Jeanne D'Esposito for Board of Education District 12

06/04/2024

Foundation aid is the money public schools in New York receive from the state and is the main source of revenue to run our schools. The formula that determines how much aid goes to each school district was established by a court order more than 20 years ago. But NYS has not provided the full amount of aid to schools for most of the past two decades citing state budget deficits as making the cuts necessary. But NYS is now financially quite healthy.

For the past two years foundation aid was fully funded, but the demographic data that forms the basis for the foundation aid is 20 years out of date. A lot has changed in communities throughout Long Island and New York State. NSSBA and NYSSBA have been at the forefront of the effort to have the foundation aid formula updated to better reflect the current financial and demographic realities of our communities.

Unfortunately, despite the health of NYS’ finances, our Governor has strongly signaled an intent to actually REDUCE foundation aid to our public schools. She has asked the Rockefeller Foundation to study the data and find ways to cut aid to public schools. She believes the cuts are justified because some districts have exceeded the 4% limit of their budget in reserves as set by state regulation.

This makes no sense. Governor Hochul recently noted that NYS holds an amount equal to 15% of its overall budget in reserves and called this the “gold standard” for reserves. So why are public schools limited to 4%?

The Governier also cites a 10% decline in public school enrollments to justify the reduction in aid. But as explained in this article, the financial demands on school budgets have increased greatly due to COVID learning losses, increased security concerns, and unfunded mandates from the state which require districts to spend tens of millions of dollars to keep up with standardized testing and advances in technology. These and other stressors far exceed any possible savings from decreased enrollment.

As parents and taxpayers we need to let the state know that funding public education should be a priority and is not the place to find budgetary cuts.

Both the Malverne and West Hempstead budgets passed on May 21. Malverne’s passed with just under 80 percent of voter approval, and West Hempstead’s passed with just over 58 percent …

06/04/2024

I want to thank The Herald for speaking with me to cover the work of the Nassau Suffolk School Board Association.

Jeanne D’Esposito will continue to serve on the Malverne Board of Education after being reelected on May 21. Her seat ran unopposed. But she’s not just serving another 4 years on the …

05/21/2024

Today is School Budget vote day. Please come out and vote!

I am also on the ballot running for re-election. I am unopposed. I am honored and excited to continue working on the Malverne UFSD BOE for the next 4 years.

I also serve as Secretary / Treasurer of the Nassau-Suffolk School Board Association Executive Commiteee. I have been with N-SSBA for three years now and it’s been wonderful for the Malverne School District to have a voice in that organization. N-SSBA is an incredibly valuable resource for school board trustees on Long Island. It holds various events throughout the school year where board trustees can meet with our elected leaders on both the state and federal level. It also offers various seminars and webinars that can help trustees better understand their job and keeps us abreast of issues that impact public education. N-SSBA is also an important voice in advocating / lobbying for public schools and is often consulted by the media for news stories on matters regarding public education.

The New York State School Boards Association (“NYSSBA”) offers the same kind of support at the state level. I have recently been appointed to serve on NYSSBA’s Resolutions Committee and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for participating in 500 hours of professional education opportunities. I often consult the staff of NYSSBA when I must deal with difficult situations as a member of the BOE. Their help has been invaluable and have made me a more effective and knowledgeable Trustee. I encourage all school board trustees to take full advantage of N-SSBA’s and NYSSBA’s events and support.

Jeanne D’Esposito

03/27/2024

We got a rainbow going.

01/30/2024

Had a wonderful few days in Washington D.C. participating in the National School Board Association’s annual Capitol Conference and Lobby Day. My fellow school board trustees from throughout Long Island and I heard from several incredible speakers including Gian Paul Gonzalez, whose motivational speech helped the Giants go on to win Super Bowl XLVI. He was and is a 9th grade World history teacher in Union City, NJ, while also working the last 8 years for the Giants. His commitment and approach to public education is immensely inspiring. We also heard from Temple Grandin who talked about the different ways people think and learn and the need to value all kinds of learners. I highly recommend the documentary about her extraordinary life and career. She has autism and has built an incredibly successful career designing large cattle processing plants.

Today was spent at the Capitol building with my fellow Trustees as we met with our Senate and congressional representatives to lobby for policies and funding for public education. See the pictures posted in the comments.

This is my third year serving on the Executive Committee of the Nassau-Suffolk School boards Association and I was recently appointed Secretary / Treasurer of the organization. You can learn more about N-SSBA on their website. https://www.nssba.org

I have also been appointed to serve on the resolutions committee for the New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA). I really enjoy working with so many wonderful trustees who volunteer so much time to advocate for our public schools. We meet with state, local and national representatives, as well as local business and industry leaders to make sure that the needs of our public education system are understood and met. It is incredibly rewarding work.

