Schools

Video: Unopposed Oysterponds School Board Candidates Make Their Pitches

Two new candidates for two seats on the Oysterponds Elementary School Board say why they want to run.

Orient residents Jeff Demarest and Janice Caufield arefor two seats on the for the 2011-12 school year.

Demarest, 49, was born and raised in Orient and is himself a graduate of Oysterponds Elementary School.

“My current phone number was the first phone number I ever learned,” he said.

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He and his wife, Kara, run a fuel oil business based in Orient and have an 8-year-old daughter enrolled in the school, the population of which has been in steady decline over the past two years.

“I’m running to add something to the conversation,” said Demarest, who is the brother of Carl Demarest,  a board member for seven years before he lost his bid for re-election last May. “I have a lot of ideas and would like to bring something different to the table.”

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Caufield, 55, has lived in the district since 1994. She is a former nurse and has four grown children. When she lived in West Hempstead she served on that school district’s board for 9 years, starting in 1997. Caufield said that she’d like to get more involved in her community through the school board.

“I do have some experience, but I do know that things are different on a board in a smaller school,” she said. “But I think we’re all looking for the same thing — a good education for the kids.”

Demarest said he’s looking forward to representing the tax payers of the district but said he realizes that shortfalls in financial aid to school districts reflect the economy everywhere across the country. School board members, he said, are finding themselves more and more with hands tied when faced with issues of state aid.

“There are issues that school boards simply can’t fix — the government has to fix them,” Caufield agreed. “But the bottom line is that kids need to be prepared to go to work when they leave the school system.”


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