Schools

West Hempstead BOE Approves Response to 'Conflict' Claims

With a 5-2 vote, the Board of Education approves a letter to be sent to the Herald.

The West Hempstead school board took action Thursday night to address an that was published in the Malverne-West Hempstead edition of the Long Island Herald earlier this month, which some of the members called “misleading.”

The board spent the first 10 minutes of Thursday’s special business meeting discussing if and how they would respond to the newspaper regarding its Jan. 4 article,”W.H. Resident to Challenge School Board Trustees."

The article focused on to run for the board of education this spring, but some members said the following statement was misleading: "[Signorile] takes issue with three board members — Pamela Lotito, James Mariano and Carole Rilling — who worked as educators or have close relatives who work as educators, calling it a conflict of interest."

Find out what's happening in Malverne-Lynbrookwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

While Lotito and Rilling did admit that they have a background in education, and Mariano said he was “proud of the fact that every single person in [his] family is an educator” at last week’s board meeting, they explained that these factors do not present a legal conflict of interest. Not responding to the newspaper, Lotito argued, would give residents a false impression that no one who works in the education field or who has relatives who do so could be eligible to run for the school board.

The three trustees named in the article also stated that the Herald did not make any phone calls to them prior to publishing the allegations. (Board President Walter Ejnes said Thursday that the reporter did contact him requesting the board members’ phone numbers but he was travelling at the time and referred her to the district’s calendar, which contains this contact information.)

Find out what's happening in Malverne-Lynbrookwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

After debating the facts of the situation and dissecting a letter that Lotito drafted, the board agreed to make some revisions to the text.

“I’m fine with the way it is,” Rilling said, but then agreed to remove one sentence to dispell any worries that the board might “alienate the press.”

Ejnes agreed with the suggested change. “It takes the attention away from the issue we are truly trying to address, which is that it’s not a conflict of interest to be a teacher or have a relative whose a teacher on the board.”

After amending the letter, the board voted on whether to actually send it, and the motion passed, but not with unanimous support. Trustees Cynthia DiMiceli and Rudolf Schindler voted against it.

What do you think of the situation and how it was handled? Tell us in the comments space below.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here