School board members must put aside personal agendas and work with our superintendent

Well, I’ve had just about enough of what I refer to as the “Bravo Sierra” aka bull s*#t from the Riverhead Central School District Board of Ed! As many of you know, I abruptly resigned from the BOE in June 2017 after seven years of service, two as BOE vice president. I resigned due to the blatant disregard of NYS Education Law, rampant questionable practices and personal agendas.

Again, there are exceptions to all rules and not all of the BOE have drunk the Kool Aid. Here is what I presented at Tuesday evening’s BOE meeting: According to the Washington Post, during the years 2015 and 2016 there were 86 deaths involving a toy gun that was mistaken as a real gun. Of those 86 deaths, 16 were the result of an AirSoft gun, the identical gun recently found in the backpack of a middle school student. AirSoft guns have an average of 150 PSI of pressure but can be increased at will based on the capacity to withstand the pressure. These AirSoft guns can be deadly. AirSoft guns are made of metal or plastic, or a combination of both.

Prior to my years on the BOE, I advocated and then initiated a pilot program at Roanoke Avenue School for a computer data-based security ID system, and it was dismissed. I was often mocked by fellow BOE members for forward thinking and was told, “We don’t need it.” Years later… it’s now in all of our schools.

Throughout my time on the BOE, I continually voiced my concern and opinion for a school resource officer and was told, “We don’t need it.” Now we have an SRO, and I am pleased to hear what an amazing job the officer is doing — what a sense of security he brings; the SRO has completely embraced the position.

Again…throughout my later years on the BOE, I frequently initiated the discussion of metal detectors and was met with such resistance, and once again I was told, “We’re not Brentwood; we don’t need it.”

In light of the very recent incidents involving a knife and in a separate instance, a gun, this BOE owes it to this community to be proactive and not reactive due to… God forbid, a gun-related catastrophe, regardless if it is a toy gun or a real gun. — a catastrophe that could have been avoided had the BOE been proactive and not reactive.

Board trustee Greg Meyer set the stage at the Nov. 13 BOE meeting to rescind the contract with the SRO and the with Town of Riverhead. According to Superintendent Henriquez, this contract had been previously discussed and agreed upon in a prior BOE meeting.

 Three sitting board members — president Sue Koukounas, vice president Chris Dorr and trustee Meyer — have a personal agenda to sabotage our superintendent and they want to take down the SRO because, during his own time as a trustee, he would not participate in that agenda. This is not a secret in this district!

So here we are again. Let’s not wait years to implement something that should be done and is needed today! I am not looking to incite an argument or a dispute about gun control, I am looking for the active participation, protection and well-being of our children, of our district and of our community.

Amelia Lantz is a past trustee of the Riverhead Central School District. She lives in Riverhead.

Correction: Due to an editing error, Greg Meyer was incorrectly identified as board vice president in a previously published version of this column. 

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