State Aid Runs & The Governor’s Budget – 2.1.24 State Aid Runs & The Governor’s Budget – 2.1.24 N-SSBA: Sustaining Long Island’s legacy of quality public schools. If not us, who? Since 1959, the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association has stood as an advocate and resource for and on behal...

12/03/2022

Hi Everyone. Someone suggested I post here to share the work I do as a trustee for the Malverne School District. I believe we are all served when the members of our communities understand what the (unpaid) job entails and the proscribed role a trustee must fulfill.

I will try to post on a regular basis as we continue through the school year.

This past summer my fellow board members voted to make me the board President this year. I am grateful for their trust in me to do the job. As President I meet with Superintendent Dr. Lorna Lewis frequently and I am responsible for working with her to place necessary items on the agenda for our monthly meetings. I also run the monthly public meetings. That is the part most community members see but that is just a small part of the job.

Over the summer I went to a New York State School Board Association (“NYSSBA”) leadership conference in Albany with many school trustees from throughout NY to learn about the issues and law changes that will affect our schools this coming year. I also got to meet with officials from the State Education Department (“SED”) to discuss changes being made there and my concerns regarding the relationship between SED and the schools.

The two main topics of presentation and discussion were the SED’s desire to have our public schools promote civic education and student involvement and how to address the learning deficits students are experiencing as a result of the pandemic.

I was excited to see NYSSBA highlight the work of our students in Malverne on the What’s In A Name project and their success in getting Lindner Place renamed. A video of our students discussing their work on the project and what it meant to them was presented during the opening of the conference and the project was held up as an exemplar of how we can promote civic engagement in our schools. I was so proud of how eloquently and intelligently our students expressed themselves about the work they did, the process it took and handling the opposition. I received a great deal of positive feedback from others at the conference.

We were also presented with the research on how much learning loss has occurred because of the pandemic and we discussed possible strategies to make up those deficits. There are no easy answers to this problem and SED was asked to find better ways to assist NYS schools.

In August the Board Trustees met with all Malverne Administrators to discuss plans for the next school year. I asked them to tell us what learning loss we are seeing in our district and what we will be doing to help our students catch up. We have several programs in place and we will closely monitor student progress.

I also went to a SCOPE event with some of my other Trustees where we heard from Regent Roger Tilles. He is Long Island’s representative on the Board of Regents and he spoke about possible changes to graduation standards and Regents testing. Our Superintendent was later appointed to SED’s Blue Ribbon Panel to evaluate NY’s graduation standards and we are excited and honored to have her experienced voice at the table.

Last year I was honored to be nominated to join the Executive Committee of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association (“N-SSBA”) which is comprised of 18 Trustees from Long Island schools. This is my second year on the Committee and we also meet once a month to discuss events and issues regarding LI’s public Schools. I have been appointed as Chair of the Nominating Committee and I look forward to serving in that role this year in addition to my work on the legislative and other committees which meet separately. NYSSBA and N-SSBA do important work in advising and educating school board trustees through various seminars and workshops and in lobbying state and federal officials for needed changes in the regulation and funding of our public schools.

That covers my work this past summer. I will post more soon about the first three months of this school year.

05/18/2016

A huge thank you to everyone who helped me in this campaign. I appreciate every sign displayed, every flyer distributed, every phone call and email, and every "like" and post on Facebook! Your support made this possible. I hope to justify your faith in me over the next four years.

Now a bit of housekeeping....I will be collecting yard signs over the next couple of days for disposal. Some of you have already taken them down. If you want me to come collect them just let me know. If I miss your sign just give me a nudge in a day or so and I will swing by.

05/17/2016

So today is the big day! I am so grateful for all the amazing support I have received. Please be sure to get to the polls today and make sure your friends and neighbors go out and vote too. In this type of election it's even more true that every vote counts because just a few votes either way can swing the result. So we can't be complacent. Please send texts and emails reminding your friends to go vote!

05/15/2016

Last week my son and I sat down with one of Newsday's Editors, Michael Dobie, to discuss the decision by Nassau BOCES to close the half day STEM school that my son attends. Mr. Dobie wrote a beautiful column about it that appears on the opinion pages of today's paper. While working to try and save the school I learned so much about how education is funded on Long Island and the pitfalls of that structure. It pits district against district and region against region and it's our kids who suffer. I consider myself fortunate to live in District 12 and I very much want to be part of the solution of doing what's best for all our children, regardless of where they choose to go to school. http://www.newsday.com/opinion/columnists/michael-dobie/students-at-doshi-stem-school-deserve-better-1.11797293.

The kids at the Doshi STEM Institute in Syosset found out May 5 that rocky finances were forcing BOCES to shutter the struggling science and technology school.

05/13/2016

I am honored to have received the Herald's endorsement for Board of Education Trustee for Malverne School District 12. The Herald does a great job of covering all our community schools and I appreciate their support. http://liherald.com/malverne/stories/Vote-for-DEsposito-for-Malverne-trustee,79836