candidates how they would handle a scandal. She wants to know whether they’ll “hunker down and make sure no one asks any questions” or study the problem and “make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Shatiki Beatty, who has also never run for election, said she wants the public to select the superintendent.

“Together we will all choose who our best superintendent will be,” she said.

sex ed

On the issue of reducing teen pregnancy, all the candidates said more must be done, but only Nechamen proposed changing the district’s policy on sex education, which keeps many students out of those classes.

Nechamen said the district shouldn’t ask parents to opt into the sex education classes. Instead, she said, the district should teach every student except those whose parents specifically sign a form opting out of the classes. That way, parents who forget to sign the form or lose it won’t hurt their children’s education, she said.

Farkas suggested bringing in outside groups to talk to teens. “The teens are here. We have a captive audience,” he said.

Beatty also called for more education.

“A lot of our teenagers are pregnant because they’re just not educated,” she said.

Lindsay said teachers should remember that boys need sex education too. “We need to put more emphasis on dealing with both genders.”

Metcalfe said teenagers won’t turn to adults for help on such a private issue.

“Someone’s got to befriend these kids so they know they have an adult to talk to,” she said.

There are three seats up in the election. The polls will be open Tuesday from noon to 9 p.m.

Categories: Schenectady County