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Incumbent Christopher Pinchiaroli is running unopposed for one of two seats on the Mount Pleasant Board of Education. Theresa Fowler, a former School Board President, is running for the other open seat.
See Fowler's questionnaire here.
Pinchiaroli, a current member of the Mount Pleasant Board of Education, has lived in Valhalla for 15 years with his wife. Pinchiaroli has four children in the district. He works as a lawyer.
What qualifies you to be a school board member? I have served on the Mount Pleasant School Board since 2007.
What have you accomplished as a member of the school board? As a member of the Board, I have been part of a team that has improved the District’s educational and financial management. Since 2007, we have overhauled the district office and implemented numerous financial and management controls. These controls promote transparency and prevent waste.
On the educational side, I have worked hard to make sure that our district leadership, building administrators and teachers are working together to implement and maintain a rigorous curriculum: one that promotes a seamless transition from one building to another for our general and special education students.
I am also proud of our adoption of “block scheduling” at the upper grade levels. This supports our philosophy of creating lifelong learners, who, by graduation, are college and career ready, and will be far along on their path to good citizenship and ready to become competitive participants in a global economy. What would you like to accomplish if elected? Continue to promote a rigorous and educationally appropriate curriculum geared toward college and career readiness. If something had to be cut from the budget to meet the state tax cap, what would you cut? Our proposed budget meets the “tax cap” requirements, so no further cutting is necessary. What are the three biggest issues facing the school today?
- Moving the needle on student achievement, from good to great.
- Expensive unfunded state and federal mandates.
- Limited sources of revenue (“2 percent Tax Cap”) and a slowly eroding tax base.
If elected what would you do about them? As far as student accomplishment is concerned, we must not be complacent by simply continuing to do what we’ve always done. I support: one, challenging our district leadership, building administrators and faculties to provide their expert educational advice, two, tailoring the best educational practices to our general and special education populations, and, three, providing the classroom teachers with resources and support they need to accomplish our goals. We also need to recognize when we have fallen short and then work promptly to redirect our efforts. Also, I will continue to push for the development of a rigorous educational environment where students and teachers are expected to do their best every day.
I will continue to support fiscally responsible budgets that are consistent with our legal and moral obligations to provide each of our students with an education that readies him or her for responsible citizenship and the challenges of a global economy.
I will continue to push for cost-cutting, but not in a way that will negatively impact our educational objectives. I will continue to attend meetings with elected officials and let them know how Albany’s cumbersome and unfunded mandates often impair our delivery of high quality educational services and student learning.
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