Video: Two New Candidates Make Pitches for Seats on Mattituck-Cutchogue School Board

There is this year, and Cutchogue resident Joan Ferris and Laurel resident Laura Jens-Smith are competing against each other, incumbent school board president Jerry Diffley and vice president Charles Anderson for three seats on the e school board.

Joan Ferris, Cutchogue

Ferris, 63, has lived in the district for 32 years after living in California and Colorado. She is a homemaker who previously worked in the student loan industry in New York City. Her two children, now grown and living in Utah, went through the , where Ferris served on the school board for nine years in the 1990s.

Ferris said that she is impressed with how much more technically sophisticated the district has become over the years. She said she believes her experience as a former board member and her overview of the district will be valuable on today’s board — especially in the realm of financial matters.

“Two words: Kids matter,” she said. “There are a lot of difficult decisions to be made but it all comes down to what is best for the children.”

Laura Jens-Smith, Laurel

Jens-Smith, a 48-year-old originally from Port Jefferson Station, moved to the district eight years ago to raise her family after a career in nursing in New York City. She has a son in elementary school at and a daughter in Mattituck Junior High School.

With children in school and three years of experience serving on the board of the North Fork Early Learning Center in Laurel, Jens-Smith said she thinks she has a lot to offer to the school board. She would like to see the formation of a comprehensive curriculum in each grade level so parents and the community can see, year-by-year, what the students are learning — and be able to talk about it.

“We don’t have a forum now for open debate and we need one,” she said.

Check out this video of Ferris and Jens-Smith making their pitches for seats on the Mattituck-Cutchogue school board. And be sure to vote on May 17.