My name is Susan Powell and I would like to formally announce my candidacy for a trustee position on the Hicksville Board of Education. I know that many of you are ready for a change in the direction that things have been going for the last several years. If I am elected to the board of education, I believe we can accomplish those goals.

My husband Glenn and I chose Hicksville as our home over 22 years ago because we felt that it is a wonderful place to raise our family. We now have three boys who attend Hicksville public schools; twins Chris and Danny who will graduate in June from the high school, and our youngest son, Tommy, is in seventh grade at the middle school. Through my children, I have become involved in Hicksville's PTA for the past 14 years, serving as PTA vice-president and then PTA president at Dutch Lane for two years. I currently serve as a member of the executive board for the middle school PTSA. I am also an active member on the Hicksville Baseball Association board of directors serving for my fourth year. I work with the Boy Scout Troop 930 sponsored by the Hicksville Fire Department as a committee member and as a merit badge counselor for Scouts throughout Nassau County. I believe in working to make things better for all children so that they can succeed to their fullest potential.

Now, I'm not good at long-winded speeches, so let me tell you why I would like to be elected to the board of education. We need to reaffirm our commitment to our teachers, our support staff, our sports programs and our music programs to name just a few of the areas that have fallen by the wayside under the past board of education. We have elected some valuable supporters of these areas to the board in the last couple of years; but without a majority vote of support, they are blocked by those who say, "We can't do that, we've never done it before." I think that kind of reasoning goes against progress. If no one had ever tried the wheel, where would we be today?

We need to offer our children the best quality education we can by strengthening our partnership with our teachers and support staff - new textbooks can't be effective without the guidance of our teachers. More and more of our teachers are leaving this district because they don't feel they are being treated fairly by administration and the majority of the board. We need to re-energize our sports programs so that our students can have a better chance at garnering some of the athletic scholarships that are available, mostly to children on teams that are getting noticed. We need to put more support behind our music program. Our high school marching band was ranked in the top 100 nationwide but you never hear about their accomplishments or see them spotlighted by our district. At the middle school, we have a piano lab and teachers who just treated us to a piano recital that was remarkable. We have some extremely talented piano virtuosos who will graduate into the high school where there is no further instruction offered in this venue.

Why would we drop the ball on something like this? We have a new Robotics Club this year that was nearly sacrificed. More extracurricular programs like this need to be added to give more of our students an outlet for their creative energies. Children who have a place to go where they can work on things that challenge and excite them will be happier, more well-rounded, and less likely to get into mischief than those who find school a place where they are required to spend time every day.

I am asking you to please go out on Tuesday, May 18 and support me, Susan Powell, as your new board of education trustee. Please approve the budget, which is proposition #1, so that we can carry on with our commitment to our children. Please vote "yes" to proposition #2, the creation of a capital reserve fund, which will take surplus monies from the 2003-2004 budget and, at no additional cost to us taxpayers, allow for the much-needed expansion of Woodland Elementary (which is at near maximum capacity). And lastly, please support our Gregory Museum by voting "yes" to proposition #3 which gives them the funding they need to keep enlightening us with their wonderful exhibits. Thank you.

Susan Powell