New Hyde Park-Garden City Park has three board seats up for election and four candidates vying for them.
New Hyde Park-Garden City Park
The three incumbents, Patricia Rudd, Kathryn Canese and Jennifer Kerrane, are running for re-election.
Rose-Ann Cunanan, a new candidate, is challenging Kerrane as trustee.
Floral Park-Bellerose
Floral Park-Bellerose Union Free School District will also see a contested election for the seat currently held by Vice President Michael L. Culotta, who will not be seeking re-election. Culotta has been on the board since 2019 and served on the Facilities Committee and the Budget Advisory Committee this year.
Victor Ferrante and Lauren Persic are both vying for Culotta’s seat.
Peltonen is running uncontested. She was elected to the board in 2022 and also serves on the DEI Committee and Policy Committee. She is a member of the Sewanhaka Central High School District Board of Education. Peltonen has lived in the district for over 20 years and is a longtime elementary teacher, both in New York City and the Floral-Park Bellerose School District.
Herricks
Over in Herricks, Juleigh Chin, the board’s current president, is running uncontested for another term.
Juleigh Chin began her current term as board president in 2022. She has served on the board since 2013, serving other terms as president and vice president. Off the school board, Chin is a member of the Board of Directors for the Asian Institute of Research and Engagement and an associate program manager for North Shore University Hospital.
Great Neck
In Great Neck, board vice president Donna Peirez will be the sole candidate running for re-election in the district’s May 20 election, with no candidates filing to challenge her.
The Great Neck Public Schools confirmed that Peirez was the only candidate filing to run by the April 21 deadline. While Peirez will be the only candidate on the ballot, individuals will still be able to elect individuals via write-in.
The term will be for another three years, expiring on June 30, 2028.
Peirez joined the Board of Education in 2016, filling a vacancy left by Monique Bloom, who had resigned. She last faced an election in 2022, when she defeated Emil Hakimi by more than 1,100 votes.
Peirez was nominated as vice president of the district’s Board of Education last year and previously served in the position from 2021 to 2022.
She also serves as chair of the board’s Policy Committee, a position she has held since 2017, and previously served on the districtwide Safety Committee from 2017 to 2019.
Peirez’s service in the district pre-dates her joining the Board of Education in 2016.
She was a teacher at the Lakeville School for nearly three decades, and served on the district’s Shared Decision Making District Biennial Committee from 1992 to 2016 and as elementary director for the Great Neck Teachers Association.
Profiles on candidates will be released in the coming weeks.
Additional reporting by Cameryn Lily Oakes.